Sigh. One of the few good things that could result from a freeze in NPD numbers monthly (which doesn’t appear to be the case any longer) would be a easing in the Console War tensions that have been running rampant as the torch of dominance has fallen from the hands of Sony into a murky grey area where Wii claims highest console numbers while the Xbox 360 claims outrageously high software sales.

Console wars this aggressive and heated are ugly and annoying, so much so that the passion on display can, well, disgust other enthusiasts in related fields. This is becoming increasingly clearer in the heightening format war between HD-DVD and Blu-ray. While the general populace is largely indifferent still to the two formats and home theater enthusiasts argue more or less in a civil manner, console fanboys have invaded popular audio video forums to trumpet whichever standard most closely associates with their buying choices. Perhaps the best indicator of this would be the very useful AVS Forums closure of the HD disc boards in the wake of “physicall threats that have involved police and possible legal action”: (more…)

Other names for it might be “really shitty news cycle” or “I hope someone sends us a link to a gaming cake”. News has been slow lately people. You can tell by checking any of the news sites; with the exception of some Pre-TGS predictions and complaining about the ubiquitous Halo 3 hype machine, we’ve been more or less bone dry on anything meaningfully related to gaming. There have been a few nuggets over the last few days though, and rather than try to scrape up something meaningful and lengthy for all of them, I figured I’d pick something at random and try to talk about it.

Sony finds a replacement for Dave Karraker as they anoint Scott Steinberg their new VP of Product Marketing: Dave Karraker had a hard year in the aftermath of a pretty rocky PS3 launch, but after some growing pains (like, I don’t know, blackballing Kotaku for not sitting on a rumor story breaking the news of Sony Home prior to GDC this year), he’s largely credited for bringing Sony kicking and screaming into the age of instant media coverage and scrutiny and the uncaged beast of the blogosphere (and man do I hate that word). This is a good thing, as accountability helps to keep big companies honest. Well, now he’s on his way out to a far less contentious place as head of marketing for Skye Vodka, and Sony has decided to bring Scott Steinberg, former head of marketing for Crystal Dynamics, Eidos, and Sega. Of course, it seems like he may have been with those companies during troubled periods of time, so we’ll see how he does. Either way, it’s going to be a trial by fire as Sony enters what many are forecasting will be a very important Christmas for them.

-Aegies

If you’ve been visiting the site lately (and there have been quite a few more than usual lately, so welcome and thanks to our new and recurring visitors), it’s probably becoming clear that we have aren’t just interested in what games are coming out, what games are delayed, and what’s selling; we love Gaming as a hobby and as a culture, and we care about it. We hope that in some way, we can contribute to the evolution of our sub-culture forward into a more relevant, or at least valued place than it perhaps sits in now. This is why we’ve been posting stories so heavy on commentary lately, and it’s going to continue, because it’s what interests us.

This is going somewhere, I promise.

Anyway, there has been an increasing trend for the last few months for the gaming blogs like Joystiq and Kotaku, as well as the lesser known sites, to publish stories that seem increasingly tangential and fluff based, and less motivated by any sort of interesting news development. First, I understand some of the reasons behind this: both of those blogs are ventures that depend on traffic for monetary returns, and this year signals a first for the gaming blogs: March leading all the way through May was typically a snowballing news cycle leading up to E3, the biggest news extravaganza of the year, where there would be enough reveals and announcements to come through for the duration of the spring and summer release droughts until the big games dropped starting in September, and continuing through to January. You could tell that things were different in the aftermath of E3’s essential dissolution when every gaming news site has been focusing on every show that involves the video games industry as a possible “next E3″, and paying much more attention to events that used to be good for a day or two of news at most in previous years. These sites are desperate for a replacement to fill their news schedules in the way that pre-E3 and post-E3 coverage used to, and unfortunately, it would seem they’re going the tabloid route to do it.

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So, Luke Smith is leaving Ziff-Davis/1UP for reasons as yet unknown. Already there’s been a lot of hand-wringing and bitching on forums around the ‘net, with some posters going so far as to claim that Smith’s exit will signal a mass exodus of readers of 1UP and listeners of 1UP Yours, claiming that Smith is the “heart and soul” of 1UP. I have to disagree, as I followed 1UP prior to March of last year when Smith took over the News editor reins at the site, but I will miss his contributions, as I feel that he’s done a lot more for gaming than just being a sarcastic prick (which makes me gay for him, as Chuf will attest to). However, for me to really explain what I mean about his contribution, I need to go off on a sort of tear about gaming as a subculture and the importance of journalism to subcultures. So I warn you now, there’s a LOT of text up ahead. But a lot of what I have to say here also has to do with why I was interested in starting this site with Chuf in the first place (especially when it comes to the idea of criticism helping to make subcultures more societally relevant), so if you’ve ever thought that my opinions have been marginally interesting, read on.

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