Yes I am. It's the biggest gaming site on the Internet and reviews are moderated. It's not perfect, but it's the best way I know of measuring how the target demographic feels about a game.

Metacritic means nothing to me. I couldn't care less what so called "pro" reviewers think.

"The unfortunate truth of the retail games industry is that it relies on a lot of wheel-greasing, which is why it tends to favour higher-end publishers and developers with deep pockets. It's no great secret that review scores can often be bought indirectly through the means of exclusive interviews, junket goodies and even potential job opportunities for reviewers to become game developers. It's also no great secret that reviewers tend, as a group, to have certain in-built prejudices against certain types of game, and they tend to think and award scores like a community."
- Tadhg Kelly, Lionhead Studios  http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=18816

Actually, I believe both Nintendo and Sony have rushed their third-party licensees. I'm not sure how regularly they do it, but I'm fairly sure it was the folks behind Heavenly Sword who said they wanted more time than Sony gave them, and I know for certain that n-Space wanted to work much longer on Geist than Nintendo let them. The latter's especially jacked up, since Miyamoto basically made them remake the game halfway through the development cycle, without giving them any extra time to compensate.

Silly me, I confused Third Party with First party. Yes both Nintendo and Sony do it.  

I personally think it is still microsoft game. 

So you couldn't care less about what professional reviewers think, but you're willing to listen to a bunch of people on Gamefaqs? The reviews are barely moderated (I can't tell you how many times I've read reviews with false facts about a game, poor grammar, and obvious bias). Besides, Gamefaqs has a view on games that's not very close to what the average gamer thinks. Just look at their top 10 Wii games, and compare it to the most popular Wii games today. Not even close to the same list. And while it may be from fans, there's nothing to discern bias. I mean, hell. You think reviewers can be biased? Try legions of random, anonymous people writing reviews with little moderation.

Polish = Budget.

And FFXII, like GTAIV, proves that with enough hype a "fairly good" game can get amazing scores.

The problem with 12 was that the original producer, Matsuno, had to leave the team mid-production, and that's why we got Van as the main character, instead of Basch (Or Balthier, one of them was supposed to be the main character).

You're probably right about that. It makes me kind of sad that I'm not super-excited about the next game from one of my childhood favorites. Still, at least I'm interested, which is more than can be said for Kojima.

They're contracted to make 3 games for the 360 afaik

Probably 360 because he said they are being rushed into the finishing stages. Sounds like they want to try to throw something at another game.

I know......its not S-E's fault other JRPG devs don't have such a large budget, its not the Reviewers fault either.....the reviewers review it & compare FF's to JRPG's with less polish.....FF wins out majorly there & does get higher scores, thats life.

Yeah matsuno leaving was a problem, but DESPITE that hurdle FF12 was still a highly rated game.

Thats speaks thousands of words to me about the franchise & its high quality which has been maintained throughout all numbered titles.

Release it multiplat and lets see what system it sells better on.