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Sony Blackballs Blog Over PS3 Rumor
Posted by
Zonk
on Thu Mar 01, 2007 05:37 PM
from the shot-across-the-port-bow dept.
from the shot-across-the-port-bow dept.
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.
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And then... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:And then... (Score:5, Funny)
Nutshell (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Nutshell (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Indeed it is. Thanks for the clarification.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Your neighbor happens to be the guy all the cool people come to talk to. He gets all the gossip, and people like to listen to what he says. He's very careful to label rumors as such.
B
Re:Nutshell (Score:4, Funny)
Waaaaaaah (Score:5, Insightful)
Play by their rules, or else (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Blackballed? (Score:2)
In other words, I'm total
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Play by their rules, or else (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:Play by their rules, or else (Score:5, Insightful)
Agreed. And Kotaku has no right to future insider information.
This isn't about rights, it's about relationships.
Re:Play by their rules, or else (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I still honestly don't think Sony did anything wrong. No one has a right to their information. And Kotaku is just doing what works for themselves. No big surpri
Re:Play by their rules, or else (Score:4, Insightful)
I wish honesty (harsh honesty, but honesty nonetheless) wasn't news, but these days it is.
Re:Play by their rules, or else (Score:5, Insightful)
1. Site gets a rumor from an outside source
2. Site asks company about the rumor
3. Company denies rumor and asks site to ignore it
4. Site publishes rumor
5. Company punishes site
Since when does SONY dictate what journalists (let alone BLOGS) publish?
Exactly. Mod up. (Score:2)
This wasn't some kind of exclusive content or interview. It was a rumor.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Play by their rules, or else (Score:5, Insightful)
Since when is Sony forced to extend special favours to a site that has refused a request?
Sony isn't dictating what the blog can and cannot post, they're merely saying that if they post something they don't like, they'll stop giving them access to inside information. Seems fair enough to me - or would you expect Sony to continue treating them as they were no matter what the blog posted about them?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
If I want to read Sony press releases, I can do so on Sony's website. Video-gam
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
#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 So
In other news... (Score:2)
-Rick
Why say anything in the first place? (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Grey (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re: (Score:2)
This is hardly "rumor," though.
FTA: "During their correspondence with Sony as preparation for the story, the company asked them very specifically not to run the story."
If they were actually corresponding wit
Re:Grey (Score:5, Insightful)
Okay, so here's probably what happens: someone leaks something to Kotaku. Who's leaking it? We don't know; nor do we know why. But they think it's pretty good stuff. So Kotaku pursues the story with their contacts at Sony. Here's the problems:
1. How many new services or products have been announced as "confirmation" of an apparently "off-the-record" story?
2. In their correspondence with their "official sources", was any information about the "rumor" confirmed or denied? If the official source says, "yes, but please keep quiet about it", well, then you've got a worthless source and a privileged one, and -- even if you attribute everything to the "worthless" source --, your decision to publish could have been and probably was motivated by the confirmation through the privileged source. And that's how your privileged source is going to view it.
3. How did Kotaku establish contacts with the "leak"? From the Sony PR perspective, the answer is going to be, "most likely through the access we gave them to our company".
I have no love for Sony here, but Kotaku's argument for a "journalistic ethical stance" is pretty thin. They weren't "just doing their job".
But I guess the competition among game blogs is fierce, as it is for the consoles they write about.
Not a Big Deal (Score:2)
I think the more interesting thing here is that they're planning on copying Nintendo and Microsoft's ideas. Its a pretty cool combination of the two ideas though.
Re: (Score:2)
They're both right (Score:5, Insightful)
Hate to say it... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Hate to say it... (Score:5, Insightful)
All Sony did was shoot themselves in the foot to the people most likely to buy their stuff. They could have simply had said "no comment" and be done. Now everyone knows Kotaku had solid info (and thus ruined the surprise tuesday), and Sonys PR people are a huge bunch of assholes.
Rumors are reported daily on every game blog (Score:2, Interesting)
Rumor and speculation? (Score:3, Insightful)
Typical Sony (Score:2, Interesting)
actual room... (Score:5, Funny)
Apple and Sony (Score:3, Funny)
Resolved (Score:3, Informative)
http://kotaku.com/gaming/sony/sony-and-kotaku-mak
Looks like they're friendly once again... (Score:3, Informative)
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.
Re:Close to the mark? (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:Close to the mark? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Close to the mark? (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Close to the mark? (Score:4, Insightful)
Mythical Man Month and Game Systems (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:And I should care why? (Score:4, Informative)
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.
Asked to remove, sure ... but blacklisting? (Score:3, Insightful)