The other day I was thinking about the two gulf wars and some of the reporting that took place in them.  I think my favorite was when it was reported that “the victorious Iraqi armies were staging a glorious retreat before a defeated and demoralized American army advancing in total panic.”  Now, journalistic integrity aside, the rest of us know that the poor Iraqi soldiers couldn’t play Frenchmen fast enough.  They were throwing their hands up faster than the Flash doing jumping jacks.  Now, is it just me, or is there an awful lot of this in the video game industry?

I was researching video game market shares the other day, and I came across several “reports” indicating that the PS3 is going to overtake the Xbox 360 in market share by 2015.  Now, by itself, sure, that could be news, until you look a bit closer.  First, guess who was the source for this gem of prognostication?  Why, none other than SCEA senior vice president of Marketing and PlayStation Network, Peter Dille.  Now, I don’t know about you, but I certainly can’t think of a more neutral source than that.  Just because his job and multi-million dollars a year will be lost if he should happen to be wrong wouldn’t cause him to try to make that a reality by force of prediction.

Second, the PS3 will overtake the Xbox 360 by 2015?  Hmmm, that might be, considering that the average lifespan of a console is five to seven years, and the Xbox 360 will be eight years old by then and out of production, while Sony, who has the habit of holding on to obsolete video gaming technology, will still be making the PS3.  So, what Mr. Dille is predicting is that Sony will finally overtake Microsoft in a race that Microsoft is no longer running in and no one cares about.  WOW!  What a great accomplishment!  Now THAT … IS … newsworthy.

Now, I don’t mean that as a slam against SONY.  Microsoft was saying similar things last time around.  The point is, … CAN WE PLEASE GET PAST THE FANBOY REPORTING!!  It wasn’t news when Saddam claimed that his armies were invincible.  It isn’t news when Democrats or Republicans claim that the other guys are noodle-sucking idiots.  And it certainly isn’t news when Microsoft or Sony execs claim that they are driving the other guys out of the industry.  Just because someone says that “your” system is better than the other one A) doesn’t make it so, and B) doesn’t make it worthy of a news story.  Thats called advertising, not reporting.  If the PS3 should happen to overtake the Xbox 360, THEN that will be news, not before.

I realize that my plea will fall on either deaf ears or no ears, but I do look forward to the day when I will no longer have to wade through opinion masquerading as news.  I’m not planning on postponing my laundry until then.

Tags: console, editorials, PlayStation Network, PS2, PS3, PSP, X360