Someone asked me what I thought of the PSP Vita

To me it seems a physical embodiment of Sony's frantic desperation. As if they threw every controller/button/sensor/gizmo on to the thing that they could in hopes that SOMETHING would resonate with consumers & developers. All these things made the device bigger and pricier too, though. 


In the end the handheld device that the Vita best emulates is a shovel. One which Sony is using to dig themselves a tiny bit further into a hole.

VaioS laptop

Early in the year, I said that one of the trends we'd see was what I called more 'bespoke' design in our computers & electronics. More looking like items of fine craftsmanship, less prominent branding (or - gasp - no branding at all), simplicity and elegance over LEDs & complexity.

The new Vaio S series is certainly an example in that direction. Unfortunately, it still has the logo/branding, but on the plus side, it has a brown/gold option that immediately made me think of Robin Williams life-editing cutter laptop in The Final Cut (an awesome sci-fi flick, if you haven't seen it) which I've pointed to before.

Sony Viao S

A replica of the Final Cut laptop

Williams holding the prop from the movie.

GDC 2011 Trends & Sessions

This year’s GDC was my 18th and I returned from it… spent. Unfortunately I also returned with the dreaded “GDC Lurgy”, the annual disease that spreads when 19,000 sleep-deprived immune-suppressed game developers get together and finger the same touchscreens, and so was knocked out sick for two days this week, thus the late report.

Trends:

It was an interesting GDC this year for one to try to infer industry direction from “sniffing the air” (especially since the olfactory peripheral guys were back this year!). On the one hand, there was a loud and visible emergence/amplification of mobile (iPhone in particular) and social (being almost synonymous with Facebook – which is short-sighted). On the other hand, you had a significant majority of the show (exhibits, sessions, etc) continuing quietly and steadily down the big-budget AAA path. That said, here’s what I took away as trends, as judged by show impressions and conversations.

1. Developers have MANY choices of platforms to target

One takeaway was that given the sheer number of devices playing games today, developers have more choices than ever before in where to focus their game-making efforts. The sheer pace of change, combined with secrecy about numbers from owners of closed platforms as well as successful developers, along with the confusing and/or obfuscated data about new business models (analysts are also having trouble parsing/sizing some of them) means that the choices are daunting, and yet there ARE choices, versus a more limited landscape in the past.

2. Social growth begets social gaming cred

Last year there was a huge amount of interest in Facebook as a game platform, much of that interest perked up by the money that games like Farmville making eye-raising amounts of money. There was also some envy with that, with much of the established industry saying “these weren’t real games” etc. Over the past year, many industry vets have shown up in leadership roles at social games companies, acknowledging that perhaps there’s a real vehicle for game experiences here. To the rest of their nay-saying counterparts, the sentiment was best captured by the yearly “Rant” session, entitled social-gamers rant back. For a poignant, synopisis, view Brenda Brathwaite’s 5 minute rant here.

Note that one of the themes she touched on was an influx of two types of developers into the social gaming scene, the designers looking to explore the medium’s potential, and what she called the “strip miners”, those looking to exploit existing models for maximum revenue and profit. This was also touched on by Scott Jon Siegel’s rant, a transcript of which can be found here.

3. The Mobile gold-rush continues, but with some sobering of expectations

There was of course a ton of interest in mobile, led by interest in Apple for iPhone & iPad games, and with Android being the only other platform of note. Window Mobile 7 is mentioned as a possible credible 3rd, but that’s it. There is trepidation about Android, as the exciting growth and size of the installed base is tempered by a fragmented platform landscape and less lucrative marketplace. That said, people are developing for it more than sitting on the sidelines. Sentiment seems to be that people are marching ahead but testing their footing as they proceed.

4. AAA games get more ruthless

While there was much excitement about the new areas mentioned above, most established companies were clear about the size of these new markets and the fact that they pale in comparison to the established markets for AAA fare. For example, in Jobs keynote, he boasted of $2B paid out to developers in the almost 3 years since the appstore’s debut. In that same period, depending who’s estimates you listen to, the console business generated >$50B of SW revenue for that same time period (Never mind that the $2B is divided amonst 250,000 apps, giving a mean of maybe $4k/app/ and a median that is likely much, much lower. Aka, a brutal hit-curve fall-off).

However, given that console SW market is not expected to see any remarkable growth, this means that when the pond isn’t getting any larger, the fish start fighting one another for the food. The big fish get bigger, and the medium size fish starve. This means that the console title hit curve will become even steeper, as mega-blockbuster franchises focus on achieving numbers like those we’ve seen lately for CoD, Red Dead Redemption, and their ilk. As they manage their portfolios tightly, $50M titles will manage to get their many-multiple returns (e.g. Call of Duty’s latest incarnation is estimated to have taken in excess of $1B in retail sales). As these mega-blockbusters compete for share of mind and share of wallet, the place the money will come from is the “AA” titles. Those with significant budgets($10-$40M) but falling short in the awareness building, etc. If 2008-2010 saw the demise of the B title, we will start to see some of this same effect on AA titles, making the hit curve even steeper. (Note: here’s a good quote echoing that sentiment from Cliffy B).

5. Early prep for the next-generation of AAA games

Some folk were talking next-generation tech for the next generation of consoles, without being specific about when that might be. Epic Games had a theater presentation going with a demo of their next-generation tech, using a high end PC and triple-SLI high end discrete setup. I’ll leave the dissection of tech up to others (vid of demo here), but suffice it to say that it bolstered my confidence that the next generation of consoles WILL be able to deliver a visual experience that is demonstrably different than the current generation. Perhaps not the same degree of leap of, say, PS2->PS3, but still noticeably different. And as there is clearly a market for $50M+ titles, I’m confident there’s a market for next-gen consoles (and PCs). A rumor was circulating about a next-gen Nintendo console debuting at E3, but I’ve been unable to get any industry confirmation on this. Anyone know better? :-)

6. First warnings on Closed vs Open

Several sessions had industry veterans warning on the long term costs and risks of being subservient to closed platforms. Veteran Trip Hawkins had a ‘rant’ session on this, pointing to the browser as the path to salvation. An even more direct-to-the-point talk was one of my favorites of the conference, from Dan Cook of Spryfox, who’s talk was entitled “How to survive the inevitable enslavement of developers by Facebook”. (Dan promised to post his slides soon to his blog at: http://www.lostgarden.com/)

7. Indies are Hot

In a good way that is. The IGF (Independent Games Festival) was filled with a massive number of REALLY polished and innovative games. Many of these are falling into the category of what Chris Hecker called “AAA Indies”, or in other circles, “Perfect gems”. The idea being that rather than being an all-encompassing experience done on a shoestring budget, that they are games that take a single idea or game mechanic (the ‘gem’) and polish it to perfection.

On the plus side, everyone now considers indie fare as a must-have in their portfolio of titles for their platform, and so between that and the number of platforms, there is no shortage of ways that indies can get games to market. On the down side the level of polish expected means that by and large, indies are expected to develop multi-hundred-k titles on their own dime. Publishers and platform vendors alike are signing deals with these guys, but with mixed results, leading to the same risk aversion we see with AAA games. Budgets like they've normalized for console downloadables around a ceiling of $800k-$1M, and while titles like Spyparty and Limbo are likely sign-ons, titles like Dinner Date (my fave, and described as ‘You play as the subconsciousness of Julian L, waiting for his date to arrive. You listen in on his thoughts while tapping the table, looking at the clock and eventually reluctantly starting to eat...’ are far more risky to fund, but necessary for the medium of games to reach its potential.

8. The Last stand of the handhelds (or is it?)

Lots of talk about Sony and Nintendo’s bets on the NGP and 3DS respectively. While there was also theorizing about the console’s demise in the era of more multi-purpose platforms, there was a general sentiment that the place this battle will first come to a head is in handheld. It can be summarized as follows: “Can a dedicated-function device (3DS, NGP) built on a business model of $40 games, offer a sufficiently compelling experience to justify the cost over a general purpose device (iPod touch, iPhone) with $0.99 games”. To their credit, both Sony and Nintendo are taking this seriously and have very compelling offerings to bring to the table:

- Nintendo: 3D display, dual display, first to market with streaming 3D Netflix (trailers at first), exclusive deal with AT&T for 10,000 free wifi access spots in NA, amented reality games, and of course, a killer IP lineup including Mario and Zelda.

- Sony: High-end HW that should do a killer job on 3D tiles, playstation back-catalog content, a good IP catalog including Metal Gear, etc, also a focus on augmented reality, and a touchpad in back*.

(*Prediction: everyone is undercalling the touchpad on the back of the NGP. I predict this is going to prove to be the controller that finally cracks first-person shooters on handhelds. Every other attempt has sucked)

It certainly will be interesting to watch it play out. My personal hunch is that Nintendo is safe, despite a device inferior to the NGP, based mainly on their 1st party IP. Sony has a harder challenge. They’ll find a market, but I’m doubtful it’ll be large enough to keep the ecosystem aloft.

Favorite Sessions Attended

I managed to attend a dozen or so sessions. Here are my favorites:

I. Nintendo Keynote: Consisted of 3 sections, each of which was quite interesting:

Part 1: Nintendo background, growth of market, lessons learned

• Iwata gave an overview of his history at Nintendo and lessons learned. Among them that content is king (e.g. He gave the example of having programmed a technically superior game to his counterpart/rival Miyamoto, who’s game contained an Italian plumber named Mario – lesson learned)
• Nintendo has surveyed 5,000 users across all age groups/demos for the past 7 years. Probably an unparalleled insight into gamers. Great graphs showing gamings permeance into culture over time. Bottom line is that the population that isn’t gaming is shrinking and aging over time. Near future will be everyone(!), Google for any of the numerous liveblogs to see the charts.
• Industry quotes echoing some of the trends I mentioned above as to AAA games: e.g. "We’re all playing much bigger gambles, and that’s getting scary” – Mike Capps, Epic

Part 2: Reggie came out to do the infomercial section: 3DS: First to deliver streaming Stereo3D on Netflix (!), Record Stereo Video or take Stereo Pix, AT&T deal to provide 10,000 wifi hotspots for 3DS owners free of charge across US, at airports, malls, etc, Improved digital store, Mario & Zelda titles in the works <-- note how games was the LAST item discussed in the infomercial section.

Part 3: Iwata came back out, talked about Industry concerns. This was a two part thing: ( A) Large games mean increasing specialization; harder to develop talent that sees “whole picture”. Those that do are aging. (B) and this was uncharacteristic of Nintendo: A direct attack on Apple and to a lesser degree, Facebook. Short version goes like this: Closed systems have hundreds of titles, “big app sites” have many tens of thousands – not enough for everyone to make money. Those systems not designed FOR games specifically care more about harvesting the ecosystem than nurturing it. Nintendo cares about protecting value for devs, and value in games (i.e. 0.99c games will lead to low quality fare). It was definitely a defensive attack, but not without an element of truth

II. NG Moco’s Neil Young on why Japan is a leading indicator of the worldwide mobile market

This was a great session for 3 reasons: (1) Half of it was really a back story on how the startup got off the ground up until it’s acquisition, (2) Great insight on the future of mobile, (3) Neil is a great presenter and presented almost half of his talk while impersonating his VCs, one of whom he swears is a shoe-in for Michael Myers “Fat B**tard” character.

Interesting conclusions they reached before re-vectoring the company: Being a mobile games publisher was unsustainable. Back of envelope math: Would need to have 3 titles in top 10 – every day, all year, to be a $20M company – Almost impossible to do. Note that market bigger now, but regardless, decided this was the wrong path to being a multi-billion dollar company. Re-vectored around F2P games, and targeted an acquisition/partnership that would let them broaden the service across platforms and geographies.

Great quote: “In a world where there are more apps than appetite, customer relationship is the real valuable IP”

Hope he posts slides, there was some great info on growth of japanese mobile market as indicator of future.

III. Game Design Challenge: 3 designers face of in designing a game around a given, difficult-to-design-for theme. This year was “bigger than Jesus” a design challenge around designing a game that could serve as a religion. Entertaining, thought provoking. My favorite (and not the winner) was Jenova Chen (of That Game Company) who’s religion was centered on the propagation of ideas, and who designed a meta-game on top of the TED website. Cool concept, and I'm betting he'll get a TED invitation out of it!

IV. Epic Legal Battles: A panel of games-specializing lawyers and legal profs each gave a mini-presentation on areas of pending increased legal activity over the near future. I agree on all counts:

• Collision between Games and Gambling. To the degree that players can get any real-world value out of the game, or get anything of perceived value, you stray close to gambling laws that are deliberately vague. Ticking timebomb? [KP: Yet another reason that the industry needs to continue to lobby for games as art deserving of free speech protection and respect as an artform. Gaming’s esteem by the general populous will determine how it withstands coming under the eye of scrutiny, which it inevitably will]
• Antitrust: Finger pointed directly at Apple and Facebook, but this could apply to any closed platform. Good quote on the idea of filing suit against Apple “you could. It’s like lying down across barbed wire so your friends can then walk over your body”
• Destroying Worlds: When a game is a service, and you find it no longer is profitably, and you want to take it down, you violate a contract you have with the remaining players. Despite whether or not the fine print says you can do so or not, their hearts are in it, and they may want revenge.
• Privacy: We’ve only scratched the surface. The more people put online, the more they’ll care. Also, laws are coming up to speed with the issue and as new laws go into effect, games industry will need to deal with it. Example given of ‘cookie law’ going into effect in EU in May.

V. Social Game Developers Rant. The rant session is always one of the better ones of GDC. See trends II and VI in the trends section above for links to a couple of the better ones.

VI. Moriarty's 'An Apology to Roger Ebert': I’m not sure this was labeled the closing keynote, but it may as well have been. It was a brilliant speech about games, art, culture, and a provocative close to the conference that kicked off hundred email/twitter threads about its ideas. The full transcript is online here:

The most significant thing at E3 2009

Well, another E3 behind us, and not just any E3. This was E3 born again. Following on the heels of the Supernova E3 and Dwarf Star E3, this was, I guess, the Phoenix E3?

As this E3 fades, we’re left with the deluge of announcements and demos to digest. It’s an interesting thought exercise to consider which are the more significant ones. Which might have the biggest long term impact, might tip the scales in the console wars, open the market to new audiences and revenue streams, etc.

There were lots of game announcements, lots of them exciting, but none so *different* as to warrant the label of ‘game changer’.

There were no wild-card disruptive entrants like we saw at GDC with OnLive’s announcement.

There were of course the keynotes from Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony.

Sony’s got a new handheld to continue to duke it out with Nintendo on that front, and Nintendo continues to add titles and some new capabilities to their handheld. Nothing really groundbreaking on that front.

Judging from the press, most people believe that the biggest news out of E3 is that MS and Sony have played their cards on the motion control front. Microsoft with some 3D camera tech to compete with Nintendo’s Wiimote, and Sony has a wand that kind of straddles both the camera and wand camps. That is big news to be sure, but not terribly surprising.

The biggest question on the motion controller front will be what it means for developers and publishers. Big budget productions necessitate cross-platform development, or at least favor it. Certainly between PS3 and Xbox360 (and PC) we see a lot of cross-platform publishing. It will be interesting to see how and if titles can map to the very different motion controls between those platforms and Nintendo’s, and whether any of them get short-changed as a result of a lowest common denominator approach.

But I don’t think that’s the most significant of the E3 announcements. I’m going to go out on a limb and say that the most significant item out of E3 was this:

The announcement of Facebook and Twitter support within Xbox Live (Nintendo had a similar announcement around the DS, so they get some credit too).

Why do I believe this is such a big deal? Bear with me…

I’d posit that the fundamental promise to customers that the previous generation of consoles offered was “High quality games that Just Work”. High quality 3D games like those that were available on PC, with a console’s level of quality control and usability.

I’d also claim that for the current generation of console, at least for the 360, the promise grew to “High quality games that just work *together* within a social network”. Build your network of friends who also own 360s, and get a level of experience works *between* titles. Sony and Nintendo have both played their own version of catch-up on this front, to a point.

As 360’s installed base and capabilities have grown, so have the Network Effects. The utility of a network grows with its users (a function in this case of the installed base and the amount of time users spend on their 360s which is in turn a function of capabilities). Again, similar to what was available on PC years earlier (if you were using IM, Gamespy, etc), but with console level quality control and usability.

Fast forward to today, and one the most significant thing we see happening on the PC is with the “walled gardens” of social networks – each of which have become platforms for software development. These social networks have realized that the same network effects that grow with customer base can hold true for their platforms and their services as well. The value of a network increases if it becomes permeable to other networks.

Initially this manifests itself as the users needing to belong to both social networks, and allowing them to verify the connection between their two identies. E.g. This is my Facebook profile, this is my Flickr account and yes, you may speak to each other so that I might let my FB friends see my Flickr pics. Flickr becomes more valuable to me, and Facebook becomes more valuable to me and my friends.

But this first step is still kludgy, requiring an identity on both social networks. More recently, we are seeing some of these social networks becoming sources of trusted identity credentials. Note that I can now login to Dopplr by using OpenID. I can log in to FriendFeed using OpenID, GoogleID, or my Facebook credentials. Examples exist on the forefront of gaming too. For example, Metaplace allows login with six different identity providers.

To borrow an analogy from SXIP’s, Dick Hardt's Identity 2.0 presentation, this is analogous to the drivers license in the real world. When I go home to my native Montreal, I don’t have to have a Quebec driver’s license. If pulled over, say for turning right on a red, I can show my Oregon drivers license because the government of Quebec is implicitly stating “we trust Oregon as an issuer of credentials and will accept these credentials at face value for this transaction. Now here’s your ticket, ‘sti.”

If the promise of previous generations was “games that just work”, and the current that “games work with each other”, then the promise of the NEXT generation will be this: That true next-gen game platforms will comprise services that *just work* with one another.

Cracking open these walled gardens is going to be difficult. Its one thing to allow the ‘linking of identities’ like we saw announced with Live/Facebook this week. Its quite another to have those services trust the identities issued by other services as the users sole credentials, especially for facets where financial transactions are concerned. It will happen though.

Initially, I believe we’ll see the consoles requiring *their* identity system being a user requirement, but other more open web services allowing sign-in with these credentials. E.g. “sign in to your Flickr account using your Xbox Live credentials. This might grow to add billing-type transactions (e.g. instead of today’s creation of a separate billing relationship with Netflix, why not just ‘click here to join Netflix and have it deducted from your Xbox Live points’. While the mechanics and politics of such things will take time, the appeal of providing more paths to the cash register is strong.

Most important though, will be the network effects realized. The move announced at E3 will see Xbox Live, Facebook and Twitter each becoming more valuable to customers as a result of the bridges between them.

Some developers and publishers have worried about the increased power that the ‘walled garden’ platform owners might yield as these services grow to encompass everything from development to distribution. I can’t think of a better antidote to that than a realization that tearing down the walls may increase their value. It will take a long time for this to happen, but this year’s E3 marked an important first step.

WTF laptop displays; and my reluctant bowing down to Steve Jobs

I mentioned a little while back that we bought Alisa a new laptop. Well, that was the first of three.

We first bought a Sony VIAO, which was a nice, sleek, $800 machine. However, the glossy screen was impossible to use in our house. Returned the laptop to Frys (on day one of our snowstorm a while back, but that's another story).

So we start shopping for laptops with non-glossy, matte finish screens. You can't find them. They pretty much all switched to the new glossy screen. The exceptions being the $2700 17" macbook pro, which offers it as a $50 add-on, and a number of the mini 10" things, neither of which met our needs.

Further complicating the problem is the non-standard terminology around this. Some refer to the glossy display as non-glare, but that's exactly the opposite depending on your lighting conditions. More on this in a minute.

So our second purchase was via the internet, and it was a Lenovo Ideapad, also around $800, but offering a non-glare screen. Surprise, it's a glossy one. Returned to manufacturer.

We finally settled on the out-going model Macbook Pro, which I got for $1700, cause hey, once you are spending that kind of money you might as well buy the loaded model. It's a *very* sexy machine, but still, it's like a $700 premium over the equivalent model PC. Is there no one that can do an effective copy of their design at a cheaper price? *sigh*

Anyhow, here's my take on the display thing:

• Glossy screens have a glass-like, smooth finish.
• Matte screens have a dull finish, like a piece of frosted glass.
• Matte screens are aweful in places with a high degree of very bright ambient light. The most obvious of which is outdoors, or any place where you are close to a lot of windows letting in the outdoor light from numerous directions (a single window 20' away could be considered a directional light). So, outdoors, coffee shops, etc.
• Glossy screens are great where you have high ambient light, OR, where you have a small number of directional lights (like a desk or ceiling light) that might cause a reflection but you can position the laptop accordingly.
• The problem with glossy screens is that many office environments, or houses such as mine, have a large number of ceiling lights. This makes it difficult to position the laptop in any way that doesn't end up with at least one or two very bright mirror-like reflections distracting you from your work. In these environments, a matte display is far better.

Anyhow. Think about where you are going to be using it before you buy it.

Not sure why the sudden industry shift to the smooth ones, but my hypothesis is that (a) they for some reason they are cheaper, (b) the show well at retail (where there are a large number of lights, but they tend to be really high up. Also you don't tend to work for an extended period at the machine at Best Buy), and (c) maybe more people are using their laptops at starbucks, outside, etc. :-)

In searching for the matte display, I found I'm not the only one to have the complaint. There are even some places that will "matte" (yay verbification!) your glossy display for a couple hundred bucks. The image below from the site I just referenced illustrates the point quite nicely.

 

Holy Hockey Sticks!

Casey just pointed me at this:

Holy balls.

For all the poo-poo'ing of the PS3 (I'm as guilty as anyone), you have to give them credit for chugging along and selling units as well as 360 did through launch, despite being last 'next gen' console to the party.

Nintendo's graph is, well, phenomenal. For them anyway. Whether it's good for *games* in general is debatable. They get credit for tapping the untapped segments of the market, but I still agree with Chris' rant on the console's shortcomings.

Surreal PS3 Euro Ad

While their whole hot-chix-on-toilets thing was just wacky and off the mark, I have to admit that I *love* this PS3 ad. I'm not sure it's enough to dig them out of their hole, but it's *so* much cooler than the whole "jump in" set of ads MS did.

Mind you, I think they are definitely following our lead, just doing something edgier.

Speaking of objects of desire...

The other day in the cafe at work, a friend of mine was sitting bemused at a table, a little star-wars-looking egg sitting on the table in front of her.

It was Sony's 'Rolly', a little music-driven robot bluetooth connected MP3 player thingy that... well hell, I have no idea what it does. I just know it was the coolest thing I'd seen since Aibo.





I want one to keep my Roomba company! Perhaps as a cheerleader!

Note to Sony: Please quit peeing in the pool

Metaphorically speaking that is. They are really F***ing things up for the rest of us.

Thanks to N'gai Crole (via Alice) for the pointer to this ad for PS2 that Sony recently took out in India (rant to follow):

Here we have such a wonderful opportunity, with a growing, tech savvy, increasingly affluent, group of consumers in India, where gaming has been relatively small in the past, but is growing by leaps and bounds. Do we need to screw it up by importing our biased, misogynist, ass-backward marketing practices with us? We have enough trouble with our baggage of existing content, we don't need the marketing folks to push us further over the edge.

Thank you Sony! Thank goodness Indian women won't make the mistake of thinking they are welcome to purchase and play games. Good thing we'll make it clear from the get-go that games are for introverted pimply-faced boys. Wouldn't want anyone thinking otherwise.

Sheesh. As Alice asked, "Honestly. What kind of cavemen do they employ in Sony's marketing dept?"

On Cathedrals, Copyright, and the Courts

Seems Sony's latest source of grief has been the Church of England getting miffed bout Manchester Cathedral being used as a locale in the PS3 title, Resistance.

The church threatening Sony with legal action, and Sony, staying true to the title's name, is resisting.

The subject seems frivolous at first glance, does it not? Games are art. The church is a building open to the public. Lighten up, folks in tall hats!

Now is the time you ask whether to take the blue pill, and keep on thinking that way; or take the red pill, and see just how far the entangled legal rabbit hole you want to go?

William Patry, who is Google's senior copyright counsel and maintains an awesome blog, has a great post on the subject.

Amongst the various facts at play here:

• Architecture is a creative work and therefore copied under copyright.
• Most copyright laws take this into account and allow for things like taking a picture in a public place where you might happen to get a building in the shot.
• The INSIDE of buildings is another story
• The laws are different in the UK and the US, and the game was made in the US but the 'source material' in this case is in the UK. The game is also sold there.
• When the building was built is also an issue, and while this church is quite old, it underwent some renovation more recently.

Crazy.

Anyhow, it's very relevant to anyone making games that may hope to include real-world environments. Go read it.

"we posted said email... and the internet imploded"

...Kotaku, on their posting an email from Sony's PR group, blacklisting them due to posting/commenting on rumors, and the subsequent fallout.

Sigh. Where to begin?

This post sums up the story from Kotaku's side. In short, Kotaku posted on a rumor of what may be in Phil Harrison's GDC keynote. Sony's PR freaked out, Kotaku stood their ground (way to go Brian C) and posted Sony's reaction to boot, and then the Internet imploded.

Presumably, at this point Howard Stringer got a call from Al Gore saying "leggo my Internet", and Sony backed off and apologized. The Internet is back up, and the various Brians and such at Kotaku can attend Sony's GDC functions and eat expensive puff pastries while getting dirty looks from PR guys in striped shirts.

OK, kids, what have we learned?

• Refusing to comment on rumor is moderately effective. It's neutral. Reacting to rumor this way is essentially the equivalent of posting a rehearsal of the keynote on GooTube. If I didn't feel confident it was true before, I sure do now.
• The internets & the press, *especially* the blogging press, love a good scandal. It's way bigger story than whatever your keynote is going to contain, and customers aren't going to like it.
• People at a big company can get so wound up about self-importance that things get out of perspective. The keynote will still go fine, and even if you yourself leaked what was going to be in the keynote, people would still show up to see it. Perhaps more so. Don't kid yourself. I personally doubt the value of 'the reveal' in this case. I think the keynote would get 10x coverage if they put out a press release that was 7 words long: "avatars, acheivements, more. Show up and see"

Now, PR fustercluck aside, the rumored Sony offering of 'Gamerscore + achievements + Mii's + Habbo Hotel' sounds pretty compelling. I'm looking forward to seeing it... and competing against it.

As my friend Casey once put it... "Now the dancing turns German".