As small feud is starting up over the gaming podcast nation and it's fairly one sided. It seems to be a very popular to attack Major Nelson's blog and podcast. Major Nelson is the gamer tag for Larry Hyrb who works on the Xbox Live team at Microsoft. Major is the voice of the Xbox Live team as he posts about new content and changes that are happening on Microsoft's consoles and Xbox Live. He also hosts a weekly podcast where he interviews guests and talks about what is going on in the gaming world with a Microsoft slant.

That is where Major gets in trouble. Major is an employee of Microsoft and as part of his job has created the blog and the podcast. Major comes from a background in radio and is a very good interviewer but tends to delight in the misery of Sony and Microsoft can do no wrong. Major has virtually ignored the hardware issues with the 360 keeping with the part line and has received flack for this. People feel that the site does not do enough to tell people that Major is an employee of Microsoft.

Personally I think most of the attacks are unfounded and more an attack on Microsoft than on Major himself. Anyone that visits Major Nelson's site will see the works, "Xbox Live's Major Nelson" and "From inside the Xbox Live team, discussion on all things Xbox and more" right at the top of the page. Plus Major normally always states he is a Microsoft employee in his podcasts. The only thing he could do more is to brand his site with Microsoft logos or something.

Anyone thinking an employee from Microsoft is going to speak openly about the hardware issues is just crazy. MS will never acknowledge there is a problem and no one working for MS will speak about the subject on the record. For this Major has been labeled a puppet for Microsoft which I just think is wrong.

For a while there Major did attach Sony's PR campaign pointing out their half truths and enjoyed their fall from glory in the US. I enjoyed this too much as well to really fault Major. Sony has talked out of their ass and has barely delivered on what they have claimed. Someone has to call BS on Sony because the gaming press sure doesn't seem to want to offend Sony. (Sony is now claiming they will ship 380 games for PS3 by next March. So 38 titles per month? Really?)

The last knock on Major is his position on micro transactions. He takes the opinion that consumers should vote with their wallets. If it's too expensive don't buy the thing. It's a novel idea the gaming press seems to hate. They blast Microsoft and Major about the micro transactions yet for the most part people are buying them.

I was listening to Major Nelson's podcast even before I had an iPod. He is the best source of news about the Xbox and has good interviews with all kinds of people in the xbox world. At the very least his site will keep you up to date on what demos and movies are available on Xbox Live Marketplace. He also talks a lot about gadgets and other electronics, his site is where I first learned about Vizio TVs. So if you haven't yet go download his show and take a listen to what he has to offer.

Update: Funny how things work. Sony's European blog, threespeech.com, has taken it upon themselves to now attach Major Nelson in their own podcast. Here is a synopsis over at Joystic.com.