Juuken gave me a suspicion that would make some conspiracy theorist proud: That Kotaku might’ve been playing a cruel April Fools joke on all of us about the big announcement that Sony is set to make on March 31st. Of course, speculation is running wild about this announcement as to what it could be (a price drop, new firmware, something). However, much criticism has been made about Kotaku with regards to how much anti-Sony slant has been in their stories (mostly due to the Home debacle that Kotaku has yet to apologize to Sony for, unless I missed something). This left many people wondering why the hell Sony would contact Kotaku first about this announcement.

First, breath a sigh or relief: the announcement will be real. Now, how do I know this? Because of what Juuken’s thoughts of this actually made me discover. Why would Sony contact Kotaku first?

They DIDN’T!

Juuken’s thought made me want to go onto N4G and look this up to where we first heard something about the announcement. The most recent thing that came onto the front page as of the writing of this article is this other article that speculates what the announcement could be. Now, the article links to the 1up.com article about Sony hyping the announcement.

Following me so far? Alright! So 1up.com gives us a link to a Smarthouse article about the announcement. The big news here? The Smarthouse article is the last link of this chain. There is no other place where Smarthouse is referencing to that would lead anyone to another article about it. Usually, if there is no other link to a reference article (the only thing that could be considered such in the SH article is a generic link to Bloomberg), then it is that article that broke the news.

So where does Kotaku fit into all of this? Neither article even LINKED to Kotaku at all, let alone mention the article that Kotaku claimed:

Sony dropped Kotaku a line to let us know that something is going down on Tuesday, March 31st. Could it be the long-rumored price cut is finally upon us?

Now, it’s safe to say that something is amiss here. You could say, though, that it might just be a failure to complete the circle or something like that. It could be that Sony DID go to Kotaku and all of that.

However, consider that Kotaku has been no stranger to stealing stories and claiming them as their own. If you recall, The Bitbag conducted an interview with Microsoft PR Aaron Greenberg a few months ago. A few days later, both Kotaku and IGN posted the interview, but didn’t credit the source. While IGN quickly backpedaled and called their lack of sourcing an oversight, Kotaku was more defiant. They, for a while, refused to source the interview (they since have, though), and even banned Torrence Davis from commenting on the site (the banning was probably the exposing on THAT incident).

And now here we are again! Kotaku didn’t learn their lesson. This time, though, it’s worse. Kotaku is claiming that Sony dropped THEM a line. I think we need further proof that Kotaku actually did get the news from Sony. Either that or 1up.com and Smarthouse needs to do the sourcing themselves. We stake our money on Kotaku.

And if it is true that Kotaku was the original source, then let the conspiracy begin.

I want to ask you: Do you think?:

1. That Kotaku did it AGAIN with trying to plagiarize a story?
2. That Smarthouse plagiarized Kotaku?
3. That Kotaku is playing a bad joke on us about the announcement?

On a side note, I hope to GOD that Juuken is wrong on it. To be on the safe side, I will personally be watching Kotaku carefully and if the worst possible scenario about the announcement comes to fuition, we will be the first to be scolding Kotaku. But again, we’re BOTH hoping it’s just a ridiculous theory (one that, by the way, made ME think that it could be possible. But I’m a sort of theorist myself, so sue me).

UPDATE:  I just got a Google alert in my inbox. Another site has made an article about the announcement, and they also credit Smarthouse, NOT Kotaku. Something is going on here, and I would love to know who’s plagerizing who here. Or did Sony contact Smarthouse as well? If SH did get contacted, then there goes the April Fools theory right there.

Also, it’s interesting to note that the new article DOES mention that it’s about the Playstation 3 console (”In what may prove somewhat ironic for the millions of armchair speculators and amateur analysts across the world, Sony Computer Entertainment will make a major announcement regarding the future of their PlayStation 3 game console.“). Also, there has recently been leaking of a $99 PS2 price point set to take place later this week. I doubt that the announcement will be about that $99 price point or the PS2/PSP, if it is what we all expect/hope it is not (a Kotaku joke).