Kotaku
What a hellish day it has been today. Both for Kotaku and I'm sure team Sony.
First to summarize: We posted a rumor after Sony asked us not to and they emailed to say we were no longer welcome at any of their private GDC events and that they would no longer provide us with any information found outside of the public forums.
We posted said e-mail and the Internet imploded.
First, I have to say thank you to all of the websites, newspapers, magazines, people who were so quick to come to our defense and supported our decision to stand by our story.
Second, I want to thank Dave Karraker, head of SCEA PR, who was big enough to call me and talk the whole thing through after this exploded.
He told me his take on the story and his frustrations and I told him mine, in the end we agreed to disagree on some level, but also decided that our readers and gamers in general would be best served if Sony and Kotaku could still play nicely together.
In a nutshell: The story remains up and Sony has re-invited us to the meetings and interviews initially scheduled for the Game Developers Conference.
It's unfortunate that we, not just Kotaku and Sony, but all of us had to go through this, but it's good to see the outcome: We were doing our job and Sony was doing theirs and now we can both continue to do so.
Comments
Well good of David to man up and come to an understanding. Sure was an interesting day here on the intertubes.
A happy ending indeed... or is it? O_o
Well, thats the first smart thing Sony has done in awhile.
Once again, a huge thanks for sticking to your guns on the story and not allowing Kotaku to be browbeaten into submission.
Here Here! Good to hear its over, but man the shit storm this caused! Heh.
Glad you sorted it out like gentlemen and glad its all sorted. What did Kotaku have to give up? Heh. Surprised Dave was quick to back down.
who keeps the debug unit?
Yay!
Who gave who the BJ?
@Scazza: We didn't give up anything.
I'm totally going to make out with David the next time I see him. Maybe even give him a foot massage!
OH DRAMA! HOW I LOATHE THEE!
Sony couldn't handle the PR hit, and thus had to back off.
Keep the PS3 or no?
Sony are pathetic hahaha.
Well, that was a crazy 3 hours there.
GROUP HUG!
Shakespeare is turning over in his grave green with envy..
Get a life Kotaku and while you're at it give half of it to Sony
Congrats, Kotaku, for sticking to your guns. Also, congrats, SONY- Mr. Karraker took the only honorable option-revisting the mistake and reversing course (it is never easy to admit you were wrong).
Glad it is settled, although I kind of wanted to see what would happen if you didn't make up.
Back to business as usual; posting stories about Sony's recent failures, rather than about something they might be about to do right.
holy crap, posting in a legendary thread! i'm pleasantly surprised sony came to terms with what happened. congrats to kotaku for sticking to their guns. can't wait for more 1st-class sony coverage.
good to hear
Sony realised they fucked up again, and this is bad PR they can fix. So Dave's bosses called him and said, call them, discuss it, and back down. Cause it will only get worse. And it was very smart of them to do.
Thank you Sony for acting like a man and admitting (through backing down) that you made a mistake, and talked it over rather then just passing threats through email.
Yea Kotaku, and yea Brian!
Damage done.
lol damn we won pretty quickly. power to the people, ha ha
I breathe a sigh of relief. The Interweb was on fire, good thing Sony put out the flames. Kotaku is more important than it seems.
Fair enough. And actually, this kind of counts as another positive news release, Sony is on a roll today with 3 if you count that. Things are looking up. I can't tell if I'm being sarcastic or not.
I'm happy to hear the news. I don't plan on getting a PS3 but I'm glad we'll continue to have the inside scoope. Good to see when people make the effort communicate, things can be fixed nicely.
Hooray, we're all a family again!
This is good news, for all parties. I'll be seeing both of you at GDC, so you better play nice.
Glad things are resolved.
Sony had no choice but to make up. They need sites like Kotaku. It's the internet community that makes up portion of their installed base.
Imagine if I came to Kotaku, but couldn't find any new information on the PS3. As a potential customer, I'm no longer being exposed to something that may get me to buy their offerings.
Imagine if this happened to others, because of what i published. Anytime a rumor appears is communication broken off?
Sony is a PR disaster. And their actions today only further confirms they need to handle themselves better.
Next time don't bite the hand that feeds you, Kotaku. I doubt you'll get off so easily.
I sense an assassination plot at the GDC.
The damage has already been done. I know they're trying to make things right, but people aren't going to remember when Sony invited Kotaku back to the events, but rather when they went nuts over a rumor report.
"posting stories about Sony's recent failures, rather than about something they might be about to do right"
Well, something they are about to do good is overshadowed by threats...
That's great. I'm glad to see that both of you (collectively) could come to an agreement.
It's good to hear that Sony decided to be reasonable about this. It's great news for both Sony and Kotaku.
Also, congrats for not gloating over Sony's backflip.
Seriously, this is great news, and I'm glad that we aren't TOTALLY hated by the SCEA PR team. (At least publicly!)
It takes some serious balls to change your position on something like this and I think Sony deserves some big credit for getting in touch with Brian to hash this out. I'm gonna celebrate with a beer.
Good news. Thank you Sony for fixing your mistake. Thank you Kotaku for doing what you do best, staying loyal to the readers and keeping your integrity.
@Blob1576:
No doubt blob. Kotaku don't go! "ITS A TRAP!" -Ackbar
Glad that Sony fixed their mistake before it was too late :) It would have been very interesting if they hadn't....
Great news indeed. Always nice to see arguments dealt with properly.
Ah, Today is a good day for gaming.
Thank GOD! Sony FINALLY made a smart move and now, Kotaku's now even more important now than ever.
AKBlade13
Urge to beat up Sony workers at GDC... lowering.
Good job at purging my HORRIBLE RAGE.
This was great though, very exciting for what would have been a boring Thursday.
Very glad to hear this. Mr. Karraker must have read my post in the other e-mail. :)
In all seriousness, this was the only rational response that could have happened without Sony getting crucified by the press. I'm glad Sony could see that.
Brian, you've just gotten a whole lot more readers, as well as bolstered your rep. Good for you.
That was fast.
It was hard to find a side in this debacle, to the point where it was pretty much impossible and unnecessary.
As you said, everyone was doing their job. I can't blame Sony for trying to protect the information (it's pretty obvious now that it was their big surprise for GDC) and I can't blame Kotaku for doing what everyone else does in posting rumours. This was surely a touchy subject for Sony and they wanted to prevent any of the information from leaking before the announcement at all costs, but in the end their public image was probably more important. After all, the deed was done.
Ah well. I'm sure it must've sucked for you and Sony. Either way, thanks for taking it so professionally and not going on a complete anti-Sony tirade like you could have.
We need to be able to post pictures in comments. because for 'Sony has re-invited us to the meetings and interviews initially scheduled for the Game Developers Conference.' I just want to post a picture of admiral ackbar and 'it's a trap!'
on a serious note though today was great.
1. huzzah for interesting day, apart from the post about the father and his child and how gaming affects them, this is the second most interesting event in Kotaku history.
2. huzzah for RUMBLAXIS
@Zoph: Um, you seemed to have missed something.
Thank GOD! Now Sony's PR respect has gone up and now Kotaku's is more important than ever.
AKBlade13
Wow... common sense and civility prevail.
Stunning.
The only reason they apologised is because they saw the reaction, not because they felt they should. Damage has been done in my opinion
I love the fact though that this proves all the sony fanboys, who were saying kotaku shouldn't have done it, wrong. The fact it was Sony who HAD to apologise shows they were the ones who acted wrongly. Everyone who tried to defend their actions in the last story should be ashamed.
Big applause for Karraker. And bigger applause for Kotaku. I'm glad it all worked out.
"We posted said e-mail and the Internet imploded". Brian, that was funny funny stuff. Well done dude.
And I'm very impressed with how calm and level-headed your response was. Glad to see that Sony came to their senses - regardless of what the reason was, or how pure their motives were, things are just better this way.
Now if this rumour is actually true, then that'll be very very cool. What would be even cooler is what some random poster here said: that Sony will also announce a media centre application for the PS3 at the same time.
Go Kotaku!
Okay guys, everything's peachy-keen. Score one for everyone, eh?
By the way, guys still complaining about Sony: aren't they allowed to have a good news day for once? Yeesh, I'm pretty much certain I won't be getting a PS3 and I still think it sounds pretty awesome. Some of you guys need to tone down the hate. Kotaku's not banned anymore, it's the best of everything, etc., plus now everyone can go get real hyped for GDC!
This must have been quite a power trip for both Sony and Kotaku.
It bugs me though that I didn't get my questions answered, but it's great to see Kotaku and Sony are making up (hey, don't make out!).
~*group hug*~
You better record your GDC interviews with Sony reps, I want to see their facial expressions when the topic comes about.