Imrhan Khan was very delighted to speak about ps5 moneyhats, but very against Zenimax acquisition, he went on a little rant the day of the official merge. And many others, I mean, even a so called Xbox centered guy like McCaffrey said stupid things only to appear neutral (his quotes about tomb raider and final fantasy situations are incredibly different, lmao). I can continue all day, unfortunately the playstation filter on gaming journalism is a by product of ms spectacular disaster of 2013, which time has not yet fully mended.
If Iâm not wrong, the whole point of this site is to inform correctly about Xbox, since almost no one in the press know shit about it? XD
Sorry, Iâm going to need actual quotes and examples, not your view of these comments. The onus shouldnât be on me to search for said bias when you guys are the ones who are making these claims. I am aware of McCaffreyâs comments surrounding Tomb Raider and FF but weâre all allowed to say dumb stuff once in a while, right? Itâs not a consistent thing to show a clear agenda, right? Thatâs my point. People will sometimes change views or say stupid stuff. That goes for journalists, me, and everyone else here. We are human, we do dumb things some times, thatâs natural and should not be looked into more than what it is.
So you still have not shown me any concrete examples of this industry wide agenda against Xbox and until you do, the whole narrative surrounding it is rubbish.
Also this site was created to be a positive force in the game industry and one that focuses on Xbox. It wasnât created just because no one else doesnât know shit about Xbox. Even we have made mistakes in the past. The point is we learn from them and move on to be a better site.
When I said that there is a industry spread agenda? I only said that many journous hava a PS filter on every thing they say, the awards lists and/or the genres that âcountâ are not enough? I donât want to fight over a different perspective, these are personal interpretations, I may be right as you can be.
What jason meant by ânetflix-likeâ can mean a lot of things, but the way the original paragraph is worded makes it sound like there is a clear difference between sonys game strategy and xboxâs and im not alone in thinking this.
How is claiming many journalists having a âplaystation filterâ not claiming there is an agenda among journalists? The ironic thing is this thread is doing exactly what some of you are claiming these journalists do. I donât see whatâs constructive, informative, or what can be gained about discussing some sort of narrative that no one can even provide solid examples of?
Why so defensive? All Iâm saying is that back when the game was about to release there was A LOT of japanese games not coming to xbox, and thatâs when Ps4 started pulling ahead in the narrative that their strong suits were the exclusive games.
And I donât mean list wars, I mean even making into outside the gaming press like:
Mind you. 2016 had been the biggest holiday in the xbone life up until that point with the 1S release. Jan and Feb the biggest ever for it as well. Then Scalebound was cancelled and literally hundreds of articles as such came, and march become the worst month for xbone sales wise. It ended up having the worst year, only saved by the 1X launch.
So it was a very strong narrative pushed into the mind of everyone banked mostly on 3rd party games, and that definitely affected Xbox sales and marketshare.
I mean, you discarded direct quotes as âisolated dumb thingsâ, what can I say to prove my point? Another example: Giant Bomb has ALWAYS been a paladin of indies and they didnât even talk 1s about the recent id@xbox showcase. Kinda Funny added an Xbox show only in 2020, go and check the average easy allies stream if they ever talk about anything XboxâŚmy point is that they donât care about Xbox because for them PS is the end all of everything gaming, itâs the same dumb perspective that originated the cries for Bethesda exclusivity. The thing is that in the majority of cases there is no malice, only unconcern. As a fan, you can like everithing you want, but as a journalist, you MUST inform people about everything, not only what you like.
Youâre entirely right. There is a clear difference between the two strategies. One is to sell hardware and the other is to sell subscriptions as he clearly states in that quote.
I donât disagree that thereâs a media bias. My point is mainly that they use the 3rd party exclusives Playstation have to elevate the 1st party and create the narrative of superiority.
Remove the 3rd party from the equation, and honestly Playstation lineup becomes a big meh (for me).
One literal example, see the first link I shared. Remove all 3rd party games they listed and for 1st party you have only Gravity Rush, Horizon and Uncharted the Lost Legacy. If all those 3rd party games came day and date to xbox no one would even think of praise the Ps exclusive lineup with only that
Do you know what the workload was at Giant Bomb when MS did their ID@Xbox showcase? Did you consider the absolute shit format of that show may have been what pushed some people away? The angle of KFG hasnât been a secret, but would you rather they have a handful of people that donât prefer Xbox make a podcast and be disingenuous? The fact that they started a Xbox podcast proves they arenât biased against the platform. Same with the EZA guys. They donât have a filter or agenda, they just lean towards what excites them and how is it their fault if Xbox hasnât excited them a lot lately? Also you know what? They had nothing but praise for MSâ E3 2018 showing and a lot of positivity surrounding E3 2019 as well. Also look at Brandon Jonesâ reaction to the Perfect Dark reveal, that man was pumped. Pin the blame on Xbox for not exciting these people more, not on them because they donât want to fake excitement for a product that doesnât appeal to them. Everyone you listed is independent and can do or talk about what they want. I respect them for being genuine about their approach. Look at my older youtube channel where the vast majority of content is Playstation angled because Xbox didnât do enough for the first half of last gen.
I dont think Jason saying xbox are taking the âopposite approachâ is accurate.
When he says âNetflix-likeâ and âfeed there subscription serviceâ these phrases have pretty broad meanings, I dont even think his initial assessment of sony makeing big blockbusters to sell 114 million consoles is that good a discription of sonys plan, sony also make a lot of there money from subscriptions.
If you were to sum up the original quoted paragraph it gives the impression that sony are trying to be like the MCU and xbox are trying to be like Netflix, its this narritive which I dont think is accurate.
They want MS copycat Sony to get excited, imo this is the most bias you can have, it destroys creativity. Itâs the same origin of what game is âtrue AAAâ or not. They are the same people who praise the exceptional FH4 but âmeh, itâs a car gameâ, only to go wild when they see a worse game with GT, lmao. The double standard is sadly very real, itâs the foundation of the whole âms cannot make bethesda exclusiveâ. You will see many concerned pieces when Starfield will be revealed and reality hits their faces. If you want more proofs, here one example from the Dring guy site:
If this is not bullshit from a PS filtered point of view, I donât know what else to say.
Just a side note: Take into consideration the target of a publication. Games Industry (and that includes Jason Schreier now) does not write for the general public, but for investors and game dev executives. Microsoft has evolved a lot in the last 20 years, and Zenimax acquisition was a huge move on a (until then) terciary division at Microsoft. And even after Zenimax acquisition, Gaming is still a small piece of Microsoftâs financials. There was (is) a lot of uncertainty, and this opinion article is a way to start explaining what is going on to people who were not aware of Gaming@Microsoft, as well as understand its impacts on Microsoftâs strategy (and stocks) in the long term.
Everything he basically says from Easy Allies to Kinda Funny to Giant Bomb to even Ryan McCaffrey being more of a PlayStation guy than an Xbox guy is right there for everyone to see. All anyone has to do is research it.
Easy Allies is the only one I watched on a consistent basis but even then, kinda stopped late last year because you can just see and hear when watching them. Itâs all about PlayStation and then Nintendo. Itâs almost as if Xbox doesnât even exist to the majority of these sites/channels yet they constantly complain about this or that in regards to Xbox.
I say this as a huge PS4 guy (my #1 gaming console of all time) whoâs now an Xbox guy for this generation. At this point, anyone who doesnât see it is basically blind and only sees what they want to see.
Iâm not against these people, everyone can and should have his own preferences, BUT they must not act as gospel and/or neutral and they do. This is my point.
I come from Italy, a completely PS Natio, and recently, when the Zenimax deal was finalized, the two major videogames sites of the country, went in a scortched earth battle between them on social media about the interpretation of Philâs words. The news boss of one of the sites even erased himself from facebook, only because of console wars stuff he sparkled. If anyone want more details Iâm here, however it was really bad optics for the status of gaming journalism.
I really think you guys are seeing what you want to see. Have all of you ignored the flood of positive press Xbox has been receiving the last couple months? Could it possibly be that Xbox hasnât given publications a reason to be excited about Xbox until recently? Is this a problem that Xbox had to address or a problem with the publications? Recent events point to the former.
Again I have to ask. My personal Youtube channel is mostly PS4 leaning. Does that mean I view the gaming landscape through a playstation filter or could it just be that Sony did a much better job catering to most people last gen?
I think you canât see you canât see the forest for the trees, focusing too much on scope instead of just the business direction and focus. Yes Sony also makes money from subs, but itâs no secret that they are more focused on console sales than MS. Itâs also no secret that MS is more focused on selling GP subs than consoles. Itâs not necessarily a direction Iâm 100% happy with, but itâs the truth.
I think comparing Sony to MCU and Xbox to Netflix is very accurate, but I also donât think itâs a bad comparison like you do. This very much points to one focusing only on AAA while the other will invest in a range from indie, AA, and AAA. This is all as clear as day.
This is nothing but fabrication. People say âmehâ to FH but go wild for GT? In no reality is that the truth.
No one wants MS to copycat Sony. They just want reasons to get excited, period. Again, EZA were really excited about the Perfect Dark reveal and that is in no way copying Sony.
I think some of you just refuse to see or acknowledge that until recently, Xbox hasnât given the press at large a reason to be excited. Sure you can point to their Game showcase last year, but that was mostly CGI and the lack of excitement surrounding CGI reveals is not exclusive to Xbox. People rarely get too excited about CGI reveals these days and for good reason. Weâve been burned too many times by them. However look at the landscape today. We see articles of people expressing how they are switching from PS to Xbox, how Xbox has been making great moves week after week, and how GP is one of the best deals in gaming. The problem wasnât the press, the problem was what Xbox was providing. Xbox is now giving people a reason to be excited and they didnât need to copycat Sony to do it.