The X In Xbox Stands For Expensive

About this episode

On this week’s episode, Nathan and Riley are joined by Chris Kerr, formerly of Game Developer—the publication, not the concept—who’s now heading up newly launched site Vertical Slice. We discuss why he decided to leave a relatively stable gig of nearly a decade for the choppy waters of independence, as well as the challenges of producing capital-J journalism while wearing a plethora of other hats (definitely not something we can relate to). We also reminisce about how Game Developer, one of the industry’s biggest trade publications, used to be called Gamasutra—a pun based on history’s most famous sex book. Then we discuss a couple pieces of pertinent news: Fortune recently became the latest mainstream publication to print thousands of fawning words about how Asha Sharma is running Xbox, conveniently omitting the “into the ground” part. Why do journalists at places like Fortune, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal keep trying to help Microsoft rehabilitate its image? And who is any of this actually for? Next, we scrutinize the actual news buried in Fortune’s piece: The next Xbox might cost between $1,200 and $1,800. Again, who is any of this for? (Note: The news that EA