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Sony Blackballs Blog Over PS3 Rumor
Earlier today Kotaku ran an article looking at the possible future of PlayStation 3's online component. They detail a form of Sony Mii, with achievements accruing in an actual room as you succeed in playing games. During their correspondence with Sony as preparation for the story, the company asked them very specifically not to run the story. They then threatened to pull PR support for the site if they ran the story. When the story went up anyway, Sony followed through with its threats: "So, it is for this reason, that we will be canceling all further interviews for Kotaku staff at GDC and will be dis-inviting you to our media event next Tuesday. Until we can find a way to work better together, information provided to your site will only be that found in the public forum. Again, I take absolutely no joy in sending you this note, but given the situation you have put me into, I have no choice. - Dave Karraker, Sr. Director, Corporate Communications, Sony Computer Entertainment America." Update: 03/02 02:27 GMT by Z : I am happy to be able to add that Sony and Kotaku made up after what sounds like a lengthy phone call. 'Good on you' to both Mr. Karraker and Mr. Crecente.
If the information being discussed is so important to Sony's strategy or business, why discuss it with members of the MEDIA in the first place? It seems to me that if they wanted them to post a story or interview at a certain time or after a certain date they should have politely requested such an action.
Reacting the way that they did just isn't smart on any level. Something is really wrong with Sony. And I am not jumping on the Sony hating bandwagon either. With all of their problems (rootkits, batteries, flubbed product launches, etc) I don't see how any Sony investor could be happy with the way the company is headed. I would hate to see Sony go completely out of business. We all know that the more competition in the market the better. I honestly think that Sony has become to large. They need to split into separate entities and change their branding accordingly. The Sony name needs to refer to TVs, stereos, Walkmans, and other hardware since that is what Sony is/was originally known for.
I seem to recall Sony saying achievements were stupid and that they wouldn't bother implementing them because no one wanted them, or something to that effect.
Apparently this is more Sony innovation in the "SIXAXIS" sense: bad mouth the innovator when people praise the idea, and then come back and "invent" it themselves and pretend it's some huge new feature, that they'd been planning for years!
I can understand why the may not want "innovation" of that kind leaked, instead preferring to very carefully "manage" the PR to try and pretend this is some great new idea and not just a crappy knock-off of both X-Box Live and the Wii's online services.
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I hate to say it, but I have to side with Sony on this one. They had an agreement and it was broken. It sounds like Kotaku perhaps had some privaleged information and took advantage of it. I know Sony has been digging its own grave lately, but it seems like everyone jumps on any chance to report anything negative about them. And there's a lot of it out there. -justin
and this one was no different. It's not like Kotaku just had an interview with some sony higher ups and released information before they were told to. They reported a rumor and that's it. It would've just been seen as a rumor if Sony hadn't all my confirmed it with this overblown response.
The thing is, Sony has no right to tell another website what they may or may not publish. Sony even trying to tell a journalist what he may or may not write about them is unethical. Kotaku did the right thing by standing up for journalistic integrity, and Sony's PR department are a bunch of asshats. Keeping information from being leaked is an internal matter for Sony. Once it's out, it's out. Now they've left an influential gaming blog with nothing left to lose in terms of their relationship to Sony. And Kotaku no doubt still has whatever source they got the rumours from.
It can be argued whether Kotaku was smart to act the way they did, but they are certainly right - and Sony wrong - from a moral perspective. The big mistake was the Sony PR guy threatening to blackball. To Kotaku, that must have been a sure sign they were sitting on some hot stuff. It would have been stupid not to publish at that point.
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I think that Sony will find this happening more and more as they continue to put out crazy marketing. Its gotten to the point that the PR that they dole out is so innacurate that bloggers find themselves actually researching stories on thier own to get accurate information. Sony doesnt want this because the actual news regarding thier plans is nowhere near as good as they would like us to belive.
There's two schools of thought. This idea is so amazingly better then their announcement this weekend that it screwed Sony. Or that it's exactly what it is and it makes people realizing they are ripping off the other two consoles.
Either way it's Sony doing what Sony does, finding new ways to create bad press. They wanted bloggers and grass roots stuff happening for them, hell they paid for a couple blogs through advertising, but they don't realize bloggers are gamers, not just the press and they'll give stories to gamers and not put up with Sony telling them not to publish a rumor that they might have.
Now Kotaku is NOT 100 percent right here.... well wait, yes they are, they got a rumor, went to sony for a comment, got none worth publishing other then Sony telling them not to publish it, and then published it. Perfectly fine. But Sony is right to black ball them. However instead of telling them they are blackballed, they should have done it subtly, not talked to them, never grant interviews to them and so on. Doing this just produces a PR nightmare that is added to the list of nightmares that they have to deal with.
On the other hand because of all the other hell Sony has caused themselves, this is a relatively minor problem.
I believe Sony also took a shot at Microsoft for poor backwards compatibility as well... and now they are releasing PS3s that play "only" 1000 games. I am not sure what that percentage is but I would guess it is only 50% of the PS2 library at most. I don't really care that much about BC, but I don't understand why they badmouth MS and Nintendo at first, then do the same thing later. However, having weak BC is not really "ripping off" MS or Nintendo like the achievements or motion controler.
A direct ripoff of two major competitors and combining them into one idea is a trade secret?
Sony's in even more trouble than I thought.
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This is a good analysis.
Sony needs positive press a lot more than Kotaku needs help finding Sony stories; empirically, they were finding stuff Sony wasn't giving out even to the people they were supposedly helping out.
Sony just pissed off every video game blogger in the world. Kotaku just showed real class.
It's about relationships, and Sony doesn't understand any relationship but "you suck our cock and pay for the privilege". This is working against them now.
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It's not so much "punishing" them as it is "stop doing them special favors". They haven't threatened to sue or anything like that, they just said they wouldn't invite them to special press conferences and so forth.
Because it's Slashdot, here's a bad analogy:
I regularly loan my car keys to my neighbor, and let him borrow power tools and things. One day, he calls me up. He says he heard a rumor that I have leprosy. I ask him please not to spread the rumor around, I was planning on having a big meeting with all the neighbors in a week to talk about this. He goes ahead and spreads the rumor. So, in response, I stop loaning him my keys and so forth - our relationship becomes frosty. It's not like I'm trying to burn down his house, but he can't really expect me to keep doing him favors.
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Please go back and re-read your quote. Everyone knows social competency and geekness are polar opposites! Maybe Sony's problem is that it is too far advanced for the market. Or maybe that the geeks are running the store instead of doing what they do best.
Right, because Nintendo invented motion sensing in video games. Just because they announced it first doesn't mean that Sony wasn't planning on including it also.
Every video game company takes other people's ideas and uses them. The Wii's online services you praise greatly are largely knockoffs of other existing services. You consider avatars, polls, and news and weather updates original? Please. Xbox Live took things that PC games had been doing for over a decade and simply moved them to the console. Get the stick out of your ass.
The problem, dear sir, is the threat. Trying to strong-arm a news organization with threats was just a Bad Idea.
#1: It is morally questionable. Yes, Sony is a big, evil corporation. That doesn't change the fact it was wrong.
#2: It was a stupid play on Sony's part. They were bluffing on the guess that Kotaku would fold and not publish. They didn't and Sony got nasty. Kotaku published that too.
#3: The best way to confirm a rumor is to threaten over its publication. If Sony would have said "No comment" or "I can't talk about that right now" it leaves it as an unconfirmed rumor. By saying "If you publish that I'll go to war against you, I'll burn down your house and murder your family!!!" they mine as well say "Yes, that rumor is 100% true."
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