Comments on: GamePro’s Jack Tretton ‘interview’ is a lollipop

By: mr pat

mr pat — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 01:21:45 +0000

i didnt know that gamepro was a legeitment gameing magazine. i remeber that they used to be cool when i was in middle school 10 years ago, i would be a disgraced and no longer be considered a gamer if i was caught with a gamepro in public!

By: raindog469

raindog469 — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 21:37:23 +0000

You had the “happy ending” reference right in front of you. You totally should have gone there, because that’s what that interview was. Pity.

By: Jack

Jack — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 17:21:58 +0000

Invis, I agree. I’d rather be the caddies in Caddyshack than the club members of Bushwood any day of the week. More fun, more options, more everything.

By: Doofus_J

Doofus_J — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 13:39:55 +0000

Ah ha, InvisibleMan, you have me. You’re absolutely right, game systems are supposed to be toys, not high end gadgets designed exclusively for the wealthy. I forgot how funny it was when Sony claimed we should want to work harder in order to scrape up the cash needed to purchase a PS3. Is it any wonder Nintendo’s recent products have sold so well?

By: InvisibleMan

InvisibleMan — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 13:32:37 +0000

While it is obvious from his line of questioning that Sid hates the Wii and loves the PSP and PS3, I don’t think Jack Tretton came out as arrogant for a change. Sid really cornered him into delivering an arrogant answer, and Jack Tretton actually gave him a funny response instead.

I don’t think Tretton’s analogy was too far off, except: I would depict the restaurant not as being a single console, but the whole gaming industry, and rather the “menus” as the different consoles. The anger you see thrown against Nintendo by “hardcore” gamers is like stuffy clients trying to eat their Surf n’ Turf while watching hordes of people who had never set foot on a restaurant before coming in eating their lollipops and ice cream.

Oh, and Doofus_J, Wii is definitely a toy! So are the DS, the 360, the PSP, and the PS3… That’s what I think is being lost to the whole gaming community lately: these are sophisticated toys meant primarily for entertainment, not essential items for work or survival. There is nothing wrong with that, but let’s just keep things in perspective, shall we?

By: Random J

Random J — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 04:32:06 +0000

I got something he can suck on and it ain’t a lollipop.

By: Jack

Jack — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 17:58:09 +0000

As with most of my rants, retrospection is paramount. Was the post biased? You bet your butts it was. I put my opinion out there on Infendo a lot. I’m secure enough to do that, and I’m secure enough to take any and all heat that comes my way as a result of that.

There were several good questions in this interview. Unfortunately, they were all lost on me because of the tone that was established with the very first question. When a source can respond to your question with “I would tend to agree with everything that you said” — you have failed as a journalist. You haven’t even really asked a question, really.

Like I said at the very beginning of the post, this really wasn’t about the Wii or my fondness for Nintendo or the fact that Sony comes off as arrogant in this interview. It was the principal of the thing. This interview lacked objectivity, and I decided to call it out. I’m grown up enough to realize this post was biased and a bit over the top.

Is Vicious Sid?

By: Blake

Blake — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 17:12:26 +0000

Thanks for your comments, Doofus_J. While I still vouch for the interviewer on the whole, I in now way agree with what the interviewee said in response. As a person who also tries to sell headlines, I love the “Tretton calls Wii a lollipop” angle. It’s distinct and makes people want to read the story whether they believe it to be true or not.

By: Doofus_J

Doofus_J — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 16:55:43 +0000

Blake, I love this site, and your opinions, but I have to disagree with you this time. I’m a paid journalist myself, having been the head writer for a local newspaper for more than two years now, and I have to say that Vicious Sid’s interview was pretty bad. He definitely shouldn’t have been throwing his opinion around during the interview, and the food analogy wasn’t just unprofessional — it was just plain stupid. What the heck do we, as readers, gain from that? Oh wait, I know, we gain the understanding that a Sony employee thinks a Sony system is better than all the other systems on the market. I never would have guessed.

I like games in general — all games — but Sony is really being the bully this generation, and I don’t particularly care for it. Nintendo pracitcally invented what is now known as the casual market — something into which Sony is currently trying to tap, so I wouln’t be so flippant with my comments if I were them. Sony needs to wise up and stop calling the Wii a toy, or a lollipop, or anything else that implies it’s for little kids, because, if that’s the case, then it’s apparent that those little kids have bigger wallets than their parents. Sony’s elitist point of view appeals to no one other than other elitists.

By: Blake

Blake — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 16:43:13 +0000

@ Booger

I hope the above disclosure provided ample insight into my bias so you can come to your own conclusions. I didn’t intend to write off anyone’s mistakes on a lack of perfection. All I meant to say is that I believe Sid to be a reputable journalist despite 2 flawed questions from a single 10 question interview.