John Koller, the senior director for PlayStation hand-held consoles, said the PS Vita would allow users to feel engaged and still feel like theyre playing on a console. The target audience for the Vita are men in their 20s who play video games eight hours a week or more and own a PlayStation3 console.
The trick will be getting those young men to put down their phones and pick up the PS Vita.
The cost of the marketing campaign at $50 million is the largest platform launch in terms of marketing investment weve ever had, Mr. Koller said.
Sony worked with Deutsch, part of the Interpublic Group of Companies, to create the campaign that includes television commercials, billboards, retail partnerships, digital banner ads and a significant presence in social media. The theme of the campaign, Never Stop Playing, will be featured on many of the ads as will the Twitter-influenced hashtag, #gamechanger.
Jason Elm, the executive vice president and creative director at Deutsch, described the campaigns audience as very socially plugged in, mobile, out and about, both physically and on the Internet. Using the Twitter hashtag on the ads would help aggregate all of the conversations people were having about the product in one place, Mr. Elm said.
While the hashtag conversations will be organic, the company will also buy promoted Twitter posts that will direct consumers to the devices Web site, playstation.com/psvita, where they can learn more about the product and make a purchase. Facebook users will find a tab dedicated to the Vita on the PlayStation page and how-to videos about the device.
Another part of the campaign, naturally enough, involves putting the PS Vita into peoples hands. Users looking for a more tactile experience can play with the device in pop-up stores that the company is calling Vita Social Clubs in cities like San Francisco, Boston and Los Angeles.
The commercials for the campaign were shot in three days in Buenos Aires and were meant to show how the Vita affects you socially, Mr. Elm said. In one spot, the male character is using his Vita to continue playing a game during his commute that he started before leaving for work. Another spot highlights the augmented reality features of the console with a narrator explaining how the world is your next battleground, while a third spot shows a man playing games against other people he sees in the street.
Gaming is no longer playing alone in a basement by one person with one machine; its all networked, Mr. Elm said. To reach its core consumer, the company will show the commercials during television programs like The Simpsons, South Park and Tosh.0, the popular Comedy Central show, and during N.B.A and N.C.A.A. basketball games.
Online users will see banner ads across 26 Web sites like Yahoo, ESPN, CNN and YouTube. Billboards and wallscapes will be seen in cities like New York, Chicago and San Francisco and radio ads for the Vita will be broadcast on the Howard Stern show on Sirius Radio during March Madness.
