Anonymous wrote on Wednesday, 11/07/2001 - 8:59 pm:

: : All of it. You may as well post about every shmuck who
: : expresses his opinion about the consoles vs PCs
: debate.

Gee. Not every schmuck actually knows what the heck is involved in developing games for either, let alone both. As far as bias goes, EVERYBODY has a bias of some sort. That's fully taken into account by mentioning that, of course, he is a Bungie employee, and anybody reading what he writes needs to consider that.

Not every schmuck who posts an opinion about this debate says something newsworthy; any idiot can operate a web browser. The old saw is true: opinions are like assholes; everybody has one.

In this case, the person writing has worked on developing PC games as well as console games. While working for Bungie MAY put him in a position to be biased towards the Xbox compared to competitors, it does give him access to information about the process of developing for the two different platforms which makes his opinion FAR more valid than, say, yours, mine, or just about anyone else in that thread, unless they have similar experience.

: : Atleast the average individual would probably be less
: : biased.

And far less informed. Bias can be considered when evaluating an opinion, but so can ignorance.

:
:
: Narc is right that it's worthy about it being news to
: readers of Rampancy (but just barely imho)

it's *slightly* more relevant to R.net readers because they are more familiar with Ferrex than, say, the readers of more general interest gaming sites.

But since certain other Bungie employees who aren't even developers somehow manage to make the news sites even when they're repeating themselves for the nth time, I don't think it's anywhere close to out of line to quote another Bungie employee about the issue of PCs and consoles so close to the launch date of two new consoles.

As for Xbox bias... this is a Bungie/Halo site. Halo's coming to the Xbox, not the GameCube. I don't consider myself an Xbox fanboy by any stretch of the imagination-- but as you notice, I'm not bothering posting GameCube news in general, so there's little motivation to use the old journalistic trick of creating the illusion of objectivity by giving equal time to all sides. We all know Rex works for Bungie, and we may interpret that to mean he's more inclined to say nice things about the Xbox and not about the GameCube.

However, choosing not to mention some interesting ideas (and REASONS for his opinions, which he supplied, and the average forum schmuck doesn't) because of the possibility of bias merely impoverishes the readers. Much better to point out the opinions and potential biases, and let readers decide how valid they think his opinion is

and Anon is right
: about the bias.

He's right that Rex may have bias; that doesn't make what he said not newsworthy. They only people completely objective about something are the ones who know nothing about it; I don't see where that's particularly newsworthy.

I believe that President Bush may be biased about what's going on in Afghanistan; but somehow he still ends up on CNN. Go figure.

: And for crying out loud Rex, what a load of b.s. you have
: shoveled (that I would expect from Case, not you). You sound
: like you've been fully pimped.

Actually, it sounds to me like you've got an irrational prejudice against Microsoft; other than the phrase "indisputably superior" his praise was quite moderate, I thought. And if you look at the specs on paper, it's hard to argue that there isn't a serious advantage. The praise for Halo so far, from gaming outlets that cover all platforms, has also been overwhelmingly positive with very few exceptions; unless you're alleging they've all been paid off by Microsoft as well, I'm inclined to believe that the achievement of Halo may be corroborative evidence for what Ferrex is saying about the Xbox.