Urprobablyright
Banned
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.
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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.
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.
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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