Wow, did THIS thing start something or WHAT?

It’s been a few days since we first heard about the X-Box 360 Japanese catalog in which it mentioned the PS3 more times than Sony’s marketing department does. From saying that the PS3 was inferior in playing multiplatform games to saying that the Arcade SKU was less than the PS3 by a few hundred dollars (you know, until you want to add the propriety hard drive and everything else that comes with the Pro and Elite SKUs, then it a few hundred dollars MORE). Through all of it, we heard one very loud website called PushSquare mention something about how Microsoft is treated in the gaming media as opposed to how Sony has been lately:

“Now we know it’s only marketing, and that’s fine, but here’s our point: the gaming community holds such a double standard towards Sony these days that we’re 101% convinced if Sony had released this pamphlet we’d be sifting through hundreds upon hundreds of: “ZOMG Sony should focus on their own system not the competition, they should shut up, make some games, Sony sucks” comments. You’ve read the ones.

We haven’t come across a single comment suggesting the same about Microsoft’s tactics. Interesting eh?”

Judging from the few articles that have popped up recently alone, coupled with what I’ve seen from the past year or so, there’s so much truth to that statement that it’s scary.

Although you don’t have to go any further than Gameplayer AU that thought that Sony gave “64 million gamers the finger” because Sony recently got the upcoming Ghostbusters game exclusive to the PS3 in PAL territories by becoming its publisher in those regions, even though Microsoft has done this practice since the 360 first dropped in 2005 and not much attention was given to the Ghostbusters game before this move, I’ll bring some other things up. The Gameplayer article is a swore testament to what not only PushSquare was talking about, but what I have been saying for months now. No one called Microsoft out on the GTA4 DLC and how they got that and how they screwed gamers out of the DLC, or the Tomb Raider DLC, or the Fallout 3 DLC, or how they got any of the games they got that were PS3 exclusives to go multiplatform (like FF13 and Tekken 6), thereby screwing PS3 owners by making them wait longer for their version so the 360 can get its version at the same time. No outcry over the many from Microsoft, but although Gameplayer tried to insert a little non-inclusion inclusion about the MS business practice, they bitched about Sony getting the one.

Haven't we've seen enough of THIS image, already? Find something new.

How about another article that popped up, this one from Lazygamer, complaining about PSX Extreme’s excellent article asking where the PS3 hate went to in the mainstream media being linked from Sony’s twitter account? The writer clamored that it was immature of Sony to support such “fanboy drivel”, even though Ben Durka never said anything that he didn’t really feel was true, and we just HAD to hear every little syllable that Aaron Greenberg has said, but we’ll get back to him in a moment. Oh, and by the way, they Lazygamer article that whined about Ben Durka’s story and called the PSX Extreme thing fanboyish? Well, Lazygamer used the old and overused “Sony fanboy” crying baby picture in their article about it. Should tell you something.

Wait...so Sony gets called out for GB yet THIS was praised by G4? Anyone else see the irony?

For now, let’s get back to that stuff about Sony getting Ghostbusters, and something that I keep thinking about from E3. I’m sure everyone was shocked when Microsoft showed Final Fantasy 13 coming to their 360 (coupled with the further bending over by the slimeball Wada for Microsoft). However, while everyone was running to yell at the top of their lungs for and against the move in a fanboy drivel across the internets, I’m sure no one shut up long enough to catch something that transpired on G4’s coverage of E3 just a few moments later. As an analysis of the press conference (where, like Greenberg, Don Mattrick was doing the “noun, verb, and Sony” spiel so much that it got sickening), Morgan Webb (who is a Final Fantasy fangirl, by the way. Nothing wrong with that) made the comment of when she saw FF13 being revealed as coming to the 360, she could feel a “tear coming down her eye”. Neither her, Adam Schefler, or any of the analyst hacks they had at that conference ever questioned the moral ethics of how they got that to happen, even though the 50 million dollar price point between MS and Rockstar for the GTA4 DLC still was a huge talking point. There was no calling out Square Enix over their lack of PS3 support so far, no calling out Microsoft on anything they said or how their big announcement of the show was making another game go multiplatform (that is being published by a company that has all sorts of controversies surrounding it lately), nothing coming from them asking any questions other than “how good” it was. In fact, at the end on the Sony conference, Schefler’s co-host was saying something about how Sony lacked the “FF13”-type announcement.

THIS guy really needs to be called out a HELL of a lot more!

And what about Aaron Greenberg’s comments? Ken Kutaragi had been arrogant when the PS3 first launched. It was a huge mistake, and yes, Sony paid for it. But we have never heard the END of the hate since them. Now, Greenie hasn’t shut up about how the 360 is so much better, and we have yet to see anyone even DARE to call him out (besides us, of course). Only GamesUltra did so briefly during his whole hemorrhaging at retail stuff. However, the two times Sony had said anything PR-like, like the peddling of add-ons, we hear forever the condemnation of the quote from several people (C-Net, Analoghype, IGN, etc.). Where’s the condemnation of when Microsoft runs their mouths about Sony? You know, people try to label me as a Sony fanboy because I call out Microsoft all the time. But it’s not that I don’t think Sony deserves to be called out sometimes, it’s that I don’t have to because so many run this type of bullshit to the ground. Greenie is called a maverick while Kaz is the devil, apparently.

So does THIS teethy douchebag!

Where am I going with this? Simple: PushSquare was a hundred-percent correct. Microsoft gets a free pass when they pull moves that make people wonder about their business tactics, but when Sony does the EXACT SAME THINGS, we never hear the end of them from the media as they call everyone out. This is all while THEY get free passes from some of the fanboys on N4G (360-fanboy-approved stories FTW, apparently), while anything calling Microsoft out or saying anything good about Sony is called a “fanboy blog” (or a “SDF approved blog” even though the SDF was made by a Wii fanboy who continues to deny that he made it when evidence that he did is all OVER the damn internets) before getting several reports and fail the next day (though a 360 fanboy approved garbage story will have hundreds of reports and still be on the front page).

There is something wrong with this picture. Sony fans aren’t even asking for people to suddenly turn the other way and never call out Sony. They are just looking for fairness and to have the media to either call out Microsoft the same way they do with Sony (and no, the RROD stuff in 08 doesn’t count), or to back off of them. Seriously, if Microsoft is allowed to get away with several of their business ethics, Sony should be allowed to get away with a few. I know that sounds fanboyish of me, but that’s what several GAMERS who own the 360 and/or PS3 are clamoring for. Fair and balanced coverage of the gaming news, and not the Fox Noise type of fair and balanced coverage. If they don’t want to do that, then they should get the hell out of the industry and make room for someone who WANTS to do the job right have their chance.

Oh, and by the way, PushSquare came out with the catalog story first, NOT Kotaku, and Kotaku never questioned the ethics or the media reaction to it or anything else in this console war like PushSquare did. On N4G, the PushSquare article got onto the hot stories frontbar, while Kotaku’s version got only 40 degrees (10 shy of making it onto the front page instead of just the section page). The PS version got a lot more comments about it (and a few alternate sources that actually condemned MS for it (including our reporting of it) than the Kotaku one did (which had no Alternate Sources until I added the four from the PushSquare one), yet the PushSquare one was failed as being the duplicate story by one of the N4G mods. The Kotaku one never did get to the front page. Way to try to bury THAT story, too, N4G.

It just further shows how right this point is.