Microsoft Hitting An All Time Low

So, the story that's been flying around the internet recently, is that Microsoft have been paying off popular YouTubers to say very nice things about the Xbox One in their videos.  As far as I understand how it works, you have to be partnered with Machinima (one of the biggest gaming channels on YouTube), you have to have at least 30 seconds of game and you can't say anything bad about the game or the system, it all has to be smiles and happiness.

Now this isn't uncommon in advertising for companies to use big name people to push their products.  For example I remember those Gillette shaving adverts where they were using famous sports people to tell us what a good shave they were having, and no one said anything then.  But there is a difference between that and what Microsoft are doing.

When those adverts appear on TV, you know and are told that these people have been paid by the company to do endorsements for their products so you take what they say with a pinch of salt.  But YouTubers on the other hand are a different story, they aren't big name celebs, they are just people and the reason we watch those videos is because we want another persons honest opinion.

If you watch a video of someone taking part in this deal (there's a tag you can search for), they don't tell you that they are being paid to endorse the Xbox One, they just talk about it like it's a great piece of kit and pass it off as their own honest opinion, which I can bet for at least a certain percentage of those videos, it's total crap.  If you are one of those people who said nice things about the XBone JUST for the money, then I hope all your game systems break at the same time because you don't really have any place critiquing games like that when you have absolutely no integrity.

People wouldn't even be as upset about it if they just came out and said "yeah, we are paying people to say nice things" because at least then we know we would have to think very hard before we took anything in any Xbox One video seriously.  The fact that they are so underhanded about it is what makes the whole thing really pathetic.

But then this makes me think 2 things.  The first being that if they are willing to pay YouTubers to say nice things about the Xbone, how much are they paying big news sites for good write ups of games?  When things like Bioshock Infinite get 10/10s I've always said that it's because someone being paid for that score rather than the game being any good because that game is about as stupid as it gets.

The other thing is, how do we know that Microsoft aren't paying off people to say nasty things about the PS4?  Now I'm going to be rather wary of any Machinima partners slagging off Sony because maybe they got paid to say that shit as well.

Microsoft is fucking pathetic, instead of paying people off to say nice things about their system, why don't they just use that money to make some GOOD FUCKING GAMES....idiots.