Belgian Retailer's 40% PS3 Failure Rate Claim Refuted

You've heard the phrase "echo chamber"? Here's a rumor that fortunately came and went before it had a chance to reverberate in the digital blathersphere.

Apparently a Belgian game retailer (Game Mania) claimed their new 40GB model PS3s had a 40% failure (and return) rate due to hardware defects, which tabloid game blog Kotaku picked up and posted as "rumor" though the headline read "40 Percent of 40GB PS3s Are Defective?" instead of "Belgian Retailer Claims..." which would've been a better, more responsible way to report the story given aggregator indifference in my opinion.

The next thing you know, the original story (courtesy Evil Avatar) is top of GameTab's "most popular news" feed.

A couple hours later, Sony Computer Entertainment of Europe formally denied the rumor, claiming failure rates for the new model are "very low" and telling Kotaku that "[Sony] are very proud of the quality and reliability of PLAYSTATION 3 and are disappointed that such extremely sloppy journalism has resulted in this totally inaccurate story."

SCEE went on record exonerating Kotaku from the "sloppy journalism" comment, but one of Kovach and Rosenstiel's journalistic tenets is that you must "keep the news comprehensive and proportional" (my emphasis). Is reporting an unsubstantiated rumor that's extremely eye-catching -- which is how the tabloid blogs get a lot of their hits -- responsible? I'm not judging, just asking.

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