"In other words: Famitsu articles aren't worth the money"

(tags blog, magazine, criticism, Famitsu, Japan)

Akiba Blog comes up with a sensationalist blog, that would make the Video Game Ombudsman proud, entitled "In other words: Famitsu articles aren't worth the money" (my trans, original 「意訳：『ファミ通の記事に、お金を払う価値はない』」). According to their own review post, it received the most accesses that week.

Usually Akiba Blog takes pictures of in-store displays of otaku-oriented merchandise. This time, one big Akihabara store Asobit Game City had an in-store expose on the Weekly Famitsu 2007/04/20 issue (no. 957)'s gravure photo spread of the busty idol-talent Yuuri Morishita (森下悠里). The caption at the store read (my trans) "Our staff finds 350 yen worth in these two pages!!" (「アソビットスタッフは今週のファミツのこの見開き2頁に350円の価値を見出したっ！！」) For reference, Weekly Famitsu usually sells for 350 yen.

But Akiba Blog takes the negative connotation, pushing the view that Famitsu is the "TBS of the game industry". TBS is the Tokyo Broadcasting System media company, which has been accused of tainting their news reporting with heavy bias or even story creation. Akiba Blog backs up their comparison with an example of Famitsu hyping the launch of Sakura Taisen 5 (PS2) and the launch of Bullet Witch (Xbox 360), when Akiba Blog's "grass roots" reporting showed muted response. There was also a link critical of the fantastic reporting by Famitsu parent company Enterbrain which erroneously reported that the PS3 pulled ahead of the Wii penetration with the release of Gundam Musou (original article already corrected).

In an effort to be even-handed, the end of the original article passes off another reading of the in-store catch copy as "this week's Famitsu is worth 350 yen for the articles and 350 yen for the gravure". Yeah right.

As for my buying habits, I still haven't missed a week of Famitsu since the year 2001, except for those time when I had to go out of the country. There's no doubt in my mind that Famitsu is an advertising rag, and I read it like I read a Playboy, for the pictures. I mean they can't fake video game pictures, right? (Not yet anyway.) The idea that Famitsu could fabricate news isn't shocking to me, but with a lock-in into the (Japan) game journalism industry comparable to Microsoft's dominance in the PC area, who can you turn to for decent reporting?

Even I have, on previous blogs, taken their 40-point/4 person rating system as the "gold standard", and the Internet credibility on this rating system is still positive. Yeah well, I'm not as insightful as they come.

EDIT: Too bad Kotaku misses the point.

(thanks to Mr. Alvin for the clarifications)