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Preview Bias in Portable War Coverage?
KaiEl writes "Is Nintendo being penalized in the press for releasing their Nintendo DS before Sony's PSP? That's the quesiton I ask in a recent post on The Video Game Ombudsman. While DS games are being held up to the harsh standard of hands-on reviews, PSP coverage is mostly rosy glow previews and lofty PR promises. Readers comparing the two very different types of writing might notice a "preview bias" that seems endemic to video game writing. Is this a serious problem, or am I just expecting too much from what is simply a preliminary review?"
Maybe we're reading different material, but at least 80% of all reviews I've read were glowing towards the DS. Given, I don't really read all reviews put out, but I don't stick to just one site or one magazine, either.
One thing that may throw you is that a lot of the reviews took their time hypothesizing what a certain feature could be used for. The idea of a dual screen is nothing new, but the idea of a dual screen with a touch pad is.
If there is a bias, it's probably not 'against Nintendo' as much as it is 'for Sony'. By that, I mean that it doesn't seem that people are going out of their way to attack Nintendo, but they are doing so to boost the PSP.
In the end, though, I personally don't care. I'm more than happy with my GBA SP.
One of my friends works for a well known publisher coding for both the DS and the PSP. He's got hold of a DS here in England months before the public starts hearing about it
He's also coding one of the release titles for the PSP
The verdict is that the PSP will definatly be the better of the two, not only in hardware but also in games released. He's not writing the DS off totally, but the PSP will probably be the most popular. And this is just his opinion, he could be completley wrong.
The two most common elements in the universe are Hydrogen and Stupidity.
Despite the PSP's geeky allure, Nintendo is still the standby brand for millions of parents around the world. When a child says s/he want a portable game system, by default s/he gets a Nintendo. Most adults don't know to compare price, performance, battery life, and game selection when making a purchase for their child. The Nintendo DS might be getting worse press because those who read reviews are likely looking forward to the PSP anyway. Nintendo's largest consumer population doesn't know the difference.
The tough treatment of the Nintendo DS could also be the game industry itself knowing its most profitable market, somehow channeling this wisdom through reviewers? Reviewers appeal to die-hard gamers by being harsh on what's current while oggling everything in the future. Preorders ensue and the cycle repeats itself. I remember the previews for Beachhead 2000 being plated in gold, while the game itself was one of the worst of the year. This is SOP in the industry.
Everyone is just waiting for Nintendo to blunder their way out of YET ANOTHER market.
Right, like the GC was a huge money sink hole, losing hundreds of millions a year. and the GBa and GBA sp were horrible paving the way for the N-gage to steal market share....
As far as I know, the GC is doing better world wide then the xbox, doing almost the same as the xbox in North America and is both makign money and havign a steady stream of hits. If my blunders are half as successful, I'd be more then happy with my life.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
Apparently, somebody isn't familiar with the typical cycle of game reviews:
DS games have had hands-on reviews, while the typical PSP title is still enjoying the butt-kissing that comes from a well-orchestrated demo to the TGRSs.
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I don't think it should come as a suprise to anyone that PREviews are generally more positive than REviews. Critics (and people in general) have less information on pre release stuff, and they are more willing to overlook defects that 'will be fixed' in the final version. Actually having the final product in your hands, you can spend some time to find all its flaws. Those flaws stand out more too, because the developers chose to leave them in (or didn't QA it enough to find them).
You never see Burger King or Wendy's bitching about being number #2 in the burger market, despite having better food (fwiw, none of it is good, IMO...) and just as many locations.
Nor does Pepsi complain about being #2 to coke in sales.
Previews are ridiculous.
up until recently, I worked at a place making an FPS, and I was always astounded at howpositive, or at least "neutral" the previews were. We'd cut them a build and think "Oh man, this is so shit" and we'd get back reviews that say things like "This game shows a lot of promise!" or "We can't wait to see the finished game!!" and other such BS previews. Half of the material in there was marketing crap as well.
So. Yes, I agree it is a problem. While we still suffer from IGN-style reviews (their rating system goes from 9.0 to 10.0 I think), the previews are even worse.
If the previews were bad, they wouldn't get all the nice free crap from game companies, and they wouldn't sell as many ads.
i don't know what my point was.. but previews are definitely waaay too generous.
1. People would rather read PSP hype because it fills them with anticipation, even if they aren't going to buy one. All of the people who were excited about the DS and didn't buy one are over it.
2. The DS isn't worth writing about right now due to a lack of interesting games. How many screenshots of Metroid Hunters do people really want to see? Until Nintendo and third party developers start pumping out software don't expect much more than "ho-hum, Mario 64 is just as cool as it was in 1996, BFD."
3. Adult gamers got burned with the Game Boy Advance software lineup being almost entirely of horribly designed, unplayable children's games with TV and movie tie-ins. Because of this, most game magazines relegated Game Boy news to the back of the magazines. EGM even gave Seanbaby a column to mock all those crappy Game Boy Advance Games. Readers have responded well, so why wouldn't the press be fine assuming that reader's don't really care about the DS?
It's this exact type of hype that fanboys bought into that killed the Dreamcast. Typical Sony marketing machine agenda is as follows; 1: Announce platform and state that it's gonna blow the doors off anything else in existence. 2: Announce ports/sequels of titles from previous platform, and then accuse competition of lacking innovation and originality. 3: Show demos @ trade show-actually running on a $100,000.00 workstation-Sony fanboys begin to salivate. 4: 4-6 weeks before platform launch, leak to the press news of problems producing enough units to meet launch demand-making Sony fanboys salivate even more. 5: Launch platform in limited quantity-making fanboys wait in front of the local Best Buy for 12+ hours as a local TV news crew interviews the lose, er, customers anxiously waiting for the store to open, feeding the hype machine even more. 6: Casual gamer sees the hype coming at him from multiple directions and decides he/she must now have one so his/her friends will consider him/her 'cool'. Also now thinks competition's previously released platform as being lame, uncool, and, my personal favorite-'kiddy'. 7: Major game publisher decides their newest title doesn't fit the competition's 'kiddy' image, so it's launched exclusively on new Sony platform-other game publishers follow suit even though titles would sell like hotcakes as a cross-platform release. 8: Sony laughs all the way to the bank-celebrating another impending 4-6 years of console domination.