Sessler & co. tweet about "bad news" concerning the industry

I still find that possibility hard to believe. That would just be Sony sitting on their own balls.

Don't know how I should feel about all this. It's the nature of his profession I guess. He makes his money off of being able to report on other entities/things. That is all seemingly being taken away from him, but that's Sony's/MS's prerogative. It's not their job to make sure their well-being is kept, especially when they're being depended on for coverage.

Sucks though. He should come work for GB. :D

https://twitter.com/Laughing__Man_/status/394337473293074433 Hot damn....

Alter footage? Cost difference? I'm confused about what this thing is.

@the_laughing_man:

Jesus christ... Is this just limited to the PS4?

PS4 only. He even says that he now prefers the X1 for dev stuff.

Developer costs using a smallish studio as an example:

Xbox One Dev Kits 10 X $500.00= $5,000.00

Sony PS4 Dev kits 10X $2,500.00= $25,000.00

I am 100% sure that Microsoft will get a ton more coverage than Sony. There is no conspiracy theory here, the simple truth is that Sony are providing one debug unit to one video outlet in North America (I don’t know about the rest of the world) and only a select few “wordy/written/text” based outlets.

And before the question is asked, I don’t actually know why Sony doesn’t want established video outlets to have access to video footage of their console before or after launch. It has never been done before.

In my mind this is a huge mistake and I seriously doubt that, that decision was made in SCEA, but rather at the HQ in Japan. The folks over there need to settle down and have a box of juice or something, because as someone that develops games, I want to get in front of as many eyeballs as possible.

I don’t know the reason behind this, but I do know that it is like giving Xbox a free advertisement on every 3rd party game review until Sony completes their inevitable…../Drum Roll 180.

The other reason behind this is that until Sony allows video capture with unrestricted HDCP, reviewers won’t actually be able to review third party games on the PS4 as they will want to do post production.

Yeah. What the hell is this even talking about?

And how is this something that would make someone like Sessler shake in his boots?

It means Sessler could no longer do post production for PS4 games. It also sounds like Sessler did not get a PS4 review kit to play with.

Sigh, all this last minute nonsense just makes me wanna go "fuck it" and get a Wii U and a gaming PC.

What does that mean, though? No fancy editing on PS4 videos?

No editing at all.

I wouldn't trust anything Dent says.

@csl316: Like Gary and Brad said on Octoberkast, Nintendo's got the best lineup for this year.

That's all? From Sessler's tweets, you'd think the world was coming to an end. This doesn't sound that bad at all.

Unless you're GameTrailers. Hoo boy.

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Indeed. By the end of the year I'll have at least 4 games I really wanna play. And Bayonetta 2 next year.... Granted, Nintendo's been weird about footage lately, too. Not that it affects me much, but everything is crazy.

I don't blame Sessler's wife about being upset. A good 5 years ago I decided pursuing any sort of job in the game industry just seems too uncertain (even once you're in there).

Doesn't make sense. Unless he's throwing his hands up in the air about HDCP being on the units until it gets patched out. You know, HDCP the great devil that crawls in HDMI cables sometimes that costs at least a $15 HDMI splitter to erase.

Increasing strength to that being the case is the fact that PS4 debugs are in the hands of video outlets.

Sony just had to shut up and launch...

Editing video can't be a Giant Bomb problem, right? They put a Video Feature bumper, but the rest of their posts are just raw dumps.

...

That doesn't sound great.

It seems he can't edit, which if you've seen all his videos. Heavily edited.

IT also sounds like Only one review unit was sent out to a media outlet.

Check this.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=87628981&postcount=1056

Talking over footage could also be considered "edited".

Sony, don't damage the immense amount of goodwill you've built up the last 8 months. Come on. Please.

I hoped that Sony jamming HDCP onto everything HDMI output again (only to promise removing it in a firmware patch) was as bad they would get.

@mariachimacabre:

It only takes one incident to completely torpedo everything they've worked for.

Did not even think of that......

That would make this whole deal INSANE.

This doesn't make sense. Is this a timed thing? Do they not want footage to be edited within a certain period of time? I haven't seen that mentioned anywhere. If not then that would be an insane and unexplainable move.

Hopefully this will be fixed soon. Love Adam.

@the_laughing_man: Is this PS4 HDCP stuff an issue entirely separate from the XBO embargo/esRAM stuff Arthur Gies was talking about?

Wii U and a PC it is then.

Not allowed to use PS4 footage for Youtube monetization, that theory gets thrown around. It's nothing that'll bother regular consumers, that's clear from the quite dramatic Sessler, so I'm thinking that. Or a melodramatic HDCP panic and he *just* received his PS4 unit, which is a non-debug that carries HDCP and lost it that way and riled the internet up hard.

Either way, Jeff's chill about this. I think we have nothing to worry about. It's normal for people to have no idea how to get rid of HDCP for less than a $600 licensed massive capturing device.

(And if any Swedish bomber wants to get rid of HDCP I can hook you up for 200 KR, you need HDMI to DVI cabling and a power supply, shhh)

edit: and if Sesslers wife really did post on his twitter like that thanking the video game industry for ruining his night then Sessler needs help and counselling for his anxiety issues and this issue has been massively overblown. We'll see shortly. Adding to the mystery is that November 11-12 is an on-location PS4 review event or something like that. Hm

Utterly different. Go read the gaf thread.

I don't see how Sony could limit what people could record and edit on top of footage from the system. Would it just be part of their agreement to receive games? Because that would just mean reviewers would have to get games at launch instead of before it. Which, well, would hurt a lot of people like Sessler that run off of at-launch review videos and such, but it wouldn't necessarily be catastrophic for wider game journalism.

It would definitely be a big damage to Sony and anyone developing on the PS4 though, and I don't see why developers would be okay with it. I just don't see it happening(without them almost immediately backing down).

@you_died said:

Adam Sessler?

Wouldn't this, whole not being allowed to edit video, be more of a publisher by publisher thing, not a whole system wide thing? Seems strange that Sony would make the mandate especially if publishers are okay with video footage for the XB1. So I'm just spit balling here, but what if this is more a big publisher (say Activision or EA) not wanting their stuff modified in any way? Which would definitely make Adam upset I'd think, because those two publishers have the games that would probably give him the most hits. But like I said total guess there.

PS4 has a HDCP built int. X1 does not.

VIdeo games, y'all.

Yup! Theories elsewhere say EA.

e: I want to add, all the PS4 videos I've seen direct captured have been things from Sonys PR departments, ready-made stuff. HDCP is a piece of cake to get around, GB's ready for it. If this is about HDCP then be proud of being on GB. A site with crew knowledgable enough with good ears to figure out how to get past HDCP.

e: oh wow this is starting to look like it really is about nothing but Sessler getting an anxiety attack over HDCP protected HDMI video. I don't want to offend but that dude needs help if this got to him that bad. He went on about it when it came out it'd be HDCP protected in the first place too.

Time to unplug and watch a bunch of people I don't know in real life play Pathfinder.

@somejerk: Doesn't GB use S-Video to record current console stuff?

So Sessler was crying wolf, huh?

Again?

@animasta: They use HDMI on the Xbox, Component on the PS3.

Yeah, bunch of people here jumping to weird conclusions and stating them as fact, that's cool.

hmm, newest tweet about the issue completely goes against what most are speculating here..https://twitter.com/AnnoyedGamer/status/394346837697503232

So I saw this.

http://i.imgur.com/W269c2x.png

Honestly this is what makes the most sense right now. Fits perfectly with what Adam said.

UPDATES! https://twitter.com/AnnoyedGamer/status/394346837697503232

"Let me clarify 1 thing, it's not about "video capture issues", it's about evaluating things in staged environments. Don't trust staged shit."

-Annoyed Gamer

Does this mean, reviewers would have to go to staged reviewing events in order to get their hands on a game before launch????

They use anything at hand, component for PS3 right now. They are prepared to get around HDCP protected HDMI. Seen a Black Magic box, in a behind the scenes thing there.