Gather round, ladies and gentlemen. Pull up a chair and line your puckered arses on a pew, as we go on a journey into the minds of those behind the most powerful force in global television and how these minds are out to
bring down the PS3.
Let's rewind back to last night, shall we? BBC One broadcasted their show
Watchdog, in which the presenter - a bloke with a soft Scottish accent and a rather self-righteous attitude, tonight represented by Anne Robinson - sits on the edges of desks in a dimly lit (health and safety anyone?) studio made to look like an "office" or "television epicenter" and talks shit about some sweeaty builder with a mortgage to pay. Phones will be ringing off the hook in the background and Joe Bloggs office worker will pretend to talk to some poor old pensioner in Potters Bar with broken central heating and a stiff cat flap... of course, you can't hear them at all. If you did, you'd realise they were actually calling their mums to ask if they still had visible hat hair on telly. I digress.
Last night's show featured an assasssination attempt against the PlayStation 3, claiming the infamous 'Yellow Ring Of Death' was getting out of hand. Below are the facts from the show, why they are out of line, a few of my own assumptions (also known as the truth) and some interesting things that have happened on BBC.co.uk Today. All of which proves that the BBC are in bed with Microsoft.
The Show:
- Claimed that PS3 costs £400 –
that hasn’t been true for nearly two years
- stated that 12,500 UK machines had suffered the ‘Yellow Light Of Death’, a conclusion drawn from Sony’s claim that 0.5% UK’s 2.5m PS3 had suffered issues -
show neglected to mention that not all reported problems are related to the YLOD (I for one had a different problem). Also,
0.5%??? I pay my TV license, go to the supermarket, cook my square meal, sit down and turn on Watchdog to be shocked by THAT?
- Sony was accused of offering only a standard one-year warranty –
every other consumer tech firm in the country does this.
- some claimed they had suffered console failures had lost the data stored on the machine -
back up your shit
- Something about trapped gas. Probably from a crackpipe in Sony HQ.
The Aftermath
Click on this new.bbc.co.uk (if you do it soon, hopefully things will be as I saw it). Scroll down and on the right will be a write-up on the
Watchdog thing. However, curiously, a few PC screen inches above this, in the "Also In The News" section, is a story entitled "Farewell Master Chief: New Halo 3 game stars 'ordinary' characters".
Isn't it slightly (read: massively) odd that on the main page of BBC News is a headline that links to a promo video of ODST?
Add to this the
Watchdog article, which goes on and on about the YLOD but makes absolutely
no mention of the rather massive Xbox 360 problem, 'Red Ring Of Death' - from which the name of Sony's new problem is derived. There is also ZERO mention of the recently released and highly promoted £250 PS3 Slim in the article. Perhaps a quote that the new model would hope to irradicate issues would have been useful to mention.
I'll leave you with this thought:
BBC iPlayer has been installed on the XMB to increase the likelihood of the YLOD happening.
Conclusion? BBC love Microsoft, or have been bought and sold by Bill Gates.
Goodnight.
I can't stand watchdog, let alone Anne Robinson so I'm not suprised they got their facts wrong and mislead their ever-angry viewers, but they did do a special on the Xbox 360 earlier in the year:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/watchdog/2009/03/xbox_360.html
Then it's all the more odd that the show and the article don't mention the 360 at all. Also, the timing of it all, what with PS3 Slims selling like hot cakes, is more than a little suss.
A Halo gameplay clip is not the usual for BBC nes too... tune in at 6pm tonight to see if it makes the telly.
Clance! Blogging! I can barely contain myself!
But yea this is all bullshit. I'm on my second Xbox, and my PS3 has had zero problems whatsoever. My friends are all the same way, some are even on their fifth 360.
You should check the BBC News site. If they are using the license fee to promote one company, it is Apple without a doubt.
The entire BBC tech area is shit.
Hello Clance! I hope you are doing well.
Clance!
I wasn't expecting this nonsense from the BBC. I'm not in love with the BBC anymore because of its. Well that's not true I guess. I still love 'em for QI, Planet Earth and everything Stephen Fry and David Attenborough are in. They had something like this on the Dutch TV about a year ago. Even my dad, who doesn't know shit about electronics, said the PS3 was a product made to fail. ("But with all those programs on your computer you need a lot of screens to run them right?" he is that kind of guy. LMAO! true story).
I don't know why they do stuff like that. It's harming the good name Sony has and therefor it's rubbish and makes me angry. You can say all you want about bad products if it's true. If it's not you need to shut the hell up. They only want to get 'hits' I guess. Being popular over somebody else's back is never a good thing.
Glad to see you on Dtoid again my friend! I'm still waiting on your e-mail you crazy Gunners loving ginger Brit!
I got very little love for the BBC these days, but as consumer program Watchdog has been around for a while, and can be cheese.
You chaps take this to heart too much, when the gripe isn't personally at you, just Sony. Why you feel the need to defend Sony is beyond me. Like someone said, Watchdog have already done the same on 360's problems, and being a 360 owner (along side other consoles), I have no problem with this being highlighted on tv. The more you know and all. I never defended MS for their 360 messing up, but once they started to fix 360s, for free, then I would say something more positive.
Its fact that some people are having problems with their PS3s, and they are fellow gamers. If anything, you should be defending those owners, who now are PS3less, through no fault of their own. Sony have their own PS3 reps to protect them. Each to their own though, but this is not about taking sides. Sony should do much better to fix gamers kit, but their response to BBC, is like their child was eaten by a big cat. How dare you, BBC, how dare you.
Check out this PS3 story, if you haven't already:
http://spong.com/feature/10109966/Opinion-Saga-Fixing-a-Firmware-Down-dated-PS3
@Cowboy TTop
"Its fact that some people are having problems with their PS3s, and they are fellow gamers."
Uhm yeah, well, read this blog by the same writer as the one you've just read.
Yes,
As has been pointed out many times now, Watchdog has ran two stories on the 360 in the past, one of them earlier this year.
There may have been issues with the way this has been reported, but there's absolutely no issue with watchdog doing a story if they feel sufficient people have complained about faulty PS3s to investigate - just because the 360 has been worse, doesn't mean the other one gets off free, does it?