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I dig Sony's "marketing" around the PS5.

This is not a thread about PS vs xBox. I've come to the conclusion with regards to the two consoles that only future releases/actual gameplay by all of us will decide the superiority there.

I'm rather just giving a brief opinion as to why I am enjoying the way Sony is drip-feeding us the PS5. Trying to nut out this general feeling I'm getting. I don't claim to really know what I'm talking about, I'm really just trying to put in words why Sony is appealing to me at the moment.

Screen_Shot_2020_03_18_at_12.19.26_PM.0.png


Specifically, I guess, I think this nudge'y method encourages fan hyping on open ended details, a point of difference with regards to [multiple] competitors and ultimately a hands-off passive marketing campaign. The upshot seems to be that Sony gamers/customers are being encouraged to own the tech and, of course, buy it.

I was reading an article somewhere (yeah, I'm probably behind the times with this 'term' though it's been a noted phenomenon to me ever since the Tea Party and Tony Abbott from around 2008, if not earlier) about the 'nudge' idea of Behvaiour Economics, the idea that you can, in simplest terms, use a few positive lines and ambiguous statements to encourage groups to make certain decisions. It seems like Sony has done just those things - giving their fans a single, positive, lengthy press release [with a few devious asides around 26:00 about the 'danger' of using TFLOPs 'as an absolutely indicator of performance'] which outlined a bunch of features without directly elucidating (gameplay, whathaveyou) their benefits. The upshot is that Sony fans have mobilized to speculate about those new features in an intensely positive/defensive manner (a pretty familiar - if relatively innocent - effect in this age of Brexit, Trump, Bolsonaro et al~[note: I'm in no way connecting PS fans with those political groups, quite the contrary if anything~])

If you're a Sony fan at the moment the overriding emotion may well be one of confident, if impatient, expectation for a product you'll certainly be buying these 'Holidays'. People are swarming and chewing over all the information that has been released (what was that about the Dualsense almost instantly becoming the fastest liked gaming tweet ever or somesuch?), and it is easy to predict that the same frenzy will recur with the next information to be forthcoming. Let's not even start on fan freakouts about information that hasn't even been hinted at yet. That's some cool marketing.

If we look at past game console releases (including those of Sony, others) another viable strategy looks to have been the generous issuance of information and positivity. This seems to be the way of the XSX who, while not revealing absolutely everything about their consoles (i heard somewhere that their thus far under-discussed decompression software may be a lot better than Sony's?), have elected to give their fans a number of specific numbers, physical representations and gameplay clips to gather around. This is one way to do it, one look at this forum would reveal that it is arguably just as effective and generating groundswell, but the point is that PS5 have shown themselves to be apart from their direct competitor purely by dint of how little information they're doling out. I for one think that's nifty.

So yeah, I guess in summary I'm jazzed by Sony's methods this year. Whether or not COVID-19 has much to do with the dearth of information coming out the PS5 camp at the moment, they're barely lifting a finger and receiving millions of dollars worth of advertising for free from their rabid, ironclad fanbase. And the websites which cater to their gaming news apetites. Heck, they've got me writing this. I just think it's pretty cool~ Maybe this favour I feel is a sort of latent resonance with a part of me that wishes 'progressive', positive social groups would use the tactics of their antitheses to stir up their own vote-deciding movements~

TL - DR: I like that they're not telling us much, forcing PS fans to fill the topic vacuum with optimistic speculation and defensive positivty.

ps. Also, is it just me or has this marketing strategy actually diminished the game'y ness of the playstation? I have to sort of remind myself every now and then that we're talking about a black plastic-and-metal box that's gonna let us waste time with the best of 'em. Mark Cerny in that hour long video looks like such a techy expert but really he's just trying to give us really pretty FF titles. How can they make it feel like some kind of console-porche hybrid so effectively?! Must be some of their latent DNA for making hawt products.
 
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Pallas

Member
If you have to start a thread to say it’s not about my box vs your box then there’s gonna be trouble.

As for marketing, if you mean by them by slowly bottle feeding us tid bits of info at a excruciating and painfully slow pace, then I don’t know if I can agree with you.
 

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
I think PS5 "marketing" can be summed up in 6 parts so far (unless I missed some):

1. Last year. Spiderman SSD video

2. Last year. Cerny talks vaguely about PS5 to Wired.com

3. I think November 2019. Sony releases some more vague info (the same day some Sony people got fired)

4. VGA awards. Godfall announced for PS5

5. Cerny does his GDC stage show

6. PS5 controller officially announced
 
you can feel however you want about the product thats your choice. But having a company drip feeding you info is not marketing I think the gaming industry confuses the quiet approach and actually starving your fan base. If sony wanted to take the quiet approache they would just stealth launch the system like what sega with the saturn. You starving people for info never ends well people only have so much patients and in some instanced the hype reaches a level you cant reach.
 

kungfuian

Member
Objectively speaking I'd say Sony's marketing has been terrible compared to Microsoft''s. Like seriously the market leader with 110 million players decided the best way to communicate their next gen offering is a few wired articles, a logo reveal, a developer-centric GDC talk with full on silhouette crowd, and most recently the controller.

None of those is bad in and of itself (except the silhouette crowd), but taken as a whole, Sony's marketing efforts come across as a random incoherent mess. They have only gotten away with this because they are the market leader and as such will get a million hits for every scrap of info. It's a PS5, the hunger is real, and they could show nothing and sell out the first year no problem.

But add in all the cancelled shows (they got lucky on that front), just lame low energy State of Plays, delayed games, etc. Sony's Marketing team is doing a terrible job at the moment.
 

John254

Banned
I think PS5 "marketing" can be summed up in 6 parts so far (unless I missed some):

1. Last year. Spiderman SSD video

2. Last year. Cerny talks vaguely about PS5 to Wired.com

3. I think November 2019. Sony releases some more vague info (the same day some Sony people got fired)

4. VGA awards. Godfall announced for PS5

5. Cerny does his GDC stage show

6. PS5 controller officially announced
1. leaked video
2. yup, article to create hype
3. same
4. Well. Godfall wasn't very good example of next-gen game tbh
5. GDC talk was GDC talk, that Sony marketed like console reveal and it backfired pretty badly
6. Dualsense reveal which was put together at last minute, because Sony feared it would leak to the public

I don't know what OP is talking about, but that doesn't sound like "good marketing"
 
1. leaked video
2. yup, article to create hype
3. same
4. Well. Godfall wasn't very good example of next-gen game tbh
5. GDC talk was GDC talk, that Sony marketed like console reveal and it backfired pretty badly
6. Dualsense reveal which was put together at last minute, because Sony feared it would leak to the public

I don't know what OP is talking about, but that doesn't sound like "good marketing"
Pretty much this. Sony and MS are starring each other down right now because they don't want to be the one with the more expensive console; however in the upcoming economy they'd HATE to sell at a loss.
There's not a lot of good marketing here.
 

GiJoint

Member
I think their marketing has been pretty poor but they have the benefit of having a certain competitor they prison fucked in sales this gen and have a massive foundation of fans to lean on.
 
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bitbydeath

Member
I like the drip feed approach but I’d rather it be a consistent approach. Each week/fortnight/month pick a recurring day that we can expect something no matter how small to drop.

That would be exciting knowing something is coming and when.
 
I like the drip feed approach but I’d rather it be a consistent approach. Each week/fortnight/month pick a recurring day that we can expect something no matter how small to drop.

That would be exciting knowing something is coming and when.
i agree with u, i'd prefer a bit more info :p

I think their marketing has been pretty poor but they have the benefit of having a certain competitor they prison fucked in sales this gen and have a massive foundation of fans to lean on.
a few of y'all have said this, and i totally get it, but i guess the gist of my writeup was that the lack of taditional marketing could be interpreted as a conscious decision~ but all good
 
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It may not necessarily be marketing in the traditional sense, but I actually prefer it funnily enough. It's a much tougher slog for me because I want it all now, but the excitement buildup is far different from MS.

Microsoft's marketing has been pretty damn good thus far, but i feel like everything was dropped way too fast, and way too soon. But they have no choice really, because the XB1 isnt really doing much of anything these days and they dont plan to support it apart from the "family of consoles" and its forced MS' hand. I feel like MS' hype is much harder to maintain for them, because all they can do now is show games.

Sony's hype buildup I feel will be more impactful and last a lot longer leading up to the launch of both consoles.
 

THE DUCK

voted poster of the decade by bots
Nonsense about SonyGaf will earn you a reply ban straight away
A strong happy article for Sony on some of the worst console marketing ever?
This forum is pro Sony sometimes its ridiculous. Might was well just rename it to sonyneogaf.com.
 
I hate it. I wanted to see a big event like E3 where sony has a few very impressive nerxt gen game demos to show with awosome opening sequence like they used to do. One big event know it all and be done with it.
 

turtlepowa

Banned
A strong happy article for Sony on some of the worst console marketing ever?
This forum is pro Sony sometimes its ridiculous. Might was well just rename it to sonyneogaf.com.
It's so pro Sony, most people get banned for things like your last word.
 

phil_t98

#SonyToo
There hasn’t realy been any marketing?
I get that your excited as is everybody else, I just wish they had the confidence to show the console. With the PS4 they showed the console off in February and launched in novemeber
 

SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
This is literally the worst marketing ever. It's non existent. They are literally revealing logos at conferences. Even don matrick's clueless ass didn't do that.

They revealed the ps5 in a dev talk assuming all ps5 owners would understand wtf cerny was going on about. Even people who could understand it didn't understand it leading to an article and a blogpost with clarification that lead to even more questions.

Who every is in charge of this marketing is asleep behind the wheel.. They are crashing into cars and have yet to course correct.

I'm not surprised that some people like this trainwreck of a marketing strategy. Some people like bukake, some get off to hentai, some think trump is a great president. People think the weirdest things.
 

Radical_3d

Member
This is literally the worst marketing ever. It's non existent. They are literally revealing logos at conferences. Even don matrick's clueless ass didn't do that.

They revealed the ps5 in a dev talk assuming all ps5 owners would understand wtf cerny was going on about. Even people who could understand it didn't understand it leading to an article and a blogpost with clarification that lead to even more questions.

Who every is in charge of this marketing is asleep behind the wheel.. They are crashing into cars and have yet to course correct.

I'm not surprised that some people like this trainwreck of a marketing strategy. Some people like bukake, some get off to hentai, some think trump is a great president. People think the weirdest things.
This. The whole marketing team should be fired. Communication has been abysmal.
 

bitbydeath

Member
There hasn’t realy been any marketing?
I get that your excited as is everybody else, I just wish they had the confidence to show the console. With the PS4 they showed the console off in February and launched in novemeber

On the contrary it wasn’t shown until June. They did a specs blowout with games in Feb tho.
 

GiJoint

Member
a few of y'all have said this, and i totally get it, but i guess the gist of my writeup was that the lack of taditional marketing could be interpreted as a conscious decision~ but all good
Could also mean things are out of their control too, like that virus, getting a price right, sourcing material etc

Or they’re simply just not ready.
 
Weird takes ITT.

It seems OP is on point here.

Why are people hating on the drip-feed marketing of Sony?

It seems it's generating hype like crazy and only those who don't support the PlayStation brand have a problem with that for some reason.

I, for one, love this type of marketing because I get to look forward to something every week or so.

Imagine blowing your load so early into the game. Only a brand with no significant momentum would do something like that.

Jim is a smart man and he knows what he's doing. I never understood his philosophy until last night when we had a call about the upcoming weeks leading up to the showcase.

He's a big fan of Tiger King.
 

Snake29

RSI Employee of the Year
Objectively speaking I'd say Sony's marketing has been terrible compared to Microsoft''s. Like seriously the market leader with 110 million players decided the best way to communicate their next gen offering is a few wired articles, a logo reveal, a developer-centric GDC talk with full on silhouette crowd, and most recently the controller.

None of those is bad in and of itself (except the silhouette crowd), but taken as a whole, Sony's marketing efforts come across as a random incoherent mess. They have only gotten away with this because they are the market leader and as such will get a million hits for every scrap of info. It's a PS5, the hunger is real, and they could show nothing and sell out the first year no problem.

But add in all the cancelled shows (they got lucky on that front), just lame low energy State of Plays, delayed games, etc. Sony's Marketing team is doing a terrible job at the moment.

Those were people lol, not silhouette crowd.
 
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martino

Member
i think sony isn't even really pushing for now.
Geeks / Nerds are obviously the more vocal on internet and lot of them love PlayStation a lot.
 
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Objectively speaking I'd say Sony's marketing has been terrible compared to Microsoft''s. Like seriously the market leader with 110 million players decided the best way to communicate their next gen offering is a few wired articles, a logo reveal, a developer-centric GDC talk with full on silhouette crowd, and most recently the controller.

None of those is bad in and of itself (except the silhouette crowd), but taken as a whole, Sony's marketing efforts come across as a random incoherent mess. They have only gotten away with this because they are the market leader and as such will get a million hits for every scrap of info. It's a PS5, the hunger is real, and they could show nothing and sell out the first year no problem.

But add in all the cancelled shows (they got lucky on that front), just lame low energy State of Plays, delayed games, etc. Sony's Marketing team is doing a terrible job at the moment.
Marketing in 2020 is alot different than your average marketing push. Maybe to you its objectively wrong, but that's not true if you understand the true nature of marketing: paradigm shifts happen in marketing strategies and OP explained that very well.

Microsoft has been transparent with their console and showing it first, but can you really say they have the same kind of momentum behind the Xbox Series X?

All I will say is that Xbox's players have been more engaged with their brand not because of the marketing but because it's the next-gen console infinity war and they don't want to lose that war no matter what.
 
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The_Mike

I cry about SonyGaf from my chair in Redmond, WA
Objectively speaking I'd say Sony's marketing has been terrible compared to Microsoft''s. Like seriously the market leader with 110 million players decided the best way to communicate their next gen offering is a few wired articles, a logo reveal, a developer-centric GDC talk with full on silhouette crowd, and most recently the controller.

On the other hand, do they need good marketing, when all it takes to be the most liked post on the net is posting a simple logo or a new controller?
 

SaucyJack

Member
It is coming across as a bit odd.

It’s mostly just impatience. And in these times of extreme boredom it’s excruciating.

We all want to see more, we want to see the box, we want to know the price, but most of we want to be excited about next gen games. We want to know what games are coming at launch and we want to see how they’ll look.
 

Bankai

Member
They have marketing??

I know this is supposed to be a joke, but it is quite accurate IMO :messenger_downcast_sweat:

I do not think were witnessing a good marketing strategy here. It all comes across as half-assed up until now. Why didn't they show the Dualsense when Cerny did the GDC talk? It would have spiced up things so much more and it wás also relevant to developers.

Ow well.. I'm probably going to buy the PS5 anywayz (because I want PSVR 2 and I love the exclusives), but I think they could've already done a way better job marketing the device.
 

cormack12

Gold Member
I dunno, you can be open and transparent like MS have been and risk the mixed receptions, or you can keep everything back and risk frustration, versus thirst for viral teases. Of the two, I think MS are currently doing the best but neither are excelling. We know what their box looks like, we've seen some actual game teases and they have a raft of speculation about what new/resurrected IP's the team are going to deliver. Granted, they might be garbage or bomb but at least we can think about a new PGR, a new Fable etc.

I like Cerny, because I like the nuts and bolts talk, but we're being told to take a lot on faith. I don't think Godfall is a good launch title, and if they want it to punch out we need to see substantially more than what's shown. We also got the PS4 reveal event in which we were shown million of Havok objects in an environment, we had audio pushed via the headset and companion app, the vita was going to be the living room focus as well. All these just kind of dissipated.

There's nothing really for general fans to get excited about so we have these very technical war threads with most people ill equipped to break them down into meaningful context.
 

Shin

Banned
Hard to say who's right and who's not in terms of prediction, on one hand I feel Xbox did everything right but too soon and too fast.
PlayStation on the other hand most likely anticipated that the world would be on lock-down and keeping their marketing with that in mind.
On the other hand here's Apple releasing a new budget phone (SE) amidst all this and not even breaking a sweat, it even has more views than PS5 an in a shorter time.

Brand recognition/loyalty goes a long way, unfortunately I'm not sure if Sony can fully grasps that decades later, after all you're only as good as the people that work for you.
 

PocoJoe

Banned
If you have to start a thread to say it’s not about my box vs your box then there’s gonna be trouble.

As for marketing, if you mean by them by slowly bottle feeding us tid bits of info at a excruciating and painfully slow pace, then I don’t know if I can agree with you.

Reason he/she have to say it because every thread about PS5 gets filled by some people whom are having a psychotic breakdown and they have to come to spam some xbox comparisons and "bbbbut xbox can do this too... bbbbut 12 tflops!!". So yeah, it is fine to state that this is just about PS5 if OP wants to talk about PS5 and not to listen the never ending choir of parrots repeating same stuff. Some people are just too stupid to understand that we can talk about thing A without talking about thing B. Like we can talk about Honda specs without dragging every other car manufacturer in. I'm 99% sure that even OP asking not to talk about ps5 vs xbox = boneheads come to talk about how xbox did it better etc. Your comment kind of started it already and this comment kind of continues it.. see


But anyway, I kind of understand and like this approach too. As Sony just doesn't need big marketing campaigns for PS5

1) "everybody" knows what PlayStation is

2) most have math skills to know that 5 comes after 4, so no need to tell "hey this is the next console"

3) there is still months of time before it is sold, so it is kind of like waiting for xmas as kid, you know it is coming but the waiting and being excited is the cool part

4) netflix and other places are shown that if you tell everything in one occasion, it kills the hype. Like Mandalorian or Witcher. Best series in ages but as they were out so fast and it is long time till next season = hype died pretty fast

5) Sony can just give us few words or pics = internet explodes = that is damn cost effective and smart marketing strategy of many companies cant even dream about. Why spend 10 millions in making some show when one picture does the same or more?

6) So in the end, there is no need for Sony to "win people on their side" as they are the king of the hill, and probably stay on there as long as they dont fuck up really badly and that would be a miracle if they would do something like that. (big fuck up = 30% consoles DOA etc)

7) While I would like to see the games, the system, all the features.. This situation of locked at home since February kind of makes small things to be big things, like waiting for more info about PS5 gives some sense of hope and something (normal) to wait for the future, instead of all the doom and gloom.

if alternative would be some big ass show with all the specs, games and whatnot in one session, it would not be so cool
 
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Self

Member
At this stage and at this level Sony simply doesn't need marketing.
A few pics here and there is obviously enough to stir shit up like nothing is else.

It's like when the Rolling Stones do announce a new world tour and the tickets sell out shortly after.
There is nothing to proof when you have no real competition.

Let's just hope that Sony is not becoming to arrogant for their own good.
 

Hostile_18

Banned
Objectively speaking I'd say Sony's marketing has been terrible compared to Microsoft''s. Like seriously the market leader with 110 million players decided the best way to communicate their next gen offering is a few wired articles, a logo reveal, a developer-centric GDC talk with full on silhouette crowd, and most recently the controller.

None of those is bad in and of itself (except the silhouette crowd), but taken as a whole, Sony's marketing efforts come across as a random incoherent mess. They have only gotten away with this because they are the market leader and as such will get a million hits for every scrap of info. It's a PS5, the hunger is real, and they could show nothing and sell out the first year no problem.

But add in all the cancelled shows (they got lucky on that front), just lame low energy State of Plays, delayed games, etc. Sony's Marketing team is doing a terrible job at the moment.

Yep this 100%. Apart from the controller reveal nearly everything else has reduced my hype for the PS5. I'm one of the dedicated PS4 fans (not in a fanboy way) and even I am feeling pissed off with how they have handled it. Outwardly it seems super, super arrogant... what's happened to Sony (outside of WWS) this last year? To have them be so great and seemingly fuck it up at the finish line. All the leadership turn arounds make it look like they are in up evil.

World wide studios are the only thing that's keeping me on track for the PS5 at the moment. We really need a home run game/reveal digital conference at this point.
 
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