Sony embarrassingly apologizes to Naughty Dog studio boss for 'misrepresenting his words'

Sony has officially publicly apologized to Neil Druckmann, the studio head at Naughty Dog for misrepresenting his comments in a recent interview.

The interview with the boss of Naughty Dog, the studio behind extremely successful The Last of Us franchise, was published by Sony and it depicts Druckmann praising the explosion of AI tools as it will enable developers to push the boundaries of storytelling in games. Additionally, Sony's interview depicted Druckmann teasing the studio's next project, with the studio head reportedly saying it "could redefine mainstream perceptions of gaming."

However, not too long after the interview went live Druckmann took to his personal X account to clarify his statements, saying the comment about redefining perceptions of gaming was "not quite what I said." Druckmann didn't appear angry at the misrepresentation, writing, "In editing my rambling answers in my recent interview with Sony, some of my words, context, and intent were unfortunately lost." While Druckmann certainly took the diplomatic and admirable stance on his words being misconstrued, it appears he has downplayed Sony's violation.

According to PCGamer, what Druckmann said in the full interview transcript and what Sony published are two completely different things. Sony even admitted this in its statement that has replaced the now-deleted interview. Unfortunately, the damage has already been done, not only to Druckmann, but also Sony's credibility. As PCGamer notes, the misconstrued interview was conducted by Sony, for Sony, with Naughty Dog, one of the Sony's leading developers, and was so bad the studio head had to publicly call out the company he works under.

The real question is - how often has this happened with Sony interviews?