Sony PlayStation 4 (PS4)
A promotional image for the upcoming Sony PlayStation 4 (PS4) Sony

Controversy has been brewing in the leadup to November's release dates for the next generation of video game consoles. After news broke about potential resolution and frame rate problems for games running on the Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) Xbox One and the Sony (NYSE:SNE) PlayStation 4 (PS4), new rumors and concerns emerged over the weekend regarding the user's ability to thoroughly review video games for the the PS4.

On Friday, Adam Sessler, executive producer of Rev3Games sent out a cryptic tweet:

A few hours later, Arthur Gies, reviews editor of Polygon, send out a similarly mysterious tweet:

After their initial tweets, the two revealed little about the meaning behind the tweets. Marcus Beer of GameTrailers.com added his opinion Sunday, clarifying a bit on what Sessler and Gies tweeted leading into the weekend:

Later Sunday morning, Beer added this remark about the situation surrounding video game reviews on the Neogaf forums:

“Hi all, took me a while to remember my password or I would have jumped in sooner.

Its not just about the games, its reviewing the actual system 2 days before the damn thing ships.

Something feels off right now to be honest & a lot of people are pissed about it.

If you have seen anything I have done over the last 8 months, you will know I have been very happy with the way Sony has been doing things but now it’s time for them to s**t or get off the pot and they are being damn evasive about allowing serious access to the system before launch.

I have mine preordered (ditto XboxOne) & if that is the only way I will get to have said access to the PS4 then so be it.

When people delay access to something, game or hardware, it's never for a good reason in my experience.”

Beer’s comment added a little light to the cryptic utterances by his fellow video game journalists, which triggered rampant speculation across gaming forums as well as on Reddit.

Polygon and PlayStation Universe posts regarding a “PS4 Review Event” scheduled for Nov. 11-12 in New York seem to explain the some of the concerns brought up via the troubling tweets from Sessler, Gies and Beer.

After Polygon posted about the invite, Gies posted a short tweet along with a link to the story:

Rather than getting unfettered access to a review unit in an uncontrolled environment ahead of time, several video game journalists say they are getting only limited review access to the PS4 during a “review event.”

Some speculation surrounding the tweets theorized that the cryptic remarks were about potential YouTube footage restrictions, while others speculated that there were restrictions on how video reviews could be published.

Outside of the series of tweets from Sessler, Beer and a few other video game journalists over the weekend, additional information has been sparse at best.

Gies did hint about additional information to come out in the near future, according to one of his tweets on Sunday.

In the meantime, gamers and journalists alike will be waiting for the resolution of the questions that sparked a firestorm on the Internet over the weekend about the Sony PlayStation 4.

Let us know what you think about this controversy surrounding the Sony PS4 in the comments.

Sony