It’s been 25 years since Sony first introduced the PlayStation 2, but current PS5 owners don’t have much to get excited about in 2024. We’re on the short road to its highly anticipated launch. PlayStation 5 PRo. Despite being the company’s biggest hardware release in the last four years, judging by the lackluster event, current situation The game showcase was held last month.
Nintendo Microsoft And Sony Latest Direct Games ShowcaseAs I stare down at my old Nintendo Switch, which sits on top of my old PlayStation 2 at home, I’m reminded once again that as cold, humorless and corporate as Sony is today, I’m reminded of how aggressively the company once marketed its gaming devices. There was a time, 25 years ago, between 1997 and 2001, when Sony was trying to make the PlayStation the filthiest, sleaziest games console you could buy.
Things were better when we could all sit back and laugh at companies trying to sell us products that appealed to our worst instincts, which in itself is a satire of reality and somehow backfires into anti-satire. Sony isn’t winning much right now, but if you think back to their old ads, you might understand why.
How insane were PlayStation’s old ads?
This came to mind last week when I came across a lewd but completely fake PlayStation ad. A fake PlayStation ad appears every now and then at the top of your feed: an image of a young woman with her tongue out, with four pills scattered across her taste buds. Embedded within each pill are the triangle, X, circle and square buttons that represent PlayStation controls. This one isn’t real; it’s so similar to actual print and TV ads endorsed by the same brand that it hardly matters that it’s fake.
Every time it comes up, people have to remind each other that it’s just a hallucinatory image spurted from the ever-accumulating sewer of the internet. Was Sony honestly promoting the message that “gaming is a drug, and drugs are cool”? Yes, they most certainly did, especially considering the ad that showed the PlayStation’s face buttons covered in blood. Carved into the man’s sclera Or attached to a person’s nipples.
Remember the unexpected events? Apple’s 1984 adIt was directed by Ridley Scott, a celebrated director who had returned to advertising to help PlayStation promote the PS2, and despite the fact that the discs cost between $40 and $60 a pop, the games may be a kind of disillusioned counterculture.
But somehow, Scott couldn’t match the weirdness of the infamous 1999 “Mental Wealth” ad, featuring a young Scottish woman with pigtails and eerie eyes. Directed by Chris Cunningham, There’s too much confusion Some viewers genuinely thought that the actress featured in the ad, Fiona MacLean, had eyes that were really far apart on the sides of her face.
Even after the grunge era ended, Sony remained known for its bad taste, and previously apologized for its promotional practices. Clearly racist ads A PSP advert aired in the Netherlands in 2006. This unregulated advertising has likely contributed to lending credibility to unlicensed advertising. Blood Transfusion for Nazis and Man with thumbs instead of genitalsSony had to spend time and effort denouncing these two ads as unauthorized foreign advertising.
The PS3 era saw less sexualized ads, but still with a raw edge that, while skewed in its message, still grabbed the player’s attention, which was probably what the PS3 was aiming for. The infamous 2006 baby doll ad It said virtually nothing about consoles, and it certainly didn’t make me want to go out and buy one, but even in my early teens, every time I saw a baby doll (probably more often than most people), I saw a PS3.
A self-satirising ad might have been better.
The recent PlayStation State of Play was no different to the corporate streaming marathon where hopeful players watched dozens of trailers for games they’ll never play, hoping to get a glimpse of games that will never be released. Last month’s Summer Game Fest and Xbox Showcase were similarly bland events. The explosive spontaneity of past E3s. RIP.
Just because Sony’s marketing has outgrown its rebellious phase doesn’t mean the situation has gotten worse. Advertising is inherently abusive; it’s psychologically manipulative and misleading, and it serves only to distract from the daily disasters that the very existence of a multi-billion dollar corporation brings about.
What I found funny about Sony’s old marketing was how ineffective it was. It was a reminder of the excesses of marketing in the first place. The old Playstation ads are most similar to the satirical ads you see for games like this one: Grand Theft Auto V and Cyberpunk 2077.
I’m new to Cyberpunk, and now that the game is fully stabilized I can really appreciate how much time and attention has been given to the human side of the main characters compared to the horribly impersonal, sex-obsessed world they live in. Everywhere you go you see pretentious advertisements for fake beef, cocaine analogues, thermal grease toothbrushes, sex shops, and Times Square sized billboards for stuff you definitely don’t want to buy.
In that sense, the ad is cathartic. It’s so ridiculous that it leaves room for laughter and sneer. But at the same time, it was effective. After all, we’re still talking about it. There’s a reason why Sony remains one of the biggest console makers. They didn’t need to sell their console with these commercials. They didn’t even sell their “counterculture” identity. They did so by drawing attention to their ads.
But I still think it was better back then. Gamers had a common sense of community, even if it was just to laugh at companies’ attempts to pretend to be countercultural. Back then, games felt like an up-and-coming, new shared art medium. Today, most big-budget games feel the same and without the rough edges. Close Game Studio, Laying off thousands of developersand may even cancel planned projects.
