Ben-DutkaThis is either fall-out-of-your-chair funny or painful and depressing: the world's biggest newspaper either, A. can't get simple facts right, or B. continues to just ignore one of the biggest industries on the planet for no logical reason whatsoever. What other conclusion can one reach after this?
The New York Times recently published their "Essential Hardware Guide" for the holidays (even though it talks about both hardware and software; failure #1), and boy, it's quite the revelation. Did you know that Gran Turismo 5 was out? Because we sure as hell didn't. And it doesn't end there, as Next-Gen.biz pointed out. This essential hardware piece ran in the Technology section of the Times and while they got the Wii just about right, both the PS3 and Xbox 360 suffer from glaring errors. They're really fun, though, so check 'em out-
“Those who have spent the day trading carbon credits have another opportunity to save the planet, this time from aliens in Halo 3, the third edition of the Xbox 360 game. The PlayStation 3 game Gran Turismo 5, a hyper-realistic, high-speed journey, is one of the best sellers for that Sony console, which starts at $299. Microsoft’s Xbox starts at $280. Both are built around the multicore Cell processor, which allows numerous tasks to be done simultaneously.”
Hmm…you know if GT5 is sitting on store shelves and we've all just been missing it, we've all officially gone bonkers. We've also been following along pretty closely with hardware prices all year, so did we really miss the price drop that put the PS3 at $299? Gee, we could've sworn the lowest price was $399 for the 40GB model. And both the PS3 and 360 were build around the Cell? Holy crap, since when?! We must've been mixing up spec sheets from the start! Obviously we're the ones that have to be wrong; we're just the lowly kiddie gamers and they're the New York Times!
Yeah, we realize the Times clearly refuses to hire a real game journalist – despite the fact they've got some of the best critics for movies, music, books, etc. – but hasn't this gotten a little bit out of hand? Isn't this embarrassing? Or are we still living in 1982 and gaming is still just a "fad" and a "kid's hobby?" Well, most fads and kid's hobbies are $11 billion/year industries…right? Yeah, right. Bottom line- it seems the fact-checkers at the Times simply don't think gaming articles deserve their attention. On top of that, they must have the 72-year-old politics columnist doing technology articles.
By the way, if you'd like a look at a real Holiday Buyers Guide, one that features correct information, check here .