In a recent article about Imagination is the Only Escape, an under-development edutainment title about the Holocaust, the New York Times' headline writer apparently didn't read the story before slapping at the top: No Game About Nazis for Nintendo.

Turns out the actual quote from Nintendo was something far more inert: "At this time, there are no plans for this game to be released for any Nintendo platforms in North America." Which in industry speak simply means "wait and see."

GI.biz's follow up with Imagination's publisher, Alten8, reveals the game is in its "early stages" and wasn't blocked by Nintendo. A spokesperson for the Anti-Defamation League even said the group welcomed the use of new technology to educate. Although this isn't our favorite NYT error about gaming in recent memory, not channeling FOX News when writing headlines is always a good start.

[Via GamePolitics]

Read -- NY Times: No game about Nazis for Nintendo
Read -- Alten8 disputes reports of Nintendo blocking DS release

A little lesbianism goes a long way as the New York Times names Mass Effect its game of the year for 2007. The NYT bestowed Mass Effect with the honor for its "focus on character development, personal growth and moral tension, all fueled by a graphics system created to evoke emotional empathy." Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction was honored for being the shining star on the PS3 and BioShock was named the "best newcomer." There's also digs at Halo 3 and Super Mario Galaxy for being "unambitious representations of the state of the art."

Speaking of unambitious, for the second time in less than a month the New York Times copyeditors took a nap (albeit a minor one) on a video game-related story, which is slowly becoming inappropriate in covering an $18 billion-plus industry. There's no telling when reporter Seth Schiesel submitted his copy for this piece, but E3 2008 was already confirmed for the Los Angeles Convention Center last Tuesday, so the article's suggestion that "the solution for [E3] next year can be summed up in one word (or is that two?): Las Vegas" is just about 1,000 New York minutes behind the times.

Need to explain to grandma why this whole Manhunt 2 kerfuffle is ridiculous? Then go pick up (or send her the link if she's all modern) to today's New York Times article which gives a simple version of the Manhunt 2 saga for mass consumption. If you've been keeping up with all the Manhunt 2 coverage then you pretty much already know everything the New York Times article has to say. Wait, you haven't been keeping up with the controversy ... seriously? OK, ok, we'll make an even simpler version of the NYT piece.

Here we go: Although violence in games is focused on more, movie and television violence is worse. Child sodomy is fine in movies, testicles being ripped off with pliers is bad for video games. Manhunt 2 still retains 99% of its AO content -- a pesky 1% change makes it M. The controversy showed the ESRB has teeth and also helped market a game that probably would not have gotten attention otherwise. NYT basically says the game "will probably prove as luridly, fleetingly diverting as any slasher flick." Fin.

As the Xbox 360 gets ready to fulfill the purpose of its existence as a Halo delivery device to the masses, the New York Times takes the two most prominent things about the Xbox 360 and mixes it into one brew: Halo 3 and the Red Ring of Death. The NYT essentially gets a bunch of fanboys to talk about how the system fails on them, but all will be fine if they just get Halo 3.

Speaking of fanboys, did we mention Richard Mitchell at sister-site Xbox 360 Fanboy (X3F) is chronicling his repair experience following his visit by the RROD? Like we said before, we're not going to tell you about every RROD we have within a degree of separation from us because we'd be writing one every couple weeks -- but anecodtally, the number has gone up quickly recently. Despite the wait in the turnaround, at least the repairs are free now.

The NYT piece basically gives a mainstream audience the condensed version of the last few months. They still couldn't get an answer from Microsoft to what's actually wrong with the system. One of the more interesting parts of the piece is they speak with Richard Doherty, an analyst for Envisionneering Group, a technology assessment and market research firm who says consumers (not fanboys) are getting frustrated with the system's reliability and their waning patience and stories is turning off potential Xbox 360 buyers. He also says the situation "is going to get worse before it gets better."

Looks like Take-Two invited the mainstream media over to play Manhunt 2 the other day, because not only did Newsweek and MTV check it out, but so did the New York Times. The NYT essentially walked away saying that games like Manhunt 2 have a long way to go before they reach the gore found in modern "torture porn." Seth Schiesel writes, "Banning the original version of Manhunt 2 may be a good way to demonstrate that the industry can police itself. Side by side, though, movies seem to be way ahead of games in delivering top-notch gore."

Schiesel tests this by renting the R rated version of Saw II, where the "first scene was of a young man in a bleak cell being taunted to find a key by digging into his own oozing eye socket. If he does not yank out the key in 60 seconds, his head will be crushed in a spiked metal 'death mask' around his neck." Scheisel points out that the game probably got the rating because all the ESRB sees is a highlight reel of the game, they don't actually play it. He says it'll be "fairly simple" to re-edit the game for an M rating in time for the holiday season. And the New York Times isn't above going with the general conspiracy theory floating around about Manhunt 2, saying, "Whenever it does ship, Manhunt 2 is likely to enjoy a level of public awareness (and potentially sales) that it could never have attained without the ban. That of course may well have been what its makers intended all along."

The New York Times reports not-so-breaking news today that the over-60 set plays the occasional video game. The story hits all the standard points: your Grandma likes the Wii and PopCap's library of casual titles. They also mention the Wiis on cruise-ships thing from yesterday. Think the Iraq war was a big deal in 2006? Well, you're not going to hear about it much this year. The big news in 2007 is hot Grandma-on-game action.

We're eagerly awaiting the Times's top story for tomorrow: "Kids Like Rap Music!"

If Dr. Kawashima can do it, so can Will Shortz. The New York Times crossword puzzle editor is poised to become the next DS icon when Majesco releases The New York Times Crosswords, a collection of 1,000 wordplay puzzles for Nintendo's handheld. Well, that's if developer Budcat decides to pixelize Shortz.

Even without another goading head, Crosswords has the makings of a DS crossover hit -- you know, popular with the old folks -- with its proper usage of the touch-screen (allowing wordsmiths to scribble in answers or use an on-screen keyboard), progressive difficulty modes, and head-to-head wireless battles ... yeah, we said battles!

The New York Times Crosswords ships this spring. Wurd.

[Via 4 color rebellion]

Seth Schiesel from the New York Times logged more than 30 hours with 13 games for the PS3 over the last week. His early verdict? Sony has failed to deliver on their promise and the new video game system "just isn't that great." He criticizes the lack of in-box HD cables, having to connect "wireless" controllers to the console for recognition purposes, and the difficulty playing custom playlists in games. He basically deems the 360 the better machine for now calling it a "powerful but intuitive system" likening the PS3 to a "brawny but somewhat recalcitrant specialized computer."

From the article: "Measured in megaflops, gigabytes and other technical benchmarks, the PlayStation 3 is certainly the world's most powerful game console. It falls far short, however, of providing the world's most engaging overall entertainment experience. There is a big difference, and Sony seems to have confused one for the other."

The man does praise multi-player battles in Resistance: Fall of Man, but even Joystiq's own Chris Grant, quoted in the same article, believes the console "doesn't feel finished." Granted, all newly launched systems have hiccups. The real factor is how the manufacturer handles said hiccups moving forward.

[Thanks to all who sent this in]

The mainstream media (or MSM for those of you down with the Web 2.0 lingo) doesn't cover every video game story out there, so when they dom, we always perk up and take notice. Following Microsoft's big HDTV announcement Monday night, several major mainstream outlets covered the news. Let's see what they had to say:

• Time Magazine considers the downloadable space as a whole, where "many companies including Microsoft competitors Apple, Amazon.com and Google are getting into the video distribution business. Microsoft's ace is that the Xbox 360 is already connected to the TV, a hurdle others try to overcome by marketing multimedia set-top boxes or creating unwieldy hardware partnerships."
• The New York Times compares Apple and Microsoft's similar, but oh so different, strategies, writing, "Microsoft will go into the video business with a different business model. Apple, most analysts believe, does not make much money selling iTunes content, but makes up for it by selling more iPods, which are extremely profitable. Microsoft, which analysts say loses money on each Xbox 360 it sells, expects to make up for that shortfall by selling games -- and now video.
• Reuters looks to the more obvious competitor. "Sony Corp., which ships its PlayStation 3 on November 17 with its own digital-distribution network, PlayStation Network, also will look to movies, TV content and music down the line but has not yet announced specific deals. Games will be the first focal point, as they have been for Microsoft during the past year with its Xbox Arcade service."

So, Microsoft got there first (or, rather, they will when the service launches on November 22nd): A high-definition video download service connected to a set-top box already installed in millions of living rooms (and counting). But there's still more questions than answers in this shady, poorly-lit basement cockfight for living room supremacy. Like: what about the borderline impossibility of future cooperation with Sony Pictures? That would make it hard to be a comprehensive service. What about iTV?

The New York Times published a story today focusing on Sony's Playstation 3 jumping into the online arena. The story touts Sony's message that the Playstation 3 console is a long term investment worth the price tag. The story mentions Xbox Live and says that Sony will announce how they plan to combat that service at a press conference tomorrow in San Francisco -- OK, so why did this story run in the NYT today, instead of waiting the 24 hours for the real news?

The article also quotes Jack Tretton, the co-chief operating officer of SCEA as saying, "Every PS3 owner should be able to plug in Day 1 and take full advantage of everything we have to offer... there is freedom for the development community and freedom from the consumer standpoint." Sounds like Sony's new PR honcho Dave Karraker has Tretton on a tighter leash since the last PR fiasco, as he says almost nothing in this fluff piece.

The NYT story doesn't go into any detail about Sony's interface. It states that the Sony system will not be a central network like Microsoft's Xbox Live, but allows for publishers to set up their own networks. The one gamer interviewed in the article pretty much sums up the free service, "If Sony is going to tout that it's free, it better be good... It just can't be free and bad."

Karraker deserves a bonus for getting NYT to do a story that the Playstation 3 will have online capabilities. Well, duh! Gold star for Karraker suckering the NYT with a story full of analysts and Googleable data. That's what we pretend journalists do here at Joystiq.

The New York Times has a nice presentation on their website about gaming in South Korea narrated by the NYT's World of Warcraft-loving Seth Schiesel, who while reporting on what he saw manages to plug the upcoming Burning Crusade expansion by dropping in a picture of a Blood Elf. The piece does a fantastic job in giving a Cliff's Notes version of gaming culture in South Korea.

An interesting statistic is that Korea has 25.4 broadband subscriptions per 100 residents, the only country with more is Iceland at 26.7. So, why doesn't Iceland have major video game championships? The NYT explains Korean parents actually encourage their children to game as an outlet for the society's emphasis on education. Park Youngmok, Blizzard's Korean communications director says, "In Korea it's all study, study, study, learn, learn, learn."

Steven Johnson, Colbert Report guest and author of Everything Bad is Good for You, wrote a thoughtful piece on Will Wright's Spore in yesterday's widely read New York Times Magazine entitled, "The Long Zoom." Like any writeup of Wright's simeverything, Johnson's includes equal parts hagiography, history, and hype, imbuing Wright's unreleased masterpiece with transcendental potential.

Johnson's title refers to Spore's ability to zoom from the microscopic level all the way out to the galactic level, recalling the Eames' influential Powers of Ten (video embedded above). Wright's collaborative presentation with musician Brian Eno on "generative art," arranged by the long-term thinkers at the Long Now Foundation, also suggested a more cerebral sophistication than we're used to seeing, and reading about, in video games.

If you think the hype for Gears of War may be hard to live up to, consider Spore, a game that is beginning to more resemble a panacea for all the gaming industry's myriad ills than a clever expansion of the Sim- series.

[A faux pas, and a personal pet peeve: Charles and Ray Eames were not, in fact, "brothers" as Johnson writes, but an enormously successful husband-and-wife design team, responsible for everything from the aforementioned Powers of Ten film, to their famous molded plywood Eames Lounge Chair.]

See also: Spore figurines!

Vista promises to give PC gamers an experience that's more Xbox than XP but, as the New York Times' Seth Schiesel discovered, they've got a ways to go before delivering on that goal. His umbrage: widescreen gaming. Hardcore PC gamers -- a profligate breed whose annual technology budget amounts to more than the last 3 generations of consoles combined -- and their requisite widescreen gaming displays are an important audience for Microsoft's latest OS upgrade. So what's the trouble? Schiesel explains:

"Beta Vista simply does not run games properly on many of the big monitors that Microsoft and media companies are encouraging consumers to buy. I have no doubt that Microsoft will come up with a solution before Vista is released. But it is such a glaring problem, and one that goes so directly to the heart of the gaming experience, that if any halfway serious gamers asked me right now if they should install the beta Vista on their main PC's, I would say no."

Well, if we're only gonna be talking about beta software having bugs, then count us out. That's why it's not out yet! Granted, Vista probably should have been out now a couple times over, but this is another reason why it isn't. Schiesel focuses his criticism with, "But this video-display issue raises a question about how well the company really understands the hardcore players who will always be the tastemakers and most faithful customers in PC gaming."

Good question. I use my 24" Dell monitor to play my 360 in glorious, widescreen HD. PC games ... eh, notsomuch. Any gamer with a widescreen monitor has spent more than their fair share of time traversing widescreengamingforum.com fiddling with arcane settings in the attempt to duplicate the seamless experience we've grown to expect from consoles. Microsoft is going to need more than a fancy new operating system to make all games widescreen compliant, they're also going to need the full support of an increasingly diverse development community.

[Via VGM Watch]

The New York Times is running a doom and gloom piece on the current economic state of the big four publicly traded game publishers: Activision, Electronic Arts, Take-Two Interactive, and THQ. It's nothing we haven't heard before; higher next-gen development costs coupled with a console transition which have not only historically proven to be difficult, but the current one especially so.

Activision CEO Bobby Kotick "acknowledged that there were challenges, including a growing need to produce games more efficiently. He said the industry would probably also focus more narrowly on games with hit potential (selling several million copies) as opposed to a scattershot approach of creating numerous games that sell one million copies or less." This blockbuster approach runs contrary to the XBLA success story, or quirky DS hits like Pheonix Wright. So basically, Activision doesn't subscribe to the long tail.

Pretty damning evidence of this trend: following E3 in May, "Electronic Arts' shares have fallen to $42.30, from $56.80; Activision to $11.58, from $14.19; THQ to $21.49, from $25.63; and Take-Two to $13.10, from $17.05." Ouch! Well, that's my cue to go grab some TTWO and ATVI shares!

[Thanks, laserboyjc]

Though not directly about the PlayStation 3, this profile of Sony's worldwide appeal in Sunday's New York Times dovetails nicely with my look at the lead up to "the price."

Titled "Cutting Sony, a Corporate Octopus, Back to a Rational Size," writer Martin Fackler examines the marginalization of Sony in the international marketplace. The company's name was once synonymous with not only portable music, but electronics in general; now, faced with increased competition, they're looking to "restore" their image "to prevent the problems in Japan from spreading overseas."

A Merrill Lynch analyst said, "What is Sony? We don't even know anymore. Consumers used to pay more because the brand meant something special." Another echoed that sentiment, saying, "Sony has to trim its premium ... The brand equity, although still high, is clearly on the decline in consumers' minds."

One way to improve that brand image: trim the premium (sorry little buddy) and focus on "champion products." CEO Howard Stringer says "[they] need to rebuild the brand seriously in terms of energy and perception around the world" and the PS3 and Blu-ray are a serious part of that strategy.

[Thanks, Stephen]

(Update: Merril is spelled Merrill)