Many game platforms have a reputation that moves like a roller coaster; there are good, high points, and there are low points that make you question your purchase. The PSP may have had the most awkward experiences in recent times. Maybe part of that has to do with Sony trying to discover the best way to counteract the success of its competitor, the Nintendo DS. For a popular game hardware company, Sony sure makes some oddball decisions sometimes. So let’s take a look at what they did, what worked, and what didn’t.

Since every other game these days wants to use the word “chronicles” in its title, I will carry on the tradition with this article, before the fad’s growing weight breaks the bandwagon’s axles. First, I would like to think of the PSP is a miracle product. Not because it’s a cool luxury gadget, but because it’s holding its own very well despite its rough commercial history and against all odds with the more popular Nintendo DS. When you consider its entire history in the video games market, Sony has usually been very effective in getting its point across.

But from its lukewarm launch (outside of Japan) to the non-sequitur content in ads, the PSP has definitely seen better days.

Its Japan launch did very well. The PSP sold out in a few days, and people were paying inflated prices on eBay. It was like the PS2 all over again. North America finally got their chance to experience it three months later, when the warmth of spring was just around the corner. But its initial reception was very cold. Blame it on the “cold launch”, which was Sony’s decision to play it safe by not over-advertising it (to avoid product shortages), but they went too far in the other end. PSP awareness was still low a week after launch, despite its good lineup of games. Blame the fact that most stores that carried it only had a few signs showcasing the product, and advertising outside these venues was hard to find.

Then they did something random: paint graffiti in the streets of New York City, Miami, and Philadelphia, among other towns. These cartoon drawings of kids playing around with PSPs (not actually playing on the PSP) have caused a disturbance in neighborhoods. As a long-ago friend realized, writing graffiti isn’t as easy in the US as it is in Europe. Although Sony gave permission from property owners to express their own agenda, most people found them to be eyesores and not artistic at all.

If you look at them another way, the art style may not seem legit and it could just be an artist working on his own, passing along social commentary. Unfortunately this wasn’t the case, making it ironic that graffiti is being used to spread a corporate agenda. So much for taking handheld gaming out of the ghetto.

“It’s like a nut you can play outside”…that’s the deadpan voiceover at the end of the commercial, and the only clue as to what the PSP is about. I admire Sony for using more creative ways to make game commercials, and these animated critters probably did a good job in padding some animators’ portfolios. But did this commercial totally miss the point, or what? One squirrel tells his friend about the “portable nut” that is superior to all the regular nuts, but even when taken in context how much sense does it make? And what kind of edible nut isn’t portable? The PSP itself is separate from this scene and just ends with the voiceover.

The squirrels were just part of a larger set of animals, usually putting odd stereotypes along with the PSP they refer to at the end. Sony must’ve felt too cool to use a lot of gameplay footage, if any, in their commercials. Even if these animals were offensive to certain people, the envelope has yet to be pushed further. It wouldn’t happen for at least a few months, in the Netherlands.

This marketing pitch was destined to go wrong before it was made public. To herald the arrival of the new white PSP in Europe, a white female model can be seen holding a black model in a submissive pose along with the message, “PlayStation Portable White is coming”. I’m not sure if this was meant to intentionally make you take a second look at the ad, but buying a game system was far from people’s minds. Almost instantly it was labeled as having racist overtones, as black people being associated with a product. The cries were mostly heard overseas, from NAACP to California representative Leland Yee, who successfully convinced Sony to pull down the billboard ads.

Political incorrectness aside, the ad was not convincing, and a bit confusing. If both women are shown to represent the white and black PSP, why does there need to be tension between both? Both products are made by the same company, after all. The white PSP was never meant to be a replacement of the black one, just a new color to choose from. So I don’t really see why white is being portrayed in a threatening way. What a mixed message.

What followed would not be offensive, but it did insult our intelligence with humorous results.

In December of 2006, Sony decides to take a totally new approach- go online to take on the sphere of the 21st century. No, not the Epcot Center- the blogosphere. As blogging has become a hot trend lately, Sony obviously wanted in, and tried offering up some self-promotion in an inconspicuous manner. But it didn’t work. Readers quickly saw through the thinly veiled disguised of a blog that was supposed to be written by teenagers or young adults.

As a seemingly non-PSP blog started to become more fixated on the sleek portable, some eyes narrowed, others rolled. Remember, this was during the time the Wii and PS3 came out, and nearly all the buzz was on these consoles as far as everyone I know. Who really wanted a PSP for Xmas in 2006? Most readers went on the offensive, spamming the blog with comments and ratting out Sony for their miserable plot. Something funny was discovered: the word “marketing” and “viral” were banned from the comments, making the blog’s origin clear as mud.

But it didn’t stop there. The blog also contained unintentionally funny videos of supposed “fans” making songs about wanting a PSP for Xmas. The rap music video got the most attention, what with the lazy lyrics and awkward setup of a 30-year old man asking his mom to get him a present. The blog readers traced back the blog’s domain and made a few connections with the photos of the people in the blog. Not suprisingly, the blog wasn’t run by any average teenagers, but an advertising agency- Zipatoni. They were hired by Sony to come up with a non-traditional way to market the product. The Consumerist, a website that reports on marketing venues, picked up the story and Sony’s blog was all but over. A month later, the blog was pulled down.

Since then it has been mostly uneventful for Sony’s ad campaign, what with their focus on the newer PS3 and its Blu-Ray technology. But for a company that’s supporting three platforms at once, they’re doing very well. The newest big thing on the PSP hardware horizon was the new PSP slim, which boasts a more efficient battery and video-out so you can finally play those games on a TV screen. And yes, there are ads for them too. They mostly focus on an annoying guy spouting out the newest features and games, but they are nothing to talk about compared to what Sony has tried to do in the past.

These days, Sony wants the PSP and the PS3 to be an item, tied in together with its PlayStation store and providing content for both platforms. But at least it’s not trying to shove this down consumer’s throats. With a more humble approach to winning Sony fans, it looks like its days of offbeat advertising might be coming to an end.

1. I don’t think the crappy marketing can be blamed for all of the PSP’s problems. What about the awful control setup? Or the fact that the firmware had to be hacked to bits before any features besides games were worth mentioning?

   The PSP has loads of problems. A lot of them could have been prevented if Sony had thought about the consumer for about 5 minutes during the design process.

   The DS outsells the PSP because it’s fun.

   I have both, and I never use my PSP.

   Posted by 2xKnight | February 3, 2008, 6:34 am

2. The PSP is fun, too, but you are right about most of PSP’s internal problems, especially the firmware. Sony is trying to play a cat-and-mouse game with its upgrades against the homebrew community.

   This article was only meant to cover the marketing side of the PSP. If I were to address all of the system’s problems, I would need another full article.

   Posted by JustChris | February 3, 2008, 1:37 pm

3. Point taken.

   You could probably get a whole series of articles out of the PSP’s mistakes. *L*

   Posted by 2xKnight | February 4, 2008, 4:21 am

4. […] even the big Sony has trouble supporting three game systems at a time, which might explain why the PSP’s marketing campaign was so crippled. And a new system would divide or confuse third party […]

   Posted by Portabalooza | Will Nintendo ever have another “third pillar”? | March 8, 2008, 7:50 pm

5. Great article.

   @2xKnight:
   In defense of the PSP, I think it’s problems outside of Japan are marketing and library based. If the DS were truly more fun all around, then we probably wouldn’t see the disparity between the PSP vs DS sales in Japan vs everywhere else.

   Posted by tbe.Mike | March 19, 2008, 9:48 am