Filed in the so stupid and bizarre yet true basket, Sony has blacklisted Gawker Media’s gaming blog Kotaku for the sin of daring to publish rumors about upcoming announcements in relation to Sony’s less than successful gaming platform, the PlayStation 3.
Brian Crecente writes at Kotaku that the blacklisting followed his attempts to gain comment from Sony on the rumors of a new service alleged to be called “PlayStation Home” that includes similar features to that already offered by Nintendo’s Wii console.
Sony responded to requests to comment on the rumors by asking, at first nicely, for Kotaku not to print the rumors, then followed up by less polite emails stating that publishing the rumors could harm Kotaku’s professional relationship with Sony.
Kotaku went ahead a published the rumors, as any self respecting news outlet should, after all gaming blogs are not official PR arms of gaming companies and editorial calls should stay with the publisher, and then received an extraordinary email from Dave Karraker, the senior director of corporate communications for Sony Computer Entertainment of America blacklisting all further contact between Sony and Kotaku.
You can read the full story at Kotaku here.
Question though: who the hell do Sony think they are? How arrogant are these people that they think they can bully independent publishers around with threats over access? Getting good press and bad press is part and parcel of PR, you aim to keep relationships strong and communications open so you can get your positive spin out at all times, but it never gives you the right nor power to dictate what can and can’t be written elsewhere. Sony is literally cutting its nose of to spite its face. Is it little wonder that the PS3 has bombed?
Tags: Sony, PlayStation3, Gawker Media, Kotaku
Originally posted on March 1, 2007 @ 6:45 pm