Making a difference or making up a difference?

I think it's the secret desire of every journalist to be Woodward and/or Bernstein at some point in their lives. While getting paid to write about games is all well and good, most journalists want to make some sort of a difference with their writing. Whether this difference is preventing someone from buying a crappy game or bringing down the President of the United States is of little concern; it's the slightly egotistical feeling of importance that is, um, important.



I'll bet Computer and Video Games is feeling pretty important right now. But there are those who say they shouldn't.



For those too busy to read the above-linked articles, I'll paraphrase. In an Aug. 18 story C&VG broke the news that Nintendo's had no plans to release the popular e-Reader peripheral in Europe. This was a bit of a coup for C&VG, as Nintendo had apparently not publicly announced the cancellation. Sites like GamerFeed and Slashdot ran the story, which provoked a "public outcry," from the European citizenry, according to C&VG's follow-up article. By the 20th, C&VG was reporting that a Nintendo spokeperson said "the launch of the E-Card Reader in Europe has been moved into the first half of 2004." (Incidentally, Gamerfeed ran an update when the new information came to light. Slashdot did not)



It seems like a storybook case of "Journalist reports injustice; public demands justice; powers-that-be give in." But Spong has a different take on the matter. In an Aug. 20 article, Spong quoted a Nintendo insider as saying that "this whole thing was purely reactionary and quite ridiculous. The e-Reader was never scrapped for Europe and the fact that it was reported otherwise is shocking," the insider goes on. "This is just a slippage, as happens all the time. To tout it as a snubbing to Europeans was a shamelessly cynical thing to do." It should be noted that Spong did not report on the original cancelation story.



So is this a case of fabricating an uprising on C&VG's part, or a case of sour grapes on Spong's part? C&VG's John Minkley re-confirmed the information in response to an e-mail inquiry by this site. "For Nintendo to move from 'We have no plans' to 'It's coming out next year' in the space of two days is, is my mind, a clear turnaround prompted by the negative reaction from European gamers to the news," he said in an e-mail. Spong editors have not yet replied to a request for comment.



I'm really not sure where I stand on this one. Given Spong's track record, it would be quite easy to dismiss their claims, but I'd like to think that past performance doesn't always predict present predelictions (Hooray for alliteration!) Any thoughts?