Adam Creighton, Computer and Video Gaming: Another reason to not like game journalists

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Adam Creighton, Computer and Video Gaming (Subscribe)

Friday, October 26, 2007

Another reason to not like game journalists

(Caveat: I'm not a games journalist. I'm just some dude who likes games and is gifted on the snarky communication front.)

I get frustrated with video game journalists for a lot of reasons, not least of which is their jaded take on games. They'll downgrade the score of great little gems because they're not a fan of the franchise, or they've gotten so greedy with escalating feature sets they penalize a smaller developed title for not including the feature.

The other reason I riff on games journalists is their lack of any sense of history. If it's not related to a violation of their fanboy franchise, it's dead to them.

Take, for example, Microsoft's Entertainment and Devices Division, which includes Xbox, making money this past quarter. Read a lot of the trade press coverage for this, and you'll have people downplaying the profitability because it's "only" due to Halo 3 sales.

OK, so let's review, jaded journalists:

The Entertainment and Devices Division wasn't projected to be profitable until 2008.
2008 was a bump up from the original profitability projection of 2010.
This is Microsoft's second profitable quarter for the Entertainment and Devices Division in a row.

So, the division is profitable for 2 years, and 203 quarters (depending on how you count) earlier than planned, and it has a track record, and (going into holiday sales), a likelihood to continue.

Never mind things like the Xbox was never expected to be a contender in the console war, and arguably bested Nintendo last generation and Sony this (so far). And the Entertainment and Devices Division also includes Zune, which is doing well, and also wasn't supposed to even be a contender in the MP3 / personal media devices front.

And, brass tacks, they're making money. Lots of money.

Honestly, I don't get the haters mentality (toward Microsoft, Apple, Electronic Arts, etc.) -- it just seems to be sour grapes from the have-nots and don't-want-to-work-for-its.

I'm fine with opinion pieces on things like the Microsoft numbers -- just call them "opinion", rather than "reporting". Or call them "second fiddle to Adam's snarky brilliance".

Let the hate mail begin...

Labels: Microsoft, ramblings, Xbox 360