Yesterday afternoon, we ran a post that generated an immense (and unexpected) amount of interest and speculation. Instead of defusing the prolonged PR tease that Nintendo has been escalating for the past year, we contributed to it. Instead of doing our readers a service, we added more confusion to the situation. The post was vague and left only room for disappointment which, inevitably, came at 12:01. The worst part is, we understand that it was our hard-earned credibility that contributed to this excitement cocktail. There are gaming websites that trade in hype, and we've always prided ourselves on avoiding it. If we tell you that something is "major" and "worth waiting for," naturally you would expect it to be. As you've all no doubt noticed by now, news that IBM has begun shipping processors for Nintendo's Wii console, while potentially telling, is hardly the sort of megaton announcement we alluded to or fans were dreaming of. It became increasingly clear as the comments increased and the diggs increased, that we would reap what we had sown. Our credibility and reader trust are all we have, and we are taking measures immediately to ensure that we don't make this mistake again. We're very sorry for the error in judgment.
Sincerely,
Christopher Grant
Editor, Joystiq
PS - We've switched off comments in the earlier two posts, and ask you to direct your comments here where they can be more productive.













(Page 1) Reader Comments
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Personally I wasn't expecting much of it, either way.
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Meh. Time to go to bed.
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It was said it was worth staying up for. The way it was hyped, it sounded like something the majority of people would care about. Instead, what we're given is a tidbit about 'hey, yeah, the chips are in production' and a bunch of personal speculation that this must meen that aha! its coming soon.
ROBERTS speculation. Not something someone from Nintendo said. I cant beleive there are commenters on here going 'hey, this is big news, it means we could have the system in a few weeks'. You guys all knew it was coming soon anyhow, and we still havent got any more damn information on exactly when, just goddamn Robert making guesses on things based on the slightest of information is only midly interesting, not worth staying up for.
The majority of people are not hardcore geeks, and couldnt give two shits about that information. You hyped it like it would be something everyone would look at, like a game, or release date, or price, or hidden power, or whatever. I, personally, could care less that IBM has shipped the chips. I know some people would, and its worth posting, but not worth hyping the way you guys did. There wasnt even a line in that post like 'and they announced that it was going to be... 1.2ghz'. So we didnt even get a goddamn actual specification, just the manufacturer saying all is well.
If Joystiq had said "Hey, we got a small bit of information on one of the consoles, nothing major, but we're not allowed to tell you until 12:01am tonight because of an NDA or something" then I would have seen this as being more reasonable.
And for people throwing the word 'fanboy' around, this has nothing to do with being a fanboy. What joystiq did is the exact same reason why I started reading joystiq in the first place, because I felt regular gamenews outlets preferred (and they do) hype over quality and joystiq looked to be a little staple of honesty. I enjoyed the blog format and I (used to) enjoy coming and reading things here.
Instead, this is the second time in less than a week that Robert Summa has gotten the community up in arms. I'll still be around here to read everyone elses stuff (like Vlad, you rock), but Im sorry man, you put your credibility on the edge by making light of the death of a beloved human being, and then pushed it out the window with this. Now, you're just another gamespy/gamespot/dailyradaretc. I like some of those places, but I dont read them on a daily basis like I do joystiq.
There are a million ways the 'information tba' post earlier could have been worded that wouldnt have made you, Robert, come off like a huge asshole.
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Hell, it sucked, but what else can one do but apologize. A
nd I love this site, what would I do without it!
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No apology from the Joystiq writer that I noticed, although I did see his post inviting people to "suck my cock" or however he phrased it.
Nice journalism, Joystiq.
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That's the worst part of all. We've earned our popularity by *not* doing this stuff. Hope you'll stick around.
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I know that this is probably going to stick with us for awhile, much like that "smelly car" Seinfeld episode. But we'll make it up to you, promise.
Adding my two cents, and a second apology. Sorry,
Ross Miller
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Did you guys want hits?
On out part, it's stupid to think you'd have any news, since you post things a few hours after ign does. And also post every rumor.
Another website posted an article talking about the 12:01 announcement, but they stated the news will probably be disappointment and not reveal the actual concrete info we're searching for.
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Apology not only accepted, but I counter-apologise for how ridiculous my fellow gamers (who happen to represent me and a hobby of mine) have acted. You provided us with a story, they had their hopes up... they can deal with it.
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omg I'm so bad.
Bedtime.
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Pfft...kids. They can't tell the good news from the bad.
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Still, it's not a big deal. Those who get REALLY angry should get a life anyway. If you get really angry about a blog you have other problems.
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Kotaku posted the same thing, but no apology was issued. And I consider Joystiq a much better site than Kotaku (thus, the apology, because you are better).
Don't sweat the small stuff, Joystiq. We still luv ya.
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Really, really wonderful.
Thanks, guys.
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