"Microsoft PR literally bought that article: if they hadn't sent that to Kotaku the unboxing would have never happened. This piece is an infomercial.
This whole ordeal has revealed that the PR/journalist symbiosis is worse than we thought--the press doesn't even realize they are being manipulated. If Microsoft came to Totilo and said "Make a video advertising Halo 4" he would have been incensed. Instead they give him freebies knowing how he's going to react."
While personally I can't stand unboxings, speaking as somebody who has worked both on the writing side and the back end (building sites, looking at successful articles and things to figure out editorial paths), those things do have traction. For some reason, people watch them. People link them to friends. People love them. God knows why.
I can't speak to Kotaku's motivations, but I'd imagine that's why they happily did it after MS sent the machine. Their job, ultimately, is to attain and retain readers and their attention as much as possible. Like it or not, that's priority number one. In order to do that, they must produce content that readers appreciate - so of a decent quality, and of things their readers are interested in. Give the people what they want. Video content in particular is great - users seem to love it right now, and it's great for your ad revenue stream, as people stay on pages with video for longer and see ads longer. Banners and boxes are more likely to be clicked the longer a person is on a page, and you have the added bonus of potential pre/post roll video ads. This stuff is important. These publications are a business, after all.
If Microsoft should've sent the machine to a site where everybody clearly already has 360s is another question entirely. Full disclosure - my review copy of Halo 4 was one of the Limited Edition ones, but I actually viewed that as a bit of a help - as it meant I have the season pass from the get-go, so it means if I want to review or capture video of map packs further down the line I don't have to request codes for them. That's a help. That said - I didn't ask for it - that was just what MS sent by default.
The machine has no real purpose past the unboxing video to the Kotaku team, I'd guess. Considering it probably arrived unannounced, I can't really blame them for doing the unboxing video, considering how many impressions it's probably worth.
This drives to the very crux of the issue once again - which is that this is as much about PR and Marketing practices as it is the practices of critics and/or journalists.
Again, that's a big debate to be had - a critic isn't necessarily a journalist and visa versa. I think a lot of people who are branded or brand themselves a 'game journalist' aren't at all - most don't have the knowledge or the training to be a journalist. Many are fantastic critics, mind. There is a difference, and the moral expectations around each should probably be a little different, too. It's about figuring out where to draw that line. I personally actively swap - when I'm doing a review of a game, I put on my critic hat (I envision it as a light mauve) and my approach adjusts compared to when I'm doing an investigative article or an interview into something that doesn't directly relate to an upcoming game, as that's more of a journalism thing (this is probably a brown fedora). Some people don't switch - a lot of people do one thing or the other, and that's fine - but we as an audience need to acknowledge what they're trying to be. I don't for one second believe everybody is trying to be a journalist.
