As a journalist myself, I certainly understand people's concerns and it is a bit of a touchy subject. But Jim's also got a good, legitimate point; this is about providing necessary resources for him to do his job. Now when a person's job is evaluating and critiquing entertainment, it does add an all new layer of nuance to the whole issue. One can rightly argue "sure it's a tool to do your job, but you're getting PAID to play video games, it's awesome enough as it is, do the companies really need to be pampering reviewers even MORE by making their games and systems free?" But on the flip side, one can also rightly argue "Gaming for fun and gaming for work are not the same thing, because one is done at your leisure with things you like and done in a relaxed mindset, while the other is done because you have to with games you may not necessarily want to play and done while concentrating on all aspects of the game to scrutinize, analyze, take notes, compare to other games of the same type, and later on likely do some research on the development to determine how certain things came to be."
There's no doubt critiquing games as an occupation is going to have some very big upsides to it. You get access to the latest games, often without having to pay for them, and your occupation coincides with your hobby so there's no question for many it sounds like a dream job (and for some no doubt it would be). BUT it is still work, your reviews have to reflect thorough analysis of the game in question, do so within a deadline, you're not likely going to be at liberty to cherry-pick your assignments and will have to play what you're required to instead of what you want to. Like movie critics, book critics and restaurant critics, there's little doubt game critics love the subject matter of their job, but they are expected to have informed opinions on it, and that often doesn't come without research on parts of the subject that you don't pick up on just by watching them. You've also got to play through/sit through/read through/swallow the lousy drek to be able to know by comparison what's better. And the hell of it is, as with any sort of publicized articles or broadcasts, there will be criticism of your reviews; from the people with differing opinions that want to debate you on it, to the people who think you left things out or missed something or ignored something about a game to the ill-tempered jerks that want to tell you - in ugly tones of voice - how to do your job and think you're incompetent.
So in a nutshell, yeah, I have to imagine being a game critic is an incredibly fun job at its high points. But I can't imagine it's all wine and roses.