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Sony Repositioning PS3 As The “Total Entertainment Solution”
Sony Computer Entertainment America is aiming to reposition the PS3 as the “total entertainment solution,” according to Peter Dille, the company’s senior vice president of marketing.
A giant fall and Christmas season ad campaign will place less of an emphasis on games and more focus on the PS3’s Blu-ray and movie download capabilities.
"We have been a game company for years and we would never walk away from that, but research confirmed there is a larger proposition under our nose," Dille told the LA Times. "We wanted to reposition as a total entertainment solution. We felt like we can really own entertainment."
While Sony’s latest ad campaign will continue to target gamers, it will also be aimed at more "mums and families,” he added.
Earlier this week Sony Computer Entertainment Europe also announced plans for a similar ad campaign, noting that the PS3 “is moving beyond gaming and gaming is moving beyond discs."
It's not the first time that Sony has marketed the PS3 as an all in one entertainment system. According to SCE boss Kaz Hirai, early marketing that positioned the system as a media hub rather than as a game console led to the PS3 having “a bit of an identity problem” and to criticism from third party game publishers. Almost two years later, with close to 25 million PS3 units now sold worldwide and the new PS3 Slim about to debut at a reduced price point, Sony appears ready to market the PS3’s non-gaming capabilities once again.
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this is not the right approach by sony.it reminds sega saturn.sega then advertised it's console as a multimedia system.photo cd,video cd bla bla bla and it failed.it's all about the games...i own ps3 since day one and i've never watched a blue ray.
It's absolutely the right approach, everything is now in order, and the PS3 really is the only console that does everything, and does it well.
Wii is just crap all round.
Xbox is noisy, unreliable lacks Blu-Ray and has costly extras.
PS3 has pretty much everything except a $5 HDMI lead included, and has by far the best games this season.
When they did this style of marketing in 2006, the Wii had the same kind of games, at the same price-point. Nothing has changed in 2009, & the Wii is still cheaper. I don't think they're competing with Nintendo.
This is a race for second place.
Total Entertainment?
Ok, I got a list of my needs:
Plays Games? Confirmed
Plays DvDs and Bluray? Confirmed
Region Free? Not so much.
Plays Files? Some of them, ignores most high def container formats though.
Plays Music? only with the most impractical approach to playlists
Accesses Internet Media Provider? You wish
Accesses Sony's appalling resolution Music Channel? Confirmed
Online Video Store? Not in continental Europe
Digital-TV? Wake me when it accepts the cryptocard from my REAL DVB-C receiver.
Internet Radio? No
In a nutshell the PS3 plays games and videos. Assuming anything else to be true for Europe is pure pretentiousness.
Here's the other advert that's going to be used:
http://blog.eu.playstation.com/2009/08/27/uk-advertising-campaign-detail...
The video is located at the bottom of the article- good to see its game focused. Why wasn't it included in the original article?
It's funny because Kotaku just did an article on how PS3 in the US were focusing their ads on humour and games.
http://kotaku.com/5346940/a-first-look-at-two-of-the-ps3s-newer-funnier-...
I suspect that they are really going hard sell for the US audience since they have done okay in Europe.
How about gong back to the old way of marketing a GAMES console Sony, some strange thing happening. Then about 1-2 mins of gameplay footage, and ONLY on PS3 followed during PRIME TIME.
All them things like BBCi well hang on can't you just do them on a laptop THAT'S CHEEPER (and faster on the web I might add) than a PS3. Consoles are gaming devices first and formost. PC's are the oposite of consoles in that regard.
Blu-Ray is still the focal point anyway you cut it.
More dysfunction from Sony. Just a few days ago Hirai was saying that Sony was repositioning the marketing of PS3 to remind people that it is first and foremost a game machine, because he felt that they were emphasizing the other entertainment aspects of it too much. Sony really needs to get their disparate groups together and come up with a unified message.
That advert says games console loads of times, but in the UK, putting the BBC iPlayer facility into an advert is a goldmine. People here don't all want to pay for Sky (as on 360) and the iPlayer has been a massive success. HD iPlayer? Thats a selling point in itself, if only Top Gear was in HD....
Credit to Sony, I think. They've got to find a unique message. This might not be the best, but at least they're experimenting.
I think this is a bad idea. They should have done this while it was the only cheap Blu-Ray player. Now it isn't, they really should concentrate on having a clear and simple message that this is a games machine first and foremost. Especially now it is far more price competitive to the 360.
I agree, the 360 has netflix and its video marketplace can be a strong point in Microsoft favor to counter the Blu-ray argument since there is quite a few players cheaper than the PS3. Sony should take this opportunity and push the gaming capabilities of the PS3 as hard as it can.
It's not a new concept in the UK Indrema. Sony did use a similar marketing approach early in the PS3's lifecycle. I've added a little bit to the story to make that clear.
Reposition with less of an emphasis on games and more focus on the PS3’s Blu-ray?
Is this a new concept in the UK? In the U.S., I didn't even know the PS3 played games for about 2 months.
" I didn't even know the PS3 played games for about 2 months."
Well that's an absolute lie isn't it?
Wow, this site is serious!
I was sarcastically referring to Sony's original marketing strategy. Thankfully, Tom Ivan has provided the information with journalistic clarity since the, obviously, joking reference was so confusing.
For clarity - needed I'm certain, he amended the post in case other U.S. readers had similar questions, not because of me
Ha Ha!
I agree with the whole Sony mixed message statement. Sony has tried to peddle the PS3 as an entertainment device at the start of it's life, which disn't work at all. THey had started to bring it around though with the focus on games. WHy are they reverting to an old strategy. It's silly and confusing for this new 'family' market they are aiming at.
C-r-a-z-y.