Glanced at the comments, noticed Angry Joe didn't get one. Generally, I see the purpose of review copies being the whole "early" part. Them being free is just a neat bonus. Critics are given early viewings of movies, television, and in this case, video games, so that they'll release their reviews for those things either before or really soon after they release in order to drum up easy hype, advertising, and to give potential buyers that aggregate score before they buy the product, and not after.
Angry Joe's last relevant review was for RE7, and released 14 days after the game had already come out. Might as well let him buy the game at launch like everyone else than waste an early copy on him. Two weeks after release, Angry Joe's review isn't going to conjure up any new opinions that'll influence a large enough crowd to go pick up the game. By that point, people are likely just waiting for a price drop, or aren't ever gonna get it.
I find this topid super interesting, especially from the viewpoint of a YouTuber as opposed to press. Certainly Sony will (and did) send codes out to some YouTubers, but I wonder if part of their thinking is looking at some channels and just saying "we know they'll review this anyway, they can buy it themselves". Also, I wonder what tools (if any) they use to try to correlate which YouTubers' reviews actually translate to customers, as opposed to just content for the audience. Someone like Angry Joe for example, his reviews are always really well thought out and well produced, but for some reason I don't know if many people use his reviews as an actual guide in the "should I/shouldn't I buy this" question. His reviews always just strike me more as entertaining content than something a potential consumer will look to to guide their purchase.
I dunno, I could be completely wrong, I'm just thinking out loud.
There's also the thought in mind that giving someone like PewDiePie an early copy of something like South Park: The Stick of Truth won't necessarily result in an official review, but instead an easy 18 million+ views on YouTube. No need to pay people to cut together a trailer. Just give a YouTuber or Twitch streamer a free copy of your game, and you've got easy advertising.
