In an interesting twist, the Official Xbox Magazine (OXM) was denied a request by Sony Public Relations for a review unit of one of Sony's popular Bravia line HDTV's. OXM was flat out told no, and the reason given by the Sony rep was that "I have to support our friends over at our sister company" and that "Sony is going to pass on the opportunity." It should be noted that while OXM is a Microsoft focused outfit, they are not owned by Microsoft and try to review one HDTV each issue.

I have a Journalism degree in Public Relation and in my opinion; this is just an irresponsible position for Sony's PR firm to take. While Sony PR for televisions may have felt they were watching the back of Sony Computer Entertainment America (SCEA), they have accomplished nothing more than inadvertently fueling the console war and the fanboy furor that permeates within the gaming communities. If we have learned one thing in the digital age, news (and rumors) spread incredibly fast and the court of public opinion will be quick and harsh. In fact, I am contributing to it right now by bringing it to the front page of GamingNexus.

Regardless of whether you agree or disagree with Sony PR, the bottom line is that neither the Xbox 360 nor Sony Bravia needs each other to sell their products. They are very capable of moving units on their own, and are also very compatible when hooked up to each other. The request by OXM appears to be innocent enough, as they could have easily contacted Toshiba, LG or Samsung among others. Instead OXM went after what they perceived (and experienced) to be one of the best TVs on the market and were denied.

We have reviewed TVs previously at GamingNexus, and plan to continue that in the New Year. Our goal is, and always will be to provide the best information possible to our readers so you can make an informed decision when it comes time to add a TV to your gaming rig. While we aren’t focused on one particular platform, I would hope review unit availability would never come down to what we said or who we cover. Check out the entire story by OXM's Dan Amrich on the OXM site.