At what point should dedicated Spectrum magazines start reviewing Commodore C64 games?

The Sinclair-branded ZX Spectrum Next is launching, and it'll play Commodore C64 games, apparently

The next ZX Spectrum Next Kickstarter has been announced, and as anyone paying attention will already know, there's going to be a Commode C64 core. And this just feels wrong to me. Not because I want to restart the flamewars from comp.sys.sinclair and such places (actually, I miss them sometimes, so maybe I do), but because it's obvious that Sinclair and Commodore 8-bit machines have distinct lineages and histories, intertwined only in some parts of Europe where both were popular. But why stop at the C64? Why not VIC-20? PET? C16 or Plus/4? In fact, why not just turn the Next into a MiSTer FPGA and be a free-for-all?

I thought the Next existed because it was to be the ultimate Spectrum; a dream machine, compatible with the original, can play ZX80 and ZX81 games, and can do some cool things besides with enhanced Speccy modes, like a better BASIC interpreter, faster CPU clock speed and other such delights. Although I've been critical of the platform for having too many features, or more precisely, feature creep, with the Next team seemingly unable to resist every crazy idea that's suggested on the Internet. But many of these go unused and unloved, and most people only want a reliable and modern Speccy to use with modern televisions (something that the Next hasn't implemented well, but that's for another time).

Anyway, with the Next now supporting a C64 mode (and will this even be licensed? Or will you have to provide your own Kernal, BASIC and Character ROM images? I think with the launch of Commodore.net, there will be interested parties for IP theft here, unless this has been resolved behind the scenes), it's going to be another mess in an already overcooked computer platform.

The most annoying thing about emulators is key mapping; to get the full C64 experience, you want a properly mapped keyboard, and this is something that THEC64 and THEVIC20 from Retro Games Ltd do, and so does the MEGA-65 Computer and Ultimate64 platform. How's the keyboard mapping going to work? Is the asterisk (*) going to be on the B key, or is it going to be somewhere else? What about the Stop key? Is that still going to be Caps Shift and Space? Or will there be an on-screen keyboard like on the C64DTV and THEC64 Mini?

This aside, and as I've alluded to already, Commodore.net have announced a range of "officially branded" Ultimate 64 computers, and so far pre-sales are strong; at the time of writing, around 4,000 units have been ordered. Adding a C64 core to the Next makes even less sense as the Ultimate 64 is just that, the best C64 clone (or compatible) you can currently buy, and will exceed any Next core in terms of completeness and compatibility; I mean, the U64 has a real serial bus to use real Commodore disk drives, and it has a real cartridge port too. Is someone going to make a third-party C64 cartridge port adapter for the Next edge connector? Stranger things have happened.

Surely now the C64 is part of the Next ecosystem, dedicated Sinclair magazines, specifically those Speccy Next publications, will now have to start reviewing C64 games, right? Although I'm concerned that no one interested in backing the Kickstarter is really keen about this new core, especially the freelance writers for Next magazines. I can understand why a Next or Sinclair-interested publication would want to write about the QL core, or even list ZX81 games that work with the Next's ZX81 emulator (some don't), or authoring articles about CP/M on the platform and what it can do. The C64 core will just be there, like so many other features, mostly unused and unloved. My conclusion is thus: the C64 core is a waste of good development time, and is not bringing anyone new to the party. Most Next users will be using it to play Speccy games. It is a pointless edge case that no one really asked for, but every backer will get.