Internet Lie Factory Falls Flat at Nintendo Conference
Well, not at the conference. Read on...
At time of writing, SPOnG's office on the west coast of the US is waiting up, somewhat bleary eyed, for the Nintendo Japan conference to begin. Usually, as you know, we'd have a man on the ground for such an event, but as versions of it are happening in the New York and London (for which we have writers booked) we decided to skip it and catch it on the Internet.
Our inbox was then rudely nudged into life with the promise that a live feed from the conference was going to be available. Good news indeed. We opened the link and indeed, a Nintendo conference was being streamed. The thing that baffled us was that it was some four hours or so before the scheduled start of Nintendo's Tokyo briefing. This is the link. As we watched it, we realised that we'd seen this conference months before and that something of a scam was going down. A scam that was so convincing it created a new Internet gaming phrase within minutes. GWNed!
You see, one of the sites promising live coverage from the showfloor was GWN.com. The site began its 'live feed' with the atmospheric post, "10:20 AM: The press are all inside now. There's a LOT of buzz in the air. If Nintendo don't announce date and price today, I think the Internet may implode. Stay tuned and keep refreshing for our live blog coverage."
And what a buzz there was! Actually, the briefing video isfrom July and is just a load of bored analysts in a room being preached to by Nintendo. GWN didn't stop there though:
We were watching this quite literally with our mouths wide open in utter disbelief. Could a site actually be so stupid as to pretend to be at a conference and then get duped by a months old video that was circulated at the last minute by Nintendo fanboys as a joke? And then run a live feed from their bedroom, pretending to be at the conference? Amazingly, depressingly, this happened!
Pathetically, GWN then published the following. "It appears the majority of the Internet got the time wrong for this press conference. Some are now reporting it will start at 2PM. Some are saying 3PM is the start time. We'll have live blog coverage here the minute it starts."
Which isn't actually the case at all. The majority of the Internet was too busy making images that reveled in its new favourite phrase, some of which can be seen to the right of this very piece.
Our inbox was then rudely nudged into life with the promise that a live feed from the conference was going to be available. Good news indeed. We opened the link and indeed, a Nintendo conference was being streamed. The thing that baffled us was that it was some four hours or so before the scheduled start of Nintendo's Tokyo briefing. This is the link. As we watched it, we realised that we'd seen this conference months before and that something of a scam was going down. A scam that was so convincing it created a new Internet gaming phrase within minutes. GWNed!
You see, one of the sites promising live coverage from the showfloor was GWN.com. The site began its 'live feed' with the atmospheric post, "10:20 AM: The press are all inside now. There's a LOT of buzz in the air. If Nintendo don't announce date and price today, I think the Internet may implode. Stay tuned and keep refreshing for our live blog coverage."
And what a buzz there was! Actually, the briefing video isfrom July and is just a load of bored analysts in a room being preached to by Nintendo. GWN didn't stop there though:
10:35 AM: The conference is starting a little later than expected.
10:38 AM: Conference has officially started! Iwata is here along with several other Nintendo big wigs from Japan. The speaker is introducing everyone. Iwata got up and took a bow.
10:40 AM: Still introducing the Nintendo reps present.
10:48 AM: Iwata is speaking now about PSP, PS2, DS, sales figures. So far no mention of the Wii. Of course, it makes sense they're getting the other stuff out of the way first.
10:51 AM: Iwata is still talking about DS.
10:38 AM: Conference has officially started! Iwata is here along with several other Nintendo big wigs from Japan. The speaker is introducing everyone. Iwata got up and took a bow.
10:40 AM: Still introducing the Nintendo reps present.
10:48 AM: Iwata is speaking now about PSP, PS2, DS, sales figures. So far no mention of the Wii. Of course, it makes sense they're getting the other stuff out of the way first.
10:51 AM: Iwata is still talking about DS.
We were watching this quite literally with our mouths wide open in utter disbelief. Could a site actually be so stupid as to pretend to be at a conference and then get duped by a months old video that was circulated at the last minute by Nintendo fanboys as a joke? And then run a live feed from their bedroom, pretending to be at the conference? Amazingly, depressingly, this happened!
Pathetically, GWN then published the following. "It appears the majority of the Internet got the time wrong for this press conference. Some are now reporting it will start at 2PM. Some are saying 3PM is the start time. We'll have live blog coverage here the minute it starts."
Which isn't actually the case at all. The majority of the Internet was too busy making images that reveled in its new favourite phrase, some of which can be seen to the right of this very piece.
Companies:
Nintendo
Read More Like This
Comments
cmotd 15 Sep 2006 01:37
1/1
Awesome! HAHAHAHA, why hasn't the site been shut down out of sheer embarrasment? I think I will go there just to heap dung upon them on their forums hehehe...