I don't spit on your work, you are entitled to your opinion and managing a website demands skills and patience.
But this insane Nintendo apologism is very off-putting to me.
I presume only positive articles about Nintendo are validated.
You know what they say about assuming things. Since the process is simple and we are getting more articles, I'm sure everything some view points from microsoft and sony fans will come forward. It's not like we are all JUST Nintendo fans either, I personally enjoyed the heck out of my 360 and if you've listened to the podcasts, episode 4 or 5 had a pretty big section about how Nintendo dropped the ball on the Wii for the last 2 years and that they really were horrible with supporting that console when they switched over to Wii U.
Also to your first point, I think that Wii U should of had a faster CPU and ram, it wouldn't of hurt to make the system a 60watt or even an 80watt console, or heck use a smaller process than 45nm or 40nm. I have opinions and while I always buy a Nintendo console, it doesn't mean I don't see the mistakes they always seem to make. I've played most of my Wii games through dolphin for the last two years because I don't like dealing with all those sharp edges, I could cut myself.
The single biggest problem with games journalism is that besides reviews, the rest of the all forms of coverages are just puff pieces (where multiple outlets parrot the same things). And the reason is simple, no major so called journalistic outlet would like to fall out of favour with a publisher or manufacturer because that would be detrimental to their existence and revenue.
When you have to deepthroat publishers and manufacturers on a regular basis to ensure exclusive contents flow your way then game journalism isn't journalism, it's outsourced PR.
Is there any mainstream journalist that asks hard hitting questions inevitable ensuing awkwardness notwithstanding?
I really wish there was, this is exactly why I decided to be part of NES, I figure without revenue, there is little chance we would just become a PR site, but we need more view points. Still we will never get interviews with big name developers or publishers, so we don't have a chance to even ask these questions. We also don't repost news, all of our content is unique and that is a goal for us.
As for Emily, she virtually put the site on anyones radar, she worked on huge articles with tons of data and fact checking, she didn't see the site as her blog and realized she couldn't just write opinion pieces. She also built a relationship with indie devs, and I'd say 90% of the dozens of interviews we have on the site is because of her. I'm not trying to defend the article, if I had seen it before hand (I could have
if I would have asked) I would of probably told her that the developer should probably be anonymous and the site should be named. (I haven't asked her which site, and I won't. The existence of such a site is bad enough)