Cube-Europe is just part of a bigger ball of sites, mags, and newspaper columns that make up the gaming media. Not to seem so high and mighty, but here our staff judge the rest of that big ball.

What is your view of the current games media?

jayseven: The current way for folks to get info on the latest gaming news seems ok, I mean, dozens of websites at your fingertips thanks to the web, and thanks to C-E you can make this site your homepage and you'll get all the latest news, screens and movies delivered to you. [/plug]

Magazines, in my opinion, are on the whole, okay. They give unbiased opinions, and opinions that count.

I was reading the latest issue of gamesTM yesterday and the magazine had a several-page editorial on the state of gaming TV. Well worth a read. I'll summerise what it says.

The problem area is TV. There's very little on TV at the moment that a "hardcore" gamer would not cringe at watching, Gamezville, for instance. Anyone who knows anything about gaming will reel away in disgust from watching it. All the shows that have come and gone have relied too much on reviewing games, previewing them, and generally trying to be a website. The problem is that these programmes have to be made days, weeks in advance, so any hardcore gamer who would bother staying up to watch the show (thanks to tv companies looking down on gaming shows) already knows anything the show has to offer thanks to the internet. Also the shows tend to be presented by people who don't seem to have a clue about what they are talking about, which just makes the show look cheap. What tv shows can do is editorials. They can concentrate on specific parts of the industry and put out a great report on it.

Blackbird: We're so cool!

Now for my serious answer. I don't know what it's like in other countries, but here in the Netherlands, the printed magazines are always behind. Very rarely they've got an exclusive scoop. Besides that, there's very little attention given to the Nitnendo hardware in the mags. Mostly PC, XBox and PS2.

Then there's the television shows. TOTAL garbage! Sure, it's nice to see a few upcoming games on a moving media, but the comments the narrator places... tsssk.

Finally, there are the websites. Often updated, for your daily viewing pleasure. Almost unlimited room, so there's no cut in screenshots, movies, etc. I also think the websites are a bit more casual. With a mag or a tv show, there's virtually no interaction between readers and writers. With websites, there can be on-the-fly interaction. This can create a nice atmosphere in which you can read your daily GameCube-news (Cube-Europe of course) or your daily GBA news (Cube-Europe or my little spinoff) . There is a minor disadvantage on websites though (SP?): because almost everybody can start his or her own website, a lot of rumours are broadcasted throughout the web. Take the MegaTon for example. Sure, it finally resulted in the announcement of the GBA SP, but what was originally the idea? A union of Capcom, Sega and Ninty?

Lamsh: I really like the way you can really choose how you want your game new/info these days. Websites are great for news and up to date reviews, because they can be updated daily. Magazines are less up to date, but because readers go to websites for news, magazines can concentrate on their writing more. This means I can check Cube-Europe every day for news and the latest review, and pick up an Edge and NGC each month for some nice quality reading.

Joby: The sales and circulation of magazines has fallen so much in the growth of the internet is far becoming the most popular medium. It seems in the print only newspapers and gossip magazines seem to be surviving... back to gaming however access to the internet can deliver breaking news within minutes.

If you want an example of the speed in which this can happen look to Cube-Europes coverage of ECTS. It had the most breaking and exclusive stories. Hands on reports and other news articles before any other website. You want this ECTS news in a magazine? Wait a month.

Thats the difference, and thats why the net is a good resource and medium.

jayseven: Just wanted to add something.

For some reason, I often find that the internet is so swamped with information, Cube-europe with 15 news items a day, I don't know which ones are worth reading. Often our comments system can be a good measuring system, but not always. I find that magazines filter out much of the little news, or squash them into the magazine somewhere.

Dan: Since I have been working at Cube Europe I have not been buying magazines just because of the fact that most are mouthy so by the time they are in shops most of the news is out of date.

Say we post some news the day before a new issue of a magazine is released. The news we posted will be a mouth old by the time it is in a magazine.

This is one of the reasons that UK's magazine sells are dropping and Austrla now Australia has no Gamecube magazines left. The internet is just a faster way to get everything.

Who know maybe in a few year it could get faster information by having a Nintendo news channel (NNC!) or even a C-E news channel.(CEN!)

Conor: Rather than talk about the opposing advantages of the different forms of media, which has already been discussed, I'd rather focus on the state of gaming media.

Overall, I think games media is going down the drain. Apart from a select few magazines, the shelves are filled with ill-informing drivel. Mags that endlessly hype trash like Enter The Matrix, devote their entire cover to Tomb Raider, and appear to be written by primary school children. the only mags I would consider buying are NGC, GamesTM, PC Gamer and, of course, the infallable Edge. Even NGC is starting to slip a little I think, with overbloated scores for certain Nintendo games, and reasonable scores for distinctly average titles.

And with the vast amount of games websites on the net, near all of it is rubbish. Only a minority of quality sites stand out, and are actually written well. People have this idea that it is the professionals who are the best journos, but it's the little guys that spend hours on the PC writing, for no money, while attending school and working jobs, that are the real deal. Most sites seem content with mediocrity. And gaming TV? Pah. It'll take some real hardcore journos to make good games viewing. Everything else is just patronising, mainstream crap.