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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.
Dave Karraker, Sr. Director, Corporate Communications, Sony Computer Entertainment America, then picked up his ball and went home with it.
That'd be the difference between on the record and off the record. Now we need only await for the blogosphere's calm and reasoned response.
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
Rule number one about secrets: If more than one person knows it, its no longer secret.
They said not to do it. They reinforce it. And yet they do it anyways. Makes sense that they get blackballed. If you want exclusive info, you play by their rules. If you want to be a "stick it to them" outfit, then they'd better be prepared to get their information from other sources.
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.
This is a case of grey area if ever there was one.
We can argue that Kotaku was foolish and that Sony was harsh, but really it looks to me like both companies were doing their jobs.
It's in Kotaku's interest to publish rumors, to not be "under the thumb" of any one company they report on, and to do their journalism in as unbiased and unthreatened a fashion as possible.
It's in Sony's interest to dodge rumors, save important features for display at key media events, and handle their PR in the fashion they feel is best for their image.
Could Kotaku have tried harder to get Sony's blessing on the article? Maybe. Could Sony have been less harsh? Maybe. I don't think this constitutes a mistake on either's part, just a sad end.
Thunderclone: ONE MAN ENTERS! TWO MEN LEAVE! ONE MAN ENTERS! TWO MEN LEAVE!
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.
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
Both sides have a point here. Sony depends on the media to generate buzz about their products and releases, and so provides them with a lot of exclusives and insider information. The flip side of this is, they do not expect information on a service that is in development to become public before they are ready to announce themselves However, Kotaku did not receive this information from Sony. They only went to Sony to confirm it, this was not something sony provided to them and so they had no right to ask Kotaku not to run it. I wonder how it would have played out if KT had not been so diligent, and just reported the rumor without attempting to confirm it.
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.
Why not just "no comment"? Would it have been quite as big a story if Sony had just refused to comment instead of throwing out lots of threats? Does Microsoft do this? I know Apple sues, but what do other companies do when faced with this kind of thing? Did Sony ask them to hold off on the story, or try to work with them, or just throw out threats?
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.
Wow, Apple and Sony sound more and more similar every week with stories like these. Products going for "five hundred and ninety-nine US dollars", company getting pissed at bloggers for leaking stories, what's next? Maybe someone from Sony will diss DRM. We can only hope.
Reviewing just the first hour of video games.
Let me summarize the article for people who haven't read it.
This was not insider information.
This was not information from SONY.
This was information from an anonymous source.
This was reported as a rumor from an anonymous source.
They called SONY to inquire about the rumor before publishing.
SONY neither confirmed, nor denied, the rumor, but instead threatened the blog if the blog should run the article.
The blog ran the article.
SONY followed through on threat.
{-- end of story --}
{-- begin commentary --}
SONY should have confirmed the rumor, and then asked the blog to wait for the okay to run the story as being the official word of SONY, or else face the wrath of SONY and lose their insider access. That would have been in the spirit of the agreement between the blog and SONY.
Punishing a blog for publishing an rumor from an anonymous source is just another bone-headed SONY move.
"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."
Yes, but given that Sony couldn't even handle a simple maneuver as you suggested, one even the most socially inept geek could handle....it begs the following--if they cannot handle basic PR, why would I trust that they could handle the rest of their console which includes complex tasks such as hardware, software, and programmer/developer relationships?
The PS3 may be a glorious piece of hardware and have jaw-dropping graphics. But at this point, who the hell cares. A bank that isn't unstable that is perceived as unstable becomes unstable (as people withdraw funds due to fear, like a stock market bust); Sony has a product they are just mauling themselves with every action they take, so why should I drop $500-600 on the console + $200 for games for something going down the drain?
Nintendo with the Wii is printing money. Sony seems to be content flushing money down the toilet with the PS3; hell, I wouldn't be surprised if *PS2* purchases we see from all the industry console and games numbers has become the unintended *bright* side to the PS3's launch for Sony.
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Funny you should mention that.
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.
http://kotaku.com/gaming/sony/sony-and-kotaku-mak
Sony's PR contacted Kotaku, they talked, and while continued to disagree reverted on their decision to ban them from their press channels:
e up-240922.php
http://kotaku.com/gaming/sony/sony-and-kotaku-mak
Everyone makes mistakes; I'm glad to see Sony realized their err and wasn't prideful about maintaining their snap decision.
First of all, I think the proper thing to do is to just stick with the standard "No comment" approach, which is what Nintendo and MS always do. Ask them something that's fairly obviously true, you'll get "No comment". Ask them something outlandishly false, you'll also get "No comment". That's pretty much been the MO of the industry, and we're all pretty used to it.
Now, I'm sure there are times where a "No comment" isn't enough. Maybe it's leaked confidential information. Or someone broke an NDA. In those cases, they'll ask a site to remove it, and sure enough most will.
Even if they don't, I don't recall blacklisting as a tactic that's been done before (please correct me if I'm wrong, and supply examples/evidence). Of course Sony/MS/Nintendo/anyone-else is free to do what they please, but there's a reason why it's generally (never?) done. The backlash is pretty severe, especially in this industry where its fans are so vocal and connected.
-- jchenx
They literally said "over 1000" but speculation is that the number is fairly close to that.
In the mythical man month, there is a talk of system generations. The first system you build kinda works but is kludgy, you fight to get it to do what you want, but it works. The NES was a CHEAP system to build, nothing fancy, but hacking processors onto cartridges kept it going long after the hardware was obsolete. Sega's SMS was better looking than Nintendo's offering, cartridges more reasonably sized, but didn't have the fun factor as nailed down, but they got cool games out there. Sony's first system, the PS, was similar, switched controllers in the middle, did whatever they could with their hardware, dumped it on the market (trying to recover SOME sunk costs, not even turn a profit originally, and pricing reflected that). MS figured out how to build a system for people that wanted the best graphics at a subsidized price, they never set out to make a profit, and succeeded at turning a nice loss.
The second generation system is better, you have things under control, learned from your first system, make things a bit better, etc. The SNES had a nice lifespan, could do more out of the box (didn't need lots of custom controllers, etc.), was the NES but better. Genesis was an awesome system, it was a lot of fun, had awesome games, awesome controllers, a good stretch, made Sega money. The PS2 and Xbox 360 were good sequel systems. Backwards compatible, did what the old one did plus more, etc. They learned along the way (Sony came out the gates swinging, fought for each franchise, etc., pushed Nintendo out of several large chunks of the market), MS realized that you need parts where you get price breaks or can buy on the open market, otherwise you can't win the marathon.
The third system is over engineered, over thought, rediculously complicated, expensive, beyond schedule, and a disaster.
The N64 had plastic parts everywhere to put upgrades in, stuff hanging out of controllers, etc. It was shipping cartridges that cost serious money to produce (and had limited space), everyone else CDs that cost next to nothing, etc. While they made money, it was a disaster for a market that they were the leader of... didn't help that Sony was competing with a second system, so they weren't idiotic. The Saturn was the best 2D gaming system ever made, just as console games moved to 3D. It was ridiculously expensive from throwing everything in to avoid a Sega-CD and other upgrade fiasco, and set the stage for Sega's exit from consoles. Sony's third system IGNORES everything that got them there (cheap systems, easy to crank up production, granted the PS2 had some custom hardware, but NOTHING like the PS3), playing around with Blu-Ray, etc. In short, Sony is making every third system mistake, and we're watching it in the marketplace.
I predict that Sony will lose a LOT of money this round, but maintain a leadership position. They need to start selling the machines for $299 and not care how much they lose, and they'll do it, but it will be a REALLY REALLY expensive mistake. The PS worked because it was cheap and the R&D was already sunk. The PS2 carried the first gen system forward as just a better Playstation. The PS3 is a third system nightmare.
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.
If they really were planning that from the start they might have told developers a bit earlier than two weeks before E3, barely enough to hack some motion controls into one demo.
The reason you don't see Microsoft doing this is that they already tried it a few years ago with the Freestyle Pro and realized that tilt sensors in a traditional controller shape suck.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
In order to save costs, the European and Australian models will have a "limited range" of backwards compatibility.
They used different hardware specs for their models, replacing a PS2-like hardware chip with software emulation that isn't as good.
I went to eat some animal crackers and the box said, "Do not eat if seal is broken." I opened the box and sure enough..