Sony Will Drop $50 Million on U.S. Vita Marketing

Marshall Honorof

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Sony Will Drop $50 Million on U.S. Vita Marketing


When the Vita arrives in late February, $50 million of Sony's marketing budget will come with it.

You can buy a lot of things for $50 million. That amount of money will pay for a modest fighter plane, a luxuriant city skyscraper, or, if you're feeling pedestrian, perhaps just 50 million fast food hamburgers (well, more like 45 million after tax, but who's counting?). To a multibillion dollar company like Sony, $50 million may be an affordable expenditure, but it's still more than enough to make a powerful statement; in this case, "We want the Vita to sell." Sony's powerful handheld has seen lackluster sales [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/115688-Sony-Still-Thinks-the-Vita-is-Doing-Well] in Japan since its Asian launch, and the American arm of the company does not want the past to repeat itself. Armed with a gob-smacking amount of money, influential advertising company Deutsch Inc., and a marketing plan revolving around 20-something men with disposable income, Sony has staked a lot on the Vita's successful American launch - perhaps even its continued presence in the handheld market.

Sony's target market for the Vita, 20- to 30-year-old men who already own a PS3, may sound narrow. However, Deutsch believes that this demographic is substantial enough to make back Sony's marketing budget, and then some. "[Gamers are] very socially plugged in, mobile, out and about, both physically and on the Internet," said John Elm, a vice president at Deutsch. He believes that both the Vita and its advertising campaign will suit their needs. In addition to traditional marketing (such as commercials during Millennial favorites The Simpsons, South Park, and Tosh.0), Deutsch pioneered the #gamechanger hashtag for Twitter, which will allow Sony and its consumers to interact in an open forum and build buzz for the device both before and after its launch.

While some analysts believe that the market for dedicated handheld videogame systems is stable ("The portable hardware market is holding its own" said David Riley, an NPD analyst), the numbers suggest it may be in decline. From revenue of $18.1 billion in 2008, the handheld market slipped to $10.7 billion in 2010 - a decrease of roughly 40%. The rise of the smartphone has been instrumental in the relative weakening of the dedicated portable system. After all, an average consumer is more likely to buy a smartphone and pay 99 cents - or nothing at all - for a game app than drop $250 (or more) plus $40-50 per game for a system that can't make phone calls or send texts.

The Vita is one of the most powerful handheld systems to ever appear on the market, but experts are unsure whether this can save the system in an age of cheap, accessible smartphone games. "It's an amazing device," said prolific industry analyst Michael Patcher. "Would you rather have a 10-hour immersive experience for 40 bucks, as opposed to 400 10-minute experiences for free?" Perhaps the better question is, "How many smartphone games could $50 million fund, and what would the return on them be?"

Source: The New York Times [http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/13/business/media/playstation-vita-offers-a-perpetual-game-inside-or-out.html?scp=1&sq=playstation%20vita&st=cse]

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Baresark

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I love how the article immediately jumps to cell phones being the cause for it's poor sales. While that may be a factor, I can't help but feel the cost is the prime factor. If people don't see the item as worth more than the money asked, they won't buy it. And asking people to believe a handheld is worth as much as a console is ridiculous, especially with one of it's major failings being battery life).

But, that is some major advertising cheddar. I hope it does some good, Sony had a terrible year and putting on a strong face for the stock holders will only take you so far. Interestingly enough, I was just reading about the "sunk-cost fallacy". Essentially, over confidence and the prospect of time and money involved make a person/company/entity think it's worth while to continue on a ruinous path just because they have already sunk so much time and money into it. A lot of big companies adhere to this fallacy tooth and nail, some to more detriment than others.
 

Nyaoku

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Put Monster Hunter on it. Then I might buy one. Untill then, consider me still mad for the Wii exclusive.
 

Domehammer

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I really want to buy one but it is just too expensive for me. Gonna have to wait for price to drop. An I don't text or own a cellphone so none of the text messaging via a cellphone or calling people matters to me as my home phone is for calling people.
 

theultimateend

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The second this thing is jailbroken I'll buy one regardless of the asking price.

The potential of playing PS2 games on the go is too delightful to pass up. I >love< playing my psx games on the PSP on trips :D.
 

Mr. Omega

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$250-300 price tag. Plus the cost for the data plan. Plus the cost for the memory card. Plus $30-50 per game. Also, you have to rebuy any PSP UMDs you have, so no chance of getting the PSP backlog, unless you get the memory cards.

It is almost impossible to get a PS Vita and be able to play games on it for less than $300

And Sony expects it to be able to compete with both the 3DS and smartphones? As for the whole "oooh, the system is more powerful and that's what will bring it out on top!" mentality: isn't that the whole reason people claimed the PSP was going to beat the DS? And we all saw how well that went.
 

NerfedFalcon

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Unfortunately, I don't even think that fifty million they put on the advertising will be made back, even when you ignore production costs, etc. That's a very large number - and the last thing I remember grossing that much money is Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. Between high costs, bad reputation in quite a few areas, very few launch games that have mainstream appeal (except maybe Uncharted: Golden Abyss, and compared to their console counterparts Resistance: Retribution and Metroid Prime Hunters didn't do too well) and now this...This, my friends, is called "pride before a fall".

It's like a car crash in slow motion: horrible, but you can't look away from it no matter how much you want to. Not that I expect the 3DS to survive as long as its predecessor either, though I still bought one.
 

Haunsel

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Mr. Omega said:
It is almost impossible to get a PS Vita and be able to play games on it for less than $300
Lumines Electronic Symphony and a Wifi version - $289.99. Try to do some research before you make hyperbolic statements.
 

Ziadaine_v1legacy

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Want it to sell? Allow everyone backwards compatibility with PSP games, drop the price on these Nazi Chips we need to store data and make it more Universal friendly. hell, have you seen the PSV-PC connector cable? it doesn't even use Mini-USB like EVERYTHING ELSE.

EDIT: PLUS, the sale price in Australia was told "350 FOR WIFI+3G", I go into EB Games etc, it's easily 300+ because they're a bunch of scrutinised cunts. (Unless you trade in a iPod Touch 8GB, but seriously who's doing that for a $20 discount?)

Correction, it's fucking $420 + $68 for the 16GB Nazi Chip. Then elsewhere its only 350 for a full bundle w/ 3G and WiFi: http://toucharcade.com/2012/02/14/ps-vita-games-and-game-pricing-to-be-flexible/
 

Haunsel

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DVS BSTrD said:
If the Vita doesn't sell in America it won't be the Smart phone that killed it.
It will be Sony itself.
Yes, clearly despite giving it one of the best launch lineups in the history of gaming, making it incredibly affordable for what it can do, rolling out a permanent discount on digital sales (the only games company in history to do that), they have clearly done so much wrong for it, like........
 

Haunsel

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Ziadaine said:
and make it more Universal friendly. hell, have you seen the PSV-PC connector cable? it doesn't even use Mini-USB like EVERYTHING ELSE.
....and the winner for pettiest possible reason to attack the system is.

Seriously, you're complaining that it uses a proprietary form of cable, even though every Vita sold includes said cable so you don't ever actually want for one. The fuck?
 

Mr. Omega

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Haunsel said:
Mr. Omega said:
It is ALMOST impossible to get a PS Vita and be able to play games on it for less than $300
Lumines Electronic Symphony and a Wifi version. Try to do some research before you make hyperbolic statements.
And maybe you should pay attention to the sentence before you try correcting someone.

More OT: I will admit the varied prices for the games were a very good and admirable move on Sony's part, and the naive part of me hopes this catches on.
 

Ziadaine_v1legacy

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Haunsel said:
Ziadaine said:
and make it more Universal friendly. hell, have you seen the PSV-PC connector cable? it doesn't even use Mini-USB like EVERYTHING ELSE.
....and the winner for pettiest possible reason to attack the system is.

Seriously, you're complaining that it uses a proprietary form of cable, even though every Vita sold includes said cable so you don't ever actually want for one. The fuck?
Take a step back for a moment: THINK LOGICALLY.

Most devices all use the same cable. you lose one, you have plenty of spares. you lose the Vita Cable, chances are, instead of paying say $5 for a replacement USB-Mini Cable (assuming you somehow have none), you'll probably pay $30 for a replacement Vita Cable. Now I don't know if you will or wont lose it, but if said situation happens, you'll pay ~10% of the Vita, just for a new cable.

THAT is my stance. And welcome to the Escapist, try not to look like an arse.
 

FalloutJack

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DVS BSTrD said:
If the Vita doesn't sell in America it won't be the Smart phone that killed it.
It will be Sony itself.
It IS Sony killing it. They didn't give it any advantages that could've helped. Plus, everyone already has a PSP or 3DS.
 

Frozengale

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AND suddenly 50 million will be wasted.
If you are going to waste 50 million why not give it to ME!

EDIT- actually that might work. IF you give 50 million to random person in the name of the Vita it will cause so much "WTF" press that people might actually want to buy it.
 

Lunar Templar

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Frozengale said:
AND suddenly 50 million will be wasted.
If you are going to waste 50 million why not give it to ME!
i second this, mostly due to my own personal level of brokeness
 

loa

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This thing will be a blast if it's jailbroken.
No emulator will lag or otherwise fuck up with so much power.
You could probably even play ps2 games on that thing and watching movies would probably not even require lowering the bitrate or changing formats and I'm sure there'll also be a way to make it accept non-bs overpriced sony memory sticks.

Otherwise, we have the same symptoms that killed the psp:
Too tech-focused, too goddamn high prices, no real "system seller" in its library yet.
But hey, 50 million blown on new squirrel commercials to annoy us with. Aren't we all happy about that?