Sounds like EGM and 1UP were quite justified in their legal "picking on" of Pereira and Blogeek. He's an EGM Brazil freelancer and has now admitted to swiping the pics from Ziff-Davis' own media servers. EGM editor-in-chief Dan Hsu, who says ZD has the IP logs of the transgression to back it up, explains.

Guys, maybe a little journalistic investigating before you blast us? How about talking to Ziff Davis to get the "full story"? This guy did not get the information from an "anonymous source." He's a freelancer for EGM Brazil who finally admitted to them that he did not have a source, but rather, stole the information from our servers (we have IP logs for this). He used his working relationship with EGM Brazil, stole a password, and took information from our story and posted it up before we could.

If one of Kotaku's freelancers stole a password to steal a scoop, would that be cool? I'd be OK with it if, indeed, he had a source that leaked the information (I stood up for Kotaku for that very act in last year's Sony debacle). But that's not what's happened. What he did was just outright illegal, irresponsible, and is not what journalists are supposed to do.

Please, next time, before blasting us...maybe get the other side of the story?

Thanks to Hsu for clearing up the matter. I'm off to wince!

When contacted over the weekend Pereira denied the allegations and said that he never admitted to anything.

They don't know what they're saying!!! That's right, I in fact write some things for the brazilian mag. Though, I'm a freelancer, and therefore I don't have access to their FTP. I never wrote a story that used the FTP. And I NEVER admitted that I stole the pictures from their FTP, because I didn't. I know it sounds suspicious, but you must believe me, I don't have their FTP login and did not stole any pics form there. They were given to me, and I published them.

Ziff-Davis has been trying to reduce some of its debt by selling off properties, attempting to court buyers for other pubs, and has cut down the number of magazines under its umbrella, shutting down the Official PlayStation Magazine earlier this year.

No, it doesn't sound good, but Young says that "Operationally, we're in very good shape." I'll tell you who's in good shape; GameVideos' Mark MacDonald! Guy must've run track in high school or something.

ZIFF SKIPS PAYMENT [NY Post]

ZD, owner of the likes of 1Up and EGM, was once purchased for $2 billion, but now the company, which is being split into the gaming group and the enterprise division, might not clear the $780 million mark it was purchased for in 1999.

The Post's Keith Kelly reaffirms what I pointed out last week, that the company is insisting that the gaming group include both print and online publications, but goes on to flout my opinion that MTV isn't going to go for the company.

Bidders still looking at parts of the company include Apprise Media and Viacom's MTV publishing unit. Quadrangle is said to have dropped out.

Bids for the company are due at the end of the week. Brian Crecente

See you in Boca [NY Post]

The collaboration isn't that surprising, especially in the light of last week's news that ZD was looking for buyers for their magazines and website. It also makes a lot of sense for Microsoft, which seems to be really dedicated to launching the new Vista operating system as a true gaming platform.

An interesting bit of swagage connected to the deal popped up on the Quarter to Three forums where Ziff-Davis worker bee Jason Cross says that Msoft will be hooking up the magazine's writers with a free PC gaming rigs.

Another example of how Microsoft is taking things a bit more seriously:

You know how the press get free Xboxes or PS2s or Gamecubes (often dev units) in order to properly play and review games for those platforms? Well, if Vista is supposed to be this big gaming platform, why not do the same thing there? So they are. They're working together with VoodooPC and AMD to build gaming boxes - not crazy high-end but quite nice machines - with the latest build of Vista on 'em so everyone can have a reasonable fixed platform to test out Vista and Vista games. And they're going to send out upgrades to it over time (new vista builds, maybe new graphics cards or something).

In other words, they're treating Vista and the PC like a real platform. In fact, you'll see Vista games getting the same sort of unified box treatment and store presence that console games get.

I'm not sure why this makes me uncomfortable, but it does. Jason's right, it doesn't seem to be that different then Microsoft, Sony or Nintendo providing consoles to reviewers. I guess it's the ephemeral nature of PC specs that is bothersome. Instead of providing a single piece of hardware, Microsoft is going to have to keep a computer updated with the latest hardware. Also having the most up to date PC can really impact your gaming experience, and your reviews. What do you think? Brian Crecente

Update: Cross wrote to correct my misassumption that there would be more than one computer going to each magazine. Here, with his permission, is his explanation:

Long story short:

1) Microsoft is not hooking up "the magazine's writers with free PC
gaming rigs." They're sending out *one* Vista-optimized gaming rig each
to a bunch of gaming publications.

2) It's a very good PC, but we've seen higher specs from Dell, Voodoo,
Falcon, etc. It's not crazy high-end at all.

3) Microsoft will upgrade it, but not to keep it tippy-top spec. Just
major improvements that are Vista-related, like DX10 graphics and new
builds of Vista.

4) It's a Vista PC, so it's there to check out what Vista does for
games, not to review current PC games on. Reviewing games on a beta OS
is maybe not a great idea. Not to mention that 1 per publication isn't
nearly enough to have the "reviewers" at large using these machines.