Dang. Now, David Jaffe has made a fool of himself many times in the past in drunken tirades, emotional outbursts, and poorly thought out forum posts, but here he didn’t deserve the noise that Olivia Munn was tossing his direction. I’m guessing that G4 will have this video pulled soon, so enjoy it while you can.

Note: I’ve had some emails wondering why I haven’t reviewed games or dropped editorials onto the blog lately. Part of that is due to me saving up material for Gamer Theory, part of it is just me being a little lazy. I’ll do something soon other than the podcast or a YouTube video dump…I promise.

This is certainly good news for Garnett, but it’s horrible news for fans of 1up and the 1up podcast, Listen Up. Garnett Lee has accepted a new position with Gamefly, Inc. where he’ll act as editorial director for their gaming sites, including Shacknews. David Ellis announced on Twitter that the Listen Up crew will do one more show together and then Garnett will make his move over to the new job.

With John Davison’s What They Play being sold to IGN recently, his status with the podcast is also up in the air. The show has survived key members leaving before, but Garnett was the man that ran the show and made it what it was. Maybe 1up can woo John back now that he’s become a free man again, huh? Most likely the show will continue on, but it’s certainly not going to be the same.

Good luck Garnett.

Yesterday Giant Bomb celebrated their first anniversary since the full site was launched. It’s pretty remarkable how much the guys over at Giant Bomb have built up their site in a year’s time. I remember when Brad, Vinny, and the rest of the guys were bailing on Gamespot to join Jeff’s Giant Bomb venture that the general opinion was that the network was bigger than the personalities and that their leaving would be a short-lived consequence. Well, Gamespot remains the larger media outlet as far as traffic goes, but Giant Bomb is steadily increasing over time as Gamespot has slowly but steadily declined. I know Alexa numbers are suspect, but it’s something to go off of at least. Check the chart below from a comparison I ran between the two sites.

I doubt that the Giant Bomb guys are too worried about competing with Gamespot, but it’s nice to see that good journalism is winning out over a brand name. If you haven’t been listening, I suggest you check out the Giant Bomb podcast. New episodes come out every Tuesday.

In just a couple of short weeks, the 1up Show staff has managed to do a pretty impressive job at pooling together their resources and re-establish themselves on their new permanent home: Area 5 (http://area5.tv). The team has already uploaded their first episode, and it’s jam-packed with ex-1up staff as they go over their favorite games from 2008. The name of the show is Co-Op, and we can only expect good things as the guys get the gear they need together and find more solid footing in their newfound situation. Here are some helpful links to get rolling with the show:

Episode 1: http://area5.tv/2009/01/21/the-producers-of-the-1up-show-form-area-5-launch-new-show-co-op/

YouTube Channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/area5media

Right now you can’t subscribe via iTunes, but the YouTube subscription is free. The reasons for this direction are detailed on the Area 5 site. It’s important that the team gets a lot of YouTube subscribers, so if you’re interested in what they’re doing, make sure to support them with the subscription.

While it’s a major bummer to see such a great personality and such a deeply opinionated journalist leave the gaming journalism industry, it’s encouraging to see one of the most popular former 1up staffers land such a big job. Shane’s official job title at Ignition is Director of Business Development; which means that Shane is going to be making the decisions on what games the publisher should publish and which games they should pass on. If you want to hear Shane talking about his new job, give Rebel FM a listen. Shane makes the announcement on episode 2, right around the 20-21 minute mark.

Download the Rebel FM episode #2 podcast, right here: Click to download.

Ugh, I feel like the last remnants of my childhood have been dragged out into the street and had a bullet put right between the eyes. With the acquisition of 1up by UGO, many notable and talented people have been layed off and EGM is no more. What is undisputably the best gaming magazine ever published in the United States is finished, as the January issue (currently on sale) will be the final issue. GAF users have managed to compile a list of the journalists and staff members that have been layed off so far. Below is the list (bolding indicates the ones that I was particularly fond of):

Adrian Frieg
Amy Mishra
Amy Moran
Andrea Garcia
Andrew Fitch
Andrew “Skip” Pfister
Anthony Gallegos
Cesar Quintero
Christina Rosa
CoyLou Steel
Derek Chinn
Doug Parsons
Eric Ellis
Giancarlo Varanini
Greg Ford
James “Milkman” Mielke
Jason Bertrand
Jason Wilson
Jervilyn Jaramillo
Justin Frechette
Leslie Gelfand
Marci Yamaguchi
Matt Chandronait
May Tong
Meredith Stowe
Michael Donahoe
Monique Convertito
Ndubuisi Madu
Nick Suttner
Norris Boothe
Philip Kollar
Rey Serrano
Robert Bowen
Rosemary Pinkham
Ryan O’Donnell
Ryan Scott
Shane Bettenhausen
Simon Cox
Tammy Ross
Tipler Ubbelohde

I’m sure as the dust settles the list of casualties will expand, but some of those names up there are really quite shocking. Game coverage isn’t going to be the same without many of these guys being a part of the EGM/1up team, that’s for sure. Also, and this is where gamers are most going to feel the gut punch, is that the 1up podcasts are going to be done away with, at least for the time being. Right now, it’s been confirmed that 1up Yours (Best. Gaming. Podcast. Ever.) and the 1up Show (Best. Gaming. Video. Podcast. Ever.) are dead for good.

If you feel like it, you can hit up GAF and Twitter and read all sorts of farewells, comments, and musings from current and ex-1up staff about the situation. I’m still a little in shock that all we have left in the print publication market here in the US is Gamepro, which is terrible, and Game Informer, which has no journalistic integrity.

Good luck to everybody who is personally affected, and good luck to gamers trying to find a publication/network to fill the void left behind in their gaming news coverage and editorial needs.

Is there anybody in the entire Sony company that is as stupid is David Reeves? I mean, I know it’s disrespectful to say that about someone, but this is the one guy that even the hardcore Sony fanboys actively work to shout down. I also hate being the near constant critic of Sony and their ways, but I think their approach to this generation of gaming warrants some backlash. In recent weeks Sony has endured some PR pain as they’ve had to announce big layoffs, bad financial losses, and terrible NPD sales performances. Now, not all of this can be attributed to their games division, but the PS3 and its money losing ways are definitely a big part of the blame. In an interview with MVC, David Reeves (president of Sony Computer Entertainment Europe) had a few choice things to say that reek of excuses, deflection, envy, and desperation.

Here is the interview in its entirety, but below I have a list of notable achievements by Reeves in the piece: http://www.mcvuk.com/interviews/394/Action-Station

• He compares Sony’s $3 billion losses in the past two years to Citibank to show why it’s not so bad. Citibank compared to Sony? Really? How is that remotely relevant?
• He states that they’re not dropping the price, but rather focusing on a “value added” strategy. WHAT?! How is the PS3 added value at this point? You can buy both a 360 and a Wii for the price of a PS3 now. If he’s talking Blu-ray, you can get a 360 and a Blu-ray player cheaper.
• He states that their objective is to “grow the market”. How are you going to do that with an overpriced console? DROP THE PRICE!
• “You don’t grow the market by putting out shoddy machines.” Obviously this is a slight at the 360, but the PS2 and PS1 were terribly shoddy. Many people went through several of each. It’s a pot/kettle black deal there…
• “…as soon as we got the manufacturing price down on PSOne we lowered the price. Same with PS2. But we’re not doing that on PS3 – that’s not the model, but people are expecting it.” Ok…so the PS1 and PS2 owned the market, so you’re just going to go with a different strategy? Makes sense.

There are a few more things in there that are just fine examples of crazy talk, but I think I’ve gone far beyond what I should have on this topic. To be clear, I LIKE MY PS3, but I think the industry needs a healthy Sony. With all the poor decisions Sony makes I keep expecting that they’re going to wake up and get things rolling, but these sort of interviews have me questioning whether or not they’ve actually lost touch with the reality of the situation they’re in and the industry as a whole. Sony got punched in the face big time, but rather than coming back with their own punches, they’ve just been content to take blow after blow while making excuses why this is a better strategy. Sure, it worked for Rocky, but even Adrian new that at SOME POINT the Italian Stallion had to hit back. Do it, Sony.

Greetings everyone, I bet you’re all so used to only Jeff posting to this blog. Well that has just changed. My name is Brad Mosbacher, former Features Editor for Nintendo World Report.  I have been brought aboard to provide all of you with interesting and well written updates when Jeff himself is unable to post.

I am also here to provide posts that slightly differentiate in taste compared to the standard variety of posts that Jeff makes. However, this alone is not the cause of my appearance. Jeff and I have big things planned in the future. What these plans are I cannot say just yet, but it is the culmination of his and my combined resources. Needless to say, I hope you will enjoy what we have in store for all of you.

This whole issue has passed and at first I refrained from commenting on it, but I think it’s still worth commenting on. Last week, Cheap Ass Gamer ran a contest within their community to see who could make up the best and most believable rumor. A few bloggers, including Kotaku’s Brian Crecente, picked up one of the rumors and ran with it. I’m not going to name the rumor, because it doesn’t really deserve any more attention, but the fallout of these blogs running stories based on the competition merits a little discussion. Once the Internet’s finest detectives flushed out that the source for the rumor was indeed CAG’s little contest, Brian was backed into a corner and forced to admit that he posted an unconfirmed bit of (fake) news. Of course, rather than showing some good humor and admitting his mistake, Brian did what he always does; he lashed out and decided to push the blame back into CAG’s hands. Below is what Brian said when he updated his original rumor post:

UPDATE: It appears that this rumor story could be CAG throwing their credibility out the window as part of a contest. Kotaku”s decision to run rumors is always based on the credibility of the site and the information contained within it. In the past CAG has proven to be a reliable site, having broken a number of stories through apt reporting. It appears that may no longer be the case.

Well, jeez, Brian…can you really blame this on CheapyD and CAG? Is that really fair? You failed to fact check, you failed to follow up on a lead, and you made the decision to run with a rumor that had no credibility in the first place. All you had to do was a little bit of simple digging and you could have easily found out it was all part of a fun community contest put on by CAG. Don’t blame CheapyD and Wombat for trying to have some fun with their readers and podcast listeners. Your arrogance in these sort of matters is what turned me off of Kotaku years ago and is the same reason I don’t visit the site today. It’s ok to be wrong, but it’s not ok to throw a site under the bus simply because you failed to do a simple thing like fact checking before hitting the post button. And no, CAG wasn’t throwing their credibility out of the window by running the contest, you were when you ran with the rumor in a sad attempt to beat your competition to the scoop. Bravo, Brian, bravo. Here’s what your update is really saying to me:

UPDATE: It appears that this rumor story could be me throwing my credibility out the window as part of a premature reaction. Kotaku”s decision to run rumors is always based on the ridiculous need to get lots of hits to drive up our click count to appease our traffic-hungry superiors. In the past CAG has proven to be a reliable site, having broken a number of stories through apt reporting which we’ve hastily grabbed and slapped on our front page. It appears that we may either need to start fact checking like most reputable sites and blogs or risk continuing to look like total clowns and amatuers.

For the record, Joystiq, Kotaku’s biggest competitor, refrained from posting the rumor that they were very much well-aware of. Joystiq and CAG good. Kotaku bad.

Denis has been a very outspoken defender of Too Human on mainstream news sites, enthusiast press sites, message boards, blogs, and anywhere else anybody will offer up a soapbox for him to stand on. Well, a while back Denis made a bet with the NeoGAF community over how Too Human would be received. Earlier this week reviews started rolling in, and it quickly became obvious that Denis was on the losing side of the wager. Today, in a post started by site admin EvilLore, Denis’ plate of crow was offered up. The thread can be found here: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=331932.

Now, Denis got himself into this, but really I think we as a gaming community are being just a bit harsh on him. Yes, it’s providing some nice comedy for anybody willing to watch things unfold, but I think amid all the mudslinging that people should at least be giving Denis some props for being so candid and accessible to the general gamer. Denis, you blew it, but I really hope this doesn’t prevent you from interacting and communicating with the gaming audience. It looks like your game didn’t turn out as well as we (and you) would have liked, but I guarantee if you come back strong with a new project after Too Human that a lot of this can be swept under the rug.