Context Sensitive: Who Is the PS3 For?

bjj hero

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StriderShinryu said:
mrx19869 said:
StriderShinryu said:
bismarck55 said:
Susan's article is great, but this thread is embarrassing compared to usual standard here on the escapist.

Reading comprehension is key, people.
Indeed. I too really thought the Escapist Community was above this.
this article is not great...
Whether the article is great or not is besides the point (though I do wonder what particular factors you're using in making that judgement). What I do find, to be honest, rather shocking is the level of blatant fanboyism on show. You can certainly disagree with the column's viewpoint, and this would be a boring place if everyone always agreed with everything, but it would be nice if everyone at least read and comprehended what has been written.
Its like Indigo Dingo was never banned...

People need to read Susan's article. She says that Sony has put out an advert that is near identical to the Wii advert and that Sony seems unsure about who they are marketing their product too.

Lets take a less heated example. Imagine seeing a cola advert during the holidays with a CGI polar bear drinking a bottle of cola. You have seen this on Coca-cola adverts for years, then at the end the logo appears and it turns out to be advertising pepsi.

This would be considered a silly move for pepsi and does nothing to strengthen the Pepsi brand or to seperate it from other colas. Someone flicking channels could well view it and "see" a Coca-cola ad. Not a good use of Pepsi's advertising money.


That is exactly what SONY is currently doing with move.

Why is this so hard to grasp?
 

shadow skill

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Oct 12, 2007
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bjj hero said:
StriderShinryu said:
mrx19869 said:
StriderShinryu said:
bismarck55 said:
Susan's article is great, but this thread is embarrassing compared to usual standard here on the escapist.

Reading comprehension is key, people.
Indeed. I too really thought the Escapist Community was above this.
this article is not great...
Whether the article is great or not is besides the point (though I do wonder what particular factors you're using in making that judgement). What I do find, to be honest, rather shocking is the level of blatant fanboyism on show. You can certainly disagree with the column's viewpoint, and this would be a boring place if everyone always agreed with everything, but it would be nice if everyone at least read and comprehended what has been written.
Its like Indigo Dingo was never banned...

People need to read Susan's article. She says that Sony has put out an advert that is near identical to the Wii advert and that Sony seems unsure about who they are marketing their product too.

Lets take a less heated example. Imagine seeing a cola advert during the holidays with a CGI polar bear drinking a bottle of cola. You have seen this on Coca-cola adverts for years, then at the end the logo appears and it turns out to be advertising pepsi.

This would be considered a silly move for pepsi and does nothing to strengthen the Pepsi brand or to seperate it from other colas. Someone flicking channels could well view it and "see" a Coca-cola ad. Not a good use of Pepsi's advertising money.


That is exactly what SONY is currently doing with move.

Why is this so hard to grasp?
Except they do know who they are marketing to. The argument being made here only works if the device was intended to only market to one group. As I said earlier no one complains about Iphone ads that have nothing to do with telecommunications. There isn't a reason to complain about Sony doing the same thing when it is clear that they were never only targeting "hardcore" gamers or gamers in general. The only people "confused" at this point are gamers who think that the platform was intended to appeal to them alone.
 

Reolus

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Wow, this thread is interesting. I can't take console hate seriously though. I mean if you line them up, my Wii is white, my XBox 360 is grey and my PS3 is black. That's about as far as I can go in regards to comparison.

If I had to throw my perspective in, it just makes me profoundly amused that there was so much hate for the wii controller initially by the other two console-owners, and now that it's coming out on their console the "no it will be awesome" reverse-of-perspective (by some) is hilarious.

That Sony would go "we are catering to the hardcore group" and then change is probably a sign that either the hardcore group is too small or too fussy to be marketed too. The amount of "all games are so passe` these days" comments I have seen makes me wonder why developers even bother making games for people who complain at all. Regardless of whether you fall into it or not, the casual gaming market is a viable target demographic.

You'll never be able to convince people, especially fiery young opinionated males, that they are wrong. I'm a console war veteran myself, back in the Nintendo vs SEGA days. I remember hating SEGA (Sonic!) for no other reason than he was the Other Team.

Like football teams, religions or politics, whenever you tell people to make a values-based decision - in this case perceived value - they will always defend it (see thread, above).

What I'd really like to know is, how successful do you think Sony will be with its' motion controller line?
 

SonicKoala

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Sep 8, 2009
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My god, the PS3 fanboyism in this thread is unbearable. Why is it that people feel so compelled to leap to the defense of the PS3? It's sold millions of units worldwide and has once agained reclaimed it's place as a formidable competitor in the so-called "console wars". It doesn't need defending.

I personally enjoyed the article, and I think it's ridiculous that certain people in this thread seem to feel that this article was bad because Susan failed to specifically outline how amazing the PS3 is and all the little things that it can do. If you want a site that sings the praises of one specific console, why the fuck are you here?

It's obvious that the PS3 does have an identity crisis. I feel it certaintly fell into it's niche with the "it only does everything" ads, but this newest ad is a blatant attempt to market itself towards the casual Wii crowd. I can understand how introducing a motion controller can be viewed as being part of the "everything" label, but seriously - are people so blinded by their idiotic fanboyism that they can't see this is NOT what Sony's intention is? It's painfully obvious (just look at how similar Sony's advert is to the Wii's advert) that this is a desperate attempt on Sony's part to draw in the Wii crowd, not expand on the "everything" label. If that was the case, they should have brought Kevin Butler back and integrated the new motion controller into that same type of advert.

Personally, I saw an identity crisis even in the "it only does everything" ads. Just look at the one where it claims how "family-friendly" the PS3 is because of "titles like LittleBigPlanet"..... you mean one of the ONLY family-friendly titles available for the PS3? I agree that the PS3 can do almost anything one can expect from a game console, but I think a huge problem is that being able to do "everything" does NOT mean the PS3 is for everybody, and it is here where I think Sony's biggest identity crisis lies. Sony knows what the PS3 is, but it just can't seem to be able to grasp who it's for.
 

shadow skill

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SonicKoala said:
My god, the PS3 fanboyism in this thread is unbearable. Why is it that people feel so compelled to leap to the defense of the PS3? It's sold millions of units worldwide and has once agained reclaimed it's place as a formidable competitor in the so-called "console wars". It doesn't need defending.

I personally enjoyed the article, and I think it's ridiculous that certain people in this thread seem to feel that this article was bad because Susan failed to specifically outline how amazing the PS3 is and all the little things that it can do. If you want a site that sings the praises of one specific console, why the fuck are you here?

It's obvious that the PS3 does have an identity crisis. I feel it certaintly fell into it's niche with the "it only does everything" ads, but this newest ad is a blatant attempt to market itself towards the casual Wii crowd. I can understand how introducing a motion controller can be viewed as being part of the "everything" label, but seriously - are people so blinded by their idiotic fanboyism that they can't see this is NOT what Sony's intention is? It's painfully obvious (just look at how similar Sony's advert is to the Wii's advert) that this is a desperate attempt on Sony's part to draw in the Wii crowd, not expand on the "everything" label. If that was the case, they should have brought Kevin Butler back and integrated the new motion controller into that same type of advert.

Personally, I saw an identity crisis even in the "it only does everything" ads. Just look at the one where it claims how "family-friendly" the PS3 is because of "titles like LittleBigPlanet"..... you mean one of the ONLY family-friendly titles available for the PS3? I agree that the PS3 can do almost anything one can expect from a game console, but I think a huge problem is that being able to do "everything" does NOT mean the PS3 is for everybody, and it is here where I think Sony's biggest identity crisis lies. Sony knows what the PS3 is, but it just can't seem to be able to grasp who it's for.
This is your problem not the advertisement's in this case. I ask you, do you complain when the Iphone shows people playing games on it, or turning off the lights in their house? None of that has anything to do with telecommunications. Do you wonder what the Iphone is at it's core? Supposedly you can't have specific adverts for given functionality? It's also not new to have advertisements that are separate from your main focus. http://news.teamxbox.com/xbox/11149/Xbox-360-Jump-In-Ad-Wins-ADDY-Best-of-Show-Award/
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/1799187/movie_xbox_360_commercial/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLTTcc7jCnc

It's not fanboyism to point out how utterly daft it is to claim that there is an identity crisis when advertisements/trailers talking about specific functionality are common place, and in keeping with the overall concept of a box that does it all.
 

pantsoffdanceoff

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I feel the pattern of the PS3 was mainly because they tried to be trendsetters at the get go with their massive amounts of technology and what-nots, and that obviously (if you are to consider success by sales) didn't work*. So, it to me, makes sense that they would of course follow what the more successful consoles are doing and copy it [i/]but better [/i], establishing an obviously wishy-washy stance. Personally I love the PS3 (I don't own a single blue ray), and I do hope they do a good job with the motion sensor (which I would have preferred to have been called the "Groove")

*Of course then blaming the fans for the failure wasn't genius either.
 

shadow skill

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pantsoffdanceoff said:
I feel the pattern of the PS3 was mainly because they tried to be trendsetters at the get go with their massive amounts of technology and what-nots, and that obviously (if you are to consider success by sales) didn't work*. So, it to me, makes sense that they would of course follow what the more successful consoles are doing and copy it [i/]but better [/i], establishing an obviously wishy-washy stance. Personally I love the PS3 (I don't own a single blue ray), and I do hope they do a good job with the motion sensor (which I would have preferred to have been called the "Groove")

*Of course then blaming the fans for the failure wasn't genius either.
The name is more of a problem than the ads. Groove would have been a much more fun name that people could get behind.
 

ThisNewGuy

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shadow skill said:
bjj hero said:
StriderShinryu said:
mrx19869 said:
StriderShinryu said:
bismarck55 said:
Susan's article is great, but this thread is embarrassing compared to usual standard here on the escapist.

Reading comprehension is key, people.
Indeed. I too really thought the Escapist Community was above this.
this article is not great...
Whether the article is great or not is besides the point (though I do wonder what particular factors you're using in making that judgement). What I do find, to be honest, rather shocking is the level of blatant fanboyism on show. You can certainly disagree with the column's viewpoint, and this would be a boring place if everyone always agreed with everything, but it would be nice if everyone at least read and comprehended what has been written.
Its like Indigo Dingo was never banned...

People need to read Susan's article. She says that Sony has put out an advert that is near identical to the Wii advert and that Sony seems unsure about who they are marketing their product too.

Lets take a less heated example. Imagine seeing a cola advert during the holidays with a CGI polar bear drinking a bottle of cola. You have seen this on Coca-cola adverts for years, then at the end the logo appears and it turns out to be advertising pepsi.

This would be considered a silly move for pepsi and does nothing to strengthen the Pepsi brand or to seperate it from other colas. Someone flicking channels could well view it and "see" a Coca-cola ad. Not a good use of Pepsi's advertising money.


That is exactly what SONY is currently doing with move.

Why is this so hard to grasp?
Except they do know who they are marketing to. The argument being made here only works if the device was intended to only market to one group. As I said earlier no one complains about Iphone ads that have nothing to do with telecommunications. There isn't a reason to complain about Sony doing the same thing when it is clear that they were never only targeting "hardcore" gamers or gamers in general. The only people "confused" at this point are gamers who think that the platform was intended to appeal to them alone.
Finally, intelligence! And for people who are like "Sony fanboys, wah wah wah," please cut the shit, that's just as annoying as ultra-conservatives going "Gay right activists, wah wah wah."
 

Daedalus1942

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If the ps3 starts creating shitty third party games and using "PiiMote" gimmicks in their games, I guess I might actually invest in an Xbox Live Gold subscription.
 

Daedalus1942

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Warped_Ghost said:
PS3 is for anyone that doesn't like Mass effect, halo or gears of war.
Yes.. because there aren't any other decent games on Xbox at all are there?
Lost Odyssey, Blue Dragon, Crimson Skies (old xbox game), Panzer Dragoon Orta, Scrapland, Star Ocean (before it was ported to ps3), Kameo: Elements of power to name a few. They're all just shit, right? ... right?
 

shadow skill

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Daedalus1942 said:
If the ps3 starts creating shitty third party games and using "PiiMote" gimmicks in their games, I guess I might actually invest in an Xbox Live Gold subscription.
Let's hope they go for more Flower/Flow type games. IE. Not crap. :)
 

Carlston

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I have one, and honestly, I'm across the board in liking games save for sports ones. But since everything is now just Intel chips and scaled down PC hardware I got it for the Blue ray movies and the fact it was just more powerful....

Oh and the red ring thing. Since everyone I knew who had a 360 the box crapped out in less than a year was a big point for me to NOT get a 360. Fanboys dislike or not, the huge failure rate the 360 had and its still not fixed? My ps3 is going strong.
 

Falseprophet

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OK, well let me offer a positive reaction on the Move trailer from a slightly different perspective. As a person who owns a PS3 but not a 360 or Wii, this trailer has convinced me that I don't need to buy a Wii to play essentially the same motion-controller games. So if you already have a PS3 because you wanted a good Blu-Ray player, or because of the Slim pricedrop, or because of the PlayStation legacy, but have been tempted by all the WiiFit propaganda, now you can hold off buying that Wii--your PS3 will be able to do that too!

Will Move bring in new converts to the PS3? That I'm not so sure about. Better marketing probably will be required closer to release time. Since they're clearly aiming for the casual/home entertainment crowd, the logical route is to say the PS3 is a Wii with better graphics that also plays Blu-Ray movies and can serve as your home entertainment system. That's probably the best way to get them to swallow the higher price tag.

Here's another thought: does a console require a laser-focused marketing campaign? Can you pull off a two-pronged campaign? In this case, marketing the Move/Blu-Ray/home entertainment aspects to the casual/family audience, and say, the high-quality exclusives and free online to the hardcores. Could that be the answer to Sony's woes? Can it be a floor wax and a dessert topping? (1:29) [http://www.break.com/usercontent/2009/4/SNL-New-Shimmer-Commercial-704661.html]
 

MaltesePigeon

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I sell video game systems in a toy store. My customers are average joes, not gamers or average gamers. Most of them want Wiis. They want them because they or their kids played one at a friends house. The ads have little to do with it. At least they don't anymore. There are just lots of wiis out there for average joes to be exposed to.

Seriously, how many video game commercials do you see on prime time network television?

If Sony does this right then they can grab SOME of what the Nintendo has. One really epic motion game (I can't believe I just wrote that) and all the people who bought a PS3 for the bluray will buy it. Then their friends/family will come over to play it. That's all they really need to do.

As far as the commercials are concerned, go to gametrailers and look at the Smash Bros Brawl trailer and the Street Fighter 4 trailer. They're just close ups of the prominent characters and fight scenes. Or compare two FPS trailers. Commercials always look the same because people are always the same.

The design of Move looks like a Wiimote. I bet the first caveman to invent the wheel was pissed when the second caveman to make a wheel started copying him. But I'm sure the competition made for better wheels in the long run and Nintendo really needs some competition.

Is the PS3 message unclear? Only to people that have been listening from the start. Us. But long ago we decided whether we wanted a PS3 or not.

For all I care the launch game for Move could be "Move: Out of Your Girlfriend's Apartment," a game involving loading boxes into a truck, driving said truck, then unloading the boxes at your parent's house. I like my Xbox.

Sorry I rambled.
 

Kurokami

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SaintWaldo said:
So, what does Natal say about XBox? I'd just like to know that the same standards are being applied.

It doesn't make sense to me to say Sony is confusing folks because they are following Wii with Move when MS is doing...the SAME thing with Natal.

Why is Sony described as "confused" for chasing the Wii's casual audience, when MS does the same thing?

Why was the press obsessed with Sony's motion controller name, and whether it was "exciting", but they've never asked MS to give us something other than the dev name?

I mean, come on, even the straw man in the article seems a bit out of bounds. Seriously, someone walks into a game store and we should believe they wouldn't be able to work out that the PS3 plays games? In my opinion, this so-called "identity crisis" is as much a factor of the (mostly western) press reaction as anything else. No, it doesn't matter that I'm a gamer. I was never confused about what I was buying. The people who I've recommended a PS3 to knew what they were getting (and so did the folks I recommended get a Wii or 360, BTW), a game machine that played the kind of games they wanted.

Where is the review of the XBox history? That machine seems a bit confused right now, as well. One example: they seem to have changed from "10 years is WAY too long for a console lifespan" to "well, you know, we think the XBox 360 will be around until 2015". THAT'S a reversal that has gone completely unnoticed by the western press. They have bought into Sony's lifespan plan. In fact, you can find Nintendo saying similar things about the lifespan of the Wii. Why isn't this as noteworthy as a retrospective of the PS3's marketing, and not the FIRST one at that, mind you? Just 2 years after the fact, XBox has been allowed to live down a 30% defect rate that bordered on fraud. But Sony is just CRAZY because 6 years ago they had a weird add. You see why that might seem a bit off-putting?

You see, it's news if it's new. We already know the early marketing was filled with hubris and silliness. That's not news. We also know ALL consoles are putting out motion controls, which in a regular world running on human logic means that none of them are confused about being gaming consoles that have motion controllers.

Why it's news for Sony, and apparently bad news from the tone of the write up, well, I guess that's wisdom for the US gaming press to create and deliver.
Gotta remember that Xbox multiplayer is infested with 12 year old gibbons.
 

misfit119

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I've come to a pretty big conclusion about Sony - they're officially trying to market to the "people who already own a PS3" crowd. Seriously they seem to have this deep, self hating aversion to making money. They come out with a motion controller that does nothing for gaming, they announce a Wiimote for their console while I'm still wondering what the point of Sixaxis was (even though it was the future and Dualshock the past) and now you can't even find one of the blasted consoles in stores because they're not producing even remotely near enough of them. Can't find any in the stores while FFXIII was just released. Lets reiterate - you can't find any consoles in the stores, because Sony is being slow about producing any of them, when there's a console selling game on the shelves. Great move guys.

Microsofts commercials are distinctly American for the most part (loud, noisy and flashy) but it gets the job done. Nintendo basically screams "We're for a family and friends to have a good time" and it works. Sony has no idea what's going on or where they are. I think their main problem is that their PR people are just absolutely terrible. They can never really decide on what message they want to send and they just bounce around, aimlessly hoping to hit upon a success. But let's be honest about the fact that Sony was never great at PR they let their system speak for itself while making ridiculously artsy fartsy commercials. This Sony "It just does everything" campaign is terrible.

And whoever said that Microsoft changed their console lifespan estimate because of Sony you need to learn a bit more about those events. When they announced the Xbox 360 being only a short term machine until the next one came they took a HUGE backlash right on the chin. So they completely changed their tune to buy back some support. It has nothing to do with Sony and everything to do with feedback from the gaming community. A couple of their PR guys even said as much during a dinner at E3 '09.
 

ace_of_something

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mrx19869 said:
ace_of_something said:
hrm. Interesting. My wife and I loves our PS3. It's played daily by at least one of us. I think they should market it to hip young childless couples. Though that would require more multiplayer games (multiplayer, NOT online)
thats not what they want to do, they want to let people know that if you want to do it, you can do it on the ps3, because the ps3 does eveything
What? They're still using that slogan? I mean cuz after what we call 'the homade ice cream fiasco' we found out that it certainly can NOT do everything. I claim false advertising.
Sure is a nifty game machine though.
 

JEBWrench

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Having never actually met a flesh-and-blood human being who currently owns a PS3. (One owned one, got extremely bored with it, and then got a Wii), I can say for certain that the average person who might be loosely interested in getting a console has roughly no idea what the PS3 can do. Blu-Ray? Do you know what the layman's response to that is?

WTF's the difference?

When you mention motion controls? "So, it's like the Wii?"

Motion controls, to the layman, mean "Wii". If Sony's looking to change that association, it's an interesting tactic, but if they're just going for "Me too, but it'll cost more!" they're probably going to lose.
 

Toasted Nuts

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I have both consoles, and i have friends on either console who play the games on there a lot. I bought both consoles mainly as a games console, the PS3 for some of the exclusives as i had an xbox 360 first about 3 years before i bought a PS3. The blue Ray player was just a bonus that also gt from buying this games console.

Free internet or not, i have to say as an online console the PS3 is rubbish compared to the xbox. The fact that you get a free headset makes all the difference with the xbox, i have to go out and buy one for the ps3 and most of them are rubbish Bluetooth headsets that give me earache after an hours use. The fact that you also cant have an type of in game chat with your friends like an xbox live party is just terrible and makes the online experience nothing compared to the xbox.

For me as gaming is the most important thing from a console these things are the most important for me. But more on topic of the original article, i agree that Sony should just focus on 1 direction for the console and stick with it. Because fore me im not sure what the PS3 really is. If they focused purely on a Console they might focus on making an in game chat feature like an XBL party but instead they focus on giving me facebook on my console...

Really though its down to bottom line profits, but considering the amount of PS2's sold surely if they had ust made it purely a console they may have retained more of these customers. I can understand them wanting to expand the consumer base but they must have known they would alienate a lot of gamers.

This is an advert we have in the UK for the ps3 which i honestly think are anouying, Sony trying to sell the PS3 as able to do loads of stuff.

 

Deviluk

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rees263 said:
Deviluk said:
Thats probably the case in the states, but no-one buys a 360 in Japan, and here in the UK all my friends have PS3s. And I don't think their target market is any different to the 360, they practically have the same base of games, and are now doing the same thing with the motion control thing.
I wish I was in your position. I'm a PS3 owner (okay, maybe fanboy :S) but all my friends own 360s.
I think the market is fairly even here in the UK (still slightly in 360's favour perhaps?) I have to say that neither adverts for Sony or M$ are particularly interesting to me. They never say anything I don't already know. Nintendos are just as useless for information but they do seem more likely to appeal to the average person (which is no doubt a factor in why they are outstripping the others so much in terms of sales).
I agree, but it also does annoy me a little when it says 'On Xbox 360' for a game like FFXIII., even though in my experience PS3 gamers prefer stories and big, AAA adventures, whereas 360's are better for your EA sports and games with an emphasis on multiplayer.