Sony Motion Controller is Called PlayStation Move, Launches Fall 2010 (Hands On!) [Playstation Move]
Sony’s finally put a name to their motion controller, and it’s called PlayStation Move. Updated with hands on.
Sony will have multiple packages. A standalone Move controller, or a package with PlayStation Eye + Move + a game, or an entire console solution. The Eye and Move and game combo will be less than $100. The preliminary launch window is Fall 2010.
One of the games for it is called Sports Champions, a game with a bunch of smaller mini games. One demo is a swordfighting duel game with a sword/mace and shield. It’s similar to the swordfighting one in Wii Sports Resort, but with a shield too. This needs two motion controllers at once.
One cool effect that they can do with the benefit of having a PS Eye is that they can do augmented reality stuff, like putting a paintbrush or a tennis racquet onto your Move controller on screen.
Sony also didn’t say that the controllers came in a pair, so for the games that require two controllers (like the swordfighting one), you may have to buy two Move controllers. Very Nintendo WiiMote + Nunchuck-esque in terms of having to buy two things.
Motion Fighters. A street fighting game that actually looks pretty cool, as it makes you make the entire motion instead of just flicking your wrist.
Oh, and there’s also a sub-controller that you can buy as an attachment to turn the controller into a WiiMote+Nunchuck like configuration. It’s also wireless.
Hands On
Update: I just got hands on with two of the games, one is Socom, a shooter that has been adapted to use the Move and the sub-controller, the second is the Sports Champions swordfighting.
Socom, compared to point-and-shoot shooters on the Wii, was much smoother, much less jittery and more accurate. The combination of Move and PlayStation Eye seems to work well in this aspect, but it’s not exactly better to use this when you compare it to a standard controller or a Mouse + Keyboard. I can see this as better for novices to shooters, being able to aim where you want to shoot.
The other game, the Sports Champions sword + shield fighting, is about what you’d expect. It’s more or less 1:1 motion, like the Wii MotionPlus, but it’s not so much more accurate than the Wii that you’d call it a dramatic improvement. An improvement, yes, but not dramatic. The left hand also holds a controller in order to wave the shield around, and that was a bit awkward in my experience. Right hand was fine, left hand a bit awkward to control simultaneously.
Swinging the hammer to your left, or right, or over your head actually moves it on screen, but again, it’s not SO much better than Wii MotionPlus. The graphics, of course, are one generation higher, but the controls, ehhh.
PLAYSTATION®MOVE MOTION CONTROLLER DELIVERS A WHOLE NEW ENTERTAINMENT EXPERIENCE TO PLAYSTATION®3
New PlayStation®Move Sub-Controller, Enabling Intuitive Navigation, to Accompany the Release of the Motion Controller This Fall and 36 Developers and Publishers to Support PlayStation®Move Platform
Tokyo, March 10, 2010 – Sony Computer Entertainment (SCE) today announced that PlayStation®Move motion controller for PlayStation®3 (PS3™) computer entertainment system launches worldwide this fall, offering a motion-based, high-definition gaming experience unlike anything on the market. Concurrently with its launch, SCE will also release PlayStation®Move sub-controller to be used along with the motion controller for intuitive navigation of in-game characters and objects. The PlayStation Move platform, including the motion controller, sub-controller, and PlayStation®Eye camera*1, together with a strong lineup of software titles, will deliver an innovative and highly immersive experience on the PS3 system.
The combination of the PS3 system and PlayStation Eye camera detects the precise movement, angle, and absolute position in 3D space of PlayStation Move motion controller, allowing users to intuitively play the game as if they themselves are within the game. PlayStation Move motion controller delivers unmatched accuracy through its advanced motion sensors, including a three-axis gyroscope, a three-axis accelerometer, and a terrestrial magnetic field sensor, as well as a color-changing sphere that is tracked by PlayStation Eye camera. Through PlayStation Move system, both fast and subtle motion can be detected, whether the user is swinging a tennis racket, or painting with a brush. With PlayStation Move motion controller, users can provide direct input through action buttons and an analog trigger, while receiving physical feedback from rumble functionality and visual feedback from the sphere’s ability to display a variety of different colors. Furthermore, PlayStation Eye camera can capture the player’s voice or image, enabling augmented reality experiences.
The newly announced PlayStation Move sub-controller is a one-handed controller, developed to further expand the game play options that PlayStation Move games can offer*2. PlayStation Move sub-controller features a sleek curved design that pairs with the motion controller and comes with an analog stick and directional buttons that allow users to easily control the game when moving characters or choosing a direction. Like all other Wireless Controllers for the PS3 system, it comes with a built in lithium-ion rechargeable battery as well as Bluetooth® technology, enabling the controller to transfer the input information wirelessly to the PS3 system without a cable. PlayStation Move motion controller and sub-controller will further broaden the gaming experience on the PS3 system for all genres, from games that use one motion controller to games that use both controllers.
The introduction of PlayStation Move controllers has been well received within the industry and now 36 third party developers and publishers*3 have decided to support PlayStation Move platform. In fiscal year 2010, SCE Worldwide Studios will also release more than 20 games that are either dedicated to or supported with the PlayStation Move platform.
SCE, with strong support from software developers and publishers, will deploy various measures to enhance the PlayStation Move software title line-up and vigorously promote the PS3 platform.
Playstation 3 To Have HD Movies From All 6 Major Studios [Sony]
Wow. The PS3 is getting HD purchases and rentals from all six major studios. A quick search turns up that Xbox is missing Fox and, duh, Sony. Update: Xbox responds to say they’ve already got this stuff.
From an Xbox representative:
We have partnerships with all the major movie studios to either rent and/or purchase movies on Xbox LIVE, many available in instant-on 1080p HD streaming through Zune. We were the first and remain the only console to bring instant-on 1080p streaming movies and TV shows to consumers and offer a library of more than 25,000 pieces of content. When it comes to total entertainment experiences and value, Xbox 360 continues to lead the charge.
Apparently, the claim of being first had to do with some studios having rentals only on some consoles. Bullshit, essentially. But it’s nice that Sony isn’t handicapping the Playstation 3 in order to protect its blu-ray business.
Sony’s got deals with Fox, Disney, Paramount, Itself, Universal and Warner. I’m impressed. Now I just have to remember my login for PS network.
From Movie Theater to Home Theater: PlayStation(R)Network Delivers High Definition Movies From Six Major Movie Studios in the United States
PlayStation(R)3 Computer Entertainment System First to Have High Definition Movies for Purchase from All Major Studios
FOSTER CITY, Calif., March 9 /PRNewswire/ — Sony Computer Entertainment America (SCEA) today announced that 20th Century Fox, Walt Disney Pictures, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Universal Pictures, and Warner Bros. Digital Distribution will offer high definition (HD) movies for purchase and rental on the PlayStation®Network video delivery service in the United States. PlayStation Network is the first to offer high definition movies for purchase from all of the major movie studios, further establishing PlayStation®3 (PS3®) as the preeminent home entertainment platform for this year’s most popular and critically acclaimed high definition movies.
“Securing high definition content from these studios is another significant milestone further validating PlayStation Network as a complete entertainment network in the home. PlayStation Network is the first and only service to deliver high definition home entertainment from all six major studios, directly to consumers for download,” said Peter Dille, senior vice president, marketing and PlayStation Network, SCEA. “PlayStation Network continues to offer the most comprehensive catalogue of HD movies to PlayStation Network members that realize the wide-ranging entertainment power of the PS3 system.”
The PS3 system is the most complete home entertainment solution on the market today, enabling consumers to enjoy high-definition games and movies, as well as listen to music, view photos, browse the Internet and more. Today’s announcement joins one of the industry’s strongest home entertainment brands with the major media companies that produce and distribute a substantial number of films. At launch, the content will be available in the U.S. only, with plans to launch soon in the U.K., France, Germany, and Spain.
New titles available today on PlayStation Network include:
· 20th Century Fox – “Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian”, “Jennifer’s Body” and “Fantastic Mr. Fox” (on March 23)
· Walt Disney Pictures – Disney Pixar’s “Up”, Jerry Bruckheimer’s “G-Force” and Disney’s “Earth”
· Paramount Pictures – “Star Trek”, “Paranormal Activity” and “Zoolander”
· Sony Pictures – “This Is It”, “2012″, “District 9″ and “Zombieland”
· Universal – “Inglourious Basterds”, “Couples Retreat” and “Public Enemies”
· Warner Bros. Digital Distribution – “The Hangover”, “Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince” and “The Wizard of Oz”
Playstation 3 First Console With HD Movies From All 6 Major Studios [Sony]
Wow. The PS3 is getting HD purchases and rentals from all six major studios. A quick search turns up that Xbox is missing Fox and, duh, Sony.
It’s nice that Sony isn’t handicapping the Playstation 3 in order to protect its blu-ray business.
Sony’s got deals with Fox, Disney, Paramount, Itself, Universal and Warner. I’m impressed. Now I just have to remember my login for PS network.
From Movie Theater to Home Theater: PlayStation(R)Network Delivers High Definition Movies From Six Major Movie Studios in the United States
PlayStation(R)3 Computer Entertainment System First to Have High Definition Movies for Purchase from All Major Studios
FOSTER CITY, Calif., March 9 /PRNewswire/ — Sony Computer Entertainment America (SCEA) today announced that 20th Century Fox, Walt Disney Pictures, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Universal Pictures, and Warner Bros. Digital Distribution will offer high definition (HD) movies for purchase and rental on the PlayStation®Network video delivery service in the United States. PlayStation Network is the first to offer high definition movies for purchase from all of the major movie studios, further establishing PlayStation®3 (PS3®) as the preeminent home entertainment platform for this year’s most popular and critically acclaimed high definition movies.
“Securing high definition content from these studios is another significant milestone further validating PlayStation Network as a complete entertainment network in the home. PlayStation Network is the first and only service to deliver high definition home entertainment from all six major studios, directly to consumers for download,” said Peter Dille, senior vice president, marketing and PlayStation Network, SCEA. “PlayStation Network continues to offer the most comprehensive catalogue of HD movies to PlayStation Network members that realize the wide-ranging entertainment power of the PS3 system.”
The PS3 system is the most complete home entertainment solution on the market today, enabling consumers to enjoy high-definition games and movies, as well as listen to music, view photos, browse the Internet and more. Today’s announcement joins one of the industry’s strongest home entertainment brands with the major media companies that produce and distribute a substantial number of films. At launch, the content will be available in the U.S. only, with plans to launch soon in the U.K., France, Germany, and Spain.
New titles available today on PlayStation Network include:
· 20th Century Fox – “Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian”, “Jennifer’s Body” and “Fantastic Mr. Fox” (on March 23)
· Walt Disney Pictures – Disney Pixar’s “Up”, Jerry Bruckheimer’s “G-Force” and Disney’s “Earth”
· Paramount Pictures – “Star Trek”, “Paranormal Activity” and “Zoolander”
· Sony Pictures – “This Is It”, “2012″, “District 9″ and “Zombieland”
· Universal – “Inglourious Basterds”, “Couples Retreat” and “Public Enemies”
· Warner Bros. Digital Distribution – “The Hangover”, “Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince” and “The Wizard of Oz”
PlayStation Arc Motion Controller May Have a Wii-Style Nunchuk Add-On [Playstation]
While PlayStation still hasn’t confirmed whether its motion controller will be called the Arc, the rumor mill has gone one step further this week with a forum-poster claiming it’ll work alongside a Wii-like nunchuk.
GDC is kicking off over in San Francisco this week, so if ever there was a venue to announce a new add-on—or even confirmation of the name—that would be it.
The forum-poster at NeoGAF, by the name of Ichinisan, reckons the pictures he saw of the nunchuk included an analog stick, plus X and O buttons, along with L1 and L2 buttons under the D-Pad. The wand-shaped Arc meanwhile apparently has “one very big button on top” (no word if s/he meant the big glowing globe, or something else), and X, O, triangle and square buttons. The trigger is the ‘T’ command, according to this mysterious poster—who could very well be full of shit, as he’s just a junior member of the forums. He does comment that “it’s actually long, not like the Wii Nunchuk”—which measures 22.9 x 17.8 x 5.7cm. [NeoGAF via VG247 via TechRadar]
The Return of Sony [We Miss Sony]
We love Sony. We really do. And we want them to get back in the game, because competition makes everyone better. Here’s how they do it.
Open the Library
There was a time when I might have suggested that Sony jettison its media companies, setting music and movies adrift so that the electronics divisions would no longer have to be held hostage by internal squabbles over piracy.
I’ve come around. While Sony Pictures has had its ups and downs over the last decade, the addition of the movie and television libraries gives Sony a strength that none of the other Big Four have—if they can loosen up.
Microsoft has games and Office; Apple sells a lot of music, but owns no content beyond software; Google has YouTube and user-generated content, but creates little professional content of its own. In this space Sony stands alone, with a rich library of music, television, movies, and games.
Imagine if buying a Sony product gave you simple, inexpensive access to that vast archive. Not even for free, necessarily. (Although Sony should continue to be liberal with its media giveaways, like it did when launching the PSP, bundling Spider-Man on UMD.) But all of it at your fingertips with an ease-of-use that put its competitors to shame.
In theory this is the aim of the upcoming Sony Online Service. (The “S.O.S.” name is temporary, if apropos.) Sony has discussed plans to translate the moderately successful PlayStation Network into a cross-device infrastructure, allowing not just media downloads but media uploads, taking not only a shot at iTunes but at cloud services like Flickr and Picasa.
That’s fine and dandy in theory—but why would a user choose Sony, a company that has launched and then quickly abandoned several other media stores and sharing services in the past? When they closed the Connect store, they stranded customers who had bought into their proprietary ATRAC-based DRM. When ImageStation went bust, they migrated people to Shutterfly and cited “many capable online photo services” as a reason for the closure. Why start investing dollars and time and work and memories in a company that just five years ago allowed rootkits to be installed to protect the sanctity of its media?
There’s a trust issue at play, perhaps bigger than Sony realizes, as its halting and horrible missteps have made many potential customers leery of its commitment.
Lucky for Sony, there’s a new age dawning in media, one based heavily in the cloud, with subscriptions taking the place of media downloads—especially in video, where customers have yet to invest heavily in pay-per-download models simply due to prohibitive costs and the infinite format war.
Sony should send the Online Service into the world with a bang: open access to Sony’s media library free for a month. Or three. Take the write-down as a marketing expense, allow millions of users free access to the media that Sony controls, and use the media—not the hardware—as a loss leader to get people hooked on Sony again.
(And if they did it without DRM that’d be even better, but I’m not asking for miracles here.)
A comprehensive and liberal attitude towards online media would go a long way towards shoring up Sony’s more traditional media sales strategy, as well. Blu-ray, after a long and costly battle, has finally won—just as download and streaming content is taking hold in the video space. Buying a Blu-ray disc currently guarantees me access to the video on many non-Sony devices—why not give me access to that same movie on all of my Sony products? I bought Ghostbusters on Blu-ray—now let me watch it whenever I like on whatever Sony device I choose just by grabbing it from the cloud. That would certainly make me more eager to spend money on physical copies.
Become the Best Android Maker In the World
Sony’s software showing is weak. Its mobile devices, for a brief moment a bellwether in the “small and useful” space, are now bogged down in a swamp of too-little, too-late design. (More on that in a bit.) Its arcane PlayStation architecture is, according to many game developers, confusing. That was fine when PlayStation was the biggest game in town, but with the Xbox and Wii eclipsing PS3 sales and the DS and iPhone taking a huge chunk of the potential PSP market, Sony’s inability to provide powerful, easy-to-use software for developers has been a huge factor in its poor showing this console generation. (Things are are looking up, but on the beam the PlayStation 3 has been a disaster for Sony exactly when it didn’t need one.)
There is hope, and its name is Android. At first it might seem counterintuitive to suggest that Sony lean heavily on a product under the aegis of a company that by all rights should be a chief competitor. But for all its not-quite-actually-open-source issues, Android exists primarily so that Google can be insulated from Apple and Microsoft—the two companies that most threaten Sony, as well. In this case, the enemy of Sony’s enemy could be their friend—especially when Google isn’t interested in providing a full range of consumer products that use Android.
It wouldn’t be the first time that Sony used a competitor’s software: The entirety of the Vaio PC line runs Microsoft Windows, and its Sony Ericsson phones run Nokia’s Symbian OS or—oh look!—Android.
And in this case, Google’s weakness is Sony’s strength: great hardware. And adopting Android across all its devices would do nothing to impede Sony’s own platform goals. In fact, that a Sony-branded Android device could have access to the broad range of Android applications as well as Sony’s Online Service and media offerings would do much to set Sony apart from the glut of also-rans that make up much of the current non-phone Android marketplace.
At its heart, Android is “just” Linux. Sony’s no stranger to Linux—the PlayStation 2 and 3 both have dabbled with Linux support. But Android is Linux-as-platform, a trusted and understood consumer branding. (Or, you know, that’s the goal.) It is, as far as operating systems go, as good or better than anything Sony has ever cooked up themselves. Rather than spending years on disparate software platforms for each device, Sony’s software engineers could spend their time building easy-to-use and beautiful user experiences on top of a unified platform. (Remind me again why the Sony Dash doesn’t use Android?)
Ditch Sony Ericsson
Sony Ericsson’s products are late, underpowered, designed by madmen and utterly irrelevant. Worse, the company is helmed by a man too proud to make a flagship phone with Google. Fire him. Rescue the engineers. Let the rest of the company burn.
This business has changed. There are no phones anymore. There are simply things that also phone. That there is not a PSP Phone in my hands right now is a travesty, one surely due entirely to the fact that Sony is entangled in a bizarre partnership with a European company trying to make phones that appeal to a feature phone market that started to go away a decade ago.
Sony Ericsson is a stone around Sony’s neck and should be cut free as soon as possible. Telephony and mobile data are an intrinsic part of the electronic landscape. Even if a modern phone is really only a radio and a bit of software, it’s too important to be anywhere but in-house—and increasingly, in every product.
Another fantastic man-on-the-street piece from Woody Jang about what regular consumers think of Sony’s future.
PlayStation Everything
If you ask the average person on the street what their favorite Sony product is, more often than not you’ll hear “PlayStation”. There’s a couple of reasons for that—not the least of which is that it’s the last Sony product to completely stand apart from its competitors.
It’s a valuable and—when executed correctly—profitable brand. As for the hardware itself, the PlayStation 3 is powerful.
So why is it so half-assed? Why is it that I can spend hundreds of dollars on a PlayStation 3 and still not use it as a DVR? Or as a powerful, slick media center to access my media files? (You can do it, yes, but it’s no Boxee or Plex.) Why does Sony sell any other Blu-ray players at all?
The PlayStation of the last few years is battered, but not broken. Half-hearted and poorly conceived projects like PlayStation Home have shown how disconnected Sony is from its users, but the device, brand, and platform still have a lot to give.
I have four boxes connected to my television: All three major consoles, plus a Mac Mini. The reason I have the Mac Mini? It’s because none of the consoles do a proper job as a media center, giving me universal access to every type of media I consume, from streaming services like Netflix and Hulu, to movies and television I’ve ripped and downloaded (legally or otherwise), to DVDs and Blu-ray. (The Mini doesn’t do Blu-ray, but since I only own, like, six Blu-ray discs that hasn’t been a dealbreaker.)
Sony is trying. Netflix has come to the PS3, if somewhat awkwardly. But accessing files on the network still takes a UPnP server and other bits of annoying acronymic magic that makes my $350 console from a multi-billion dollar company feel gimpy and half-baked.
In the portable space, it’s ever worse: I don’t know a single person who bought a PSPgo. And why would they? It was clear from the outset that the PSPgo was a toe in the water of the digital-distribution stream, not the sort of cannonball into online game downloads that is already being explored to profitable depths by Apple.
But a PSP phone? A nicely designed portable device that has access to the library of amazing PSP titles, plus all the movies, music, and (hopefully Android) apps that Sony could provide? They’d sell a million on Day One, and have developers banging down their doors to let them create the beautiful 3D titles that the PSP is known for.
Thank goodness there are rumors that a PlayStation phone is happening—but Sony has made similar sashays before, only to jilt us later.
Keep It In the Lab
We’ve shown the absolutely monstrous number of products Sony has for sale (to US consumers) at any given time. To some extent it’s understandable, if not forgivable. It’s one of the strengths of megacorps to be able to shotgun lots of products onto the market to see what sticks, and diversification has been part of the Sony strategy for decades.
But it’s gotten out of hand—and worse, it’s turned Sony into a company that has stopped saying “Look what we’ve invented,” to instead murmur, “We can do that, too.”
I’ve written about how Apple’s restraint has given them a product lineup that’s easy to understand—and easy to invest in as a customer. Buy an Apple product and you can be sure that it’ll be supported for years to come. (And that it’ll be superseded by an improved version in a year, of course.)
But Sony is spitting out products that even they don’t believe in. The Mylo internet communicator? The Vaio P netbook? The PSPgo? The Sony Dash? The UX Series UMPC micro whatever-the-hell? A three-thousand dollar 2-megapixel Qualia camera? Those aren’t all dead products—yet. But Sony, by spewing out products that are clearly part of no greater strategy than “Let’s see what sticks” has eroded the value of their brand and the trust that customers should be able to put in it.
Bring Back the Robots
Except for the robots! While I’ll rail all day about how Sony has overwhelmed us with pointless or half-baked products, I have to admit: I miss the robots. I miss the strange little contraptions, the oh-so-Japanese experiments that clearly have no place in the greater company strategy, but exist only to show off the prowess of Sony’s engineers.
Is the Sony Rolly absolutely silly and overpriced? Of course it is. But if Sony were selling just a couple of dozen products that really nailed it, the Rolly would stop serving as an all-too-fitting icon of Sony’s directionless and instead take its place as a whirring, cooing, flashing reminder that Sony plays in the future.
Really, though: robot dogs! How are we supposed to believe in Sony if they don’t believe in Aibo!
Make the Best
Once upon time, you bought Sony because “Sony” actually meant “the best.” It’s that reputation of quality that Sony’s largely coasted on (and ridden roughshod over) for the last decade. Sony simply needs to make the best gadgets again.
Take its TVs for example, a core product where Sony is a brand that immediately comes to mind: The Bravia XBR8 is quite possibly the best LCD television ever created. Sony stopped making it last year. The products that followed it, the XBR9 and XBR10, are actually inferior products, despite costing just as much. We actually expected the XBR8 to spawn many better and less expensive TVs, not the opposite. That’s the death of the Sony brand. If Sony means nothing else, it should mean the best gadgetry you can buy. The XBR11 needs to be the greatest LCD TV ever made.
Make Us Believe
Sony is lost. Too entranced by their own mythos to make the hard decisions. Too ready to listen to the Madison Avenue hucksters who convince them that “make.believe” means anything at all.
But we believe in Sony. Even their worst products, however feebly designed, retain the air of quality. (We’re ignoring a few exploding batteries here and there as the travails of any massive company.)
We believe in a Sony that can practice restraint, that can encourage its engineers to dream and innovate, but also can understand that not every crazy accomplishment needs to be validated by becoming a product for sale.
More than anything, we believe that Sony can stop being so prideful, desperate to be acknowledged as the world’s leading electronics company. We believe that the company of Ibuku and Morita can stop telling us they’re the best, and do what they were formed to do:
Prove it.
The complete “We Miss Sony” series
• Video: Describe Sony In A Word
• How Sony Lost Its Way
• Sony’s Engineer Brothers
• Infographic: Sony’s Overwhelming Gadget Line-Up
• The Sony Timeline: Birth, Rise, and Decadence
• Let’s Make.Believe Sony’s Ads Make Sense
• The Return of Sony
Let’s Make.Believe Sony Ads Make Sense! [We Miss Sony]
Sony’s newest catchphrase, “make.believe,” is a fitting reminder that Sony ads make no sense. Laptops take flight, PlayStations become monsters, and pitchmen state plainly that Sony TVs make you better at playing sports. Most of all—look! Play-doh bunnies!
Back when Sony had only electronics to sell, they sold them like no other—to borrow a more sensible slogan that the company recently retired. You bought a Trinitron TV because it was the best, you bought a Walkman because it was the coolest, and you told everyone else they were dumb if they didn’t do the same. “It’s a Sony!” you’d shout at any half-witted amigo who was reluctant to pay the Sony premium.
Sony worked hard to make you a part of its marketing team. They even went so far as to indoctrinate the children. When the My First Sony line was launched, it actually made sense, because it reinforced what you already believed: that you would buy in and keep on buying. Brand did matter, but only by standing for specific, high-quality products. There were 170 different Walkman models released during its first decade, sure, but this was before MP3 players, cellphones, PDAs, laptops, portable game consoles and pocket-sized camcorders. Besides perhaps a 35mm compact camera, this was the only portable gadget to buy. You knew you were getting it, so choosing which one became a connoisseur’s dilemma. Even gorillas knew this.
By the time Sony got into the movie and record business, and the iconic cassette Walkman gave way to the less iconic CD Walkman, the Sony brand became bigger than the gadgets. With the eventual exception of PlayStation, the electronics lost their own identities. That’s not to say the gadget well dried up. On the contrary, Sony released more and more, jazzing up tried-and-true businesses with progressive industrial design and catchy-sounding sub-brands. It’s not a clock radio, it’s a Dream Machine. Sony’s brand momentum carried it successfully into new areas where they really could make a superior product. In addition to the videogame consoles, this included digital cameras, portable computers and dog-shaped robots.
But due to arrogance, an obsession with proprietary formats and a lack of stick-to-itiveness—coinciding with the rise of unexpectedly tough competition from Korea, China and Cupertino, California—the magic wore off. The “buy the brand” message lost its grip on shoppers, but to the increasingly out-of-touch executives inside the company, it seems to have become a rallying cry.
Sony started losing Number 1 positions in TVs, cameras and even videogame consoles, and found themselves unable to get the market leadership they assumed they’d easily grab in other areas, such as PCs or ebook readers. As they slipped, their advertising just got weirder and weirder. Ads now ranged from purely artistic—products saw hardly any airtime—to trippy—products were shown, but not in a way that a buyer could relate to—to sarcastic—where pitchmen and pitchwomen spouted nonsense and openly mocked customers, as if consciously parodying Sony’s own classic advertisements.
Thanks to the miracle of YouTube, we can see how all three of these categories failed to hit their targets.
Artsy Fartsy
What can you say about this category, except that who doesn’t like rainbow-colored Claymation bunnies hopping to late-’60s Rolling Stones?
Who doesn’t like bubbles falling from the sky? Or the spontaneous proliferation of several million bouncy balls? Who among you doesn’t like sound/vision experiments by avant garde directors cut to ADHD-friendly 3-minute lengths?
If you answered “no” to the above questions, you are lying. But to drive the point of failure home, let’s hear from one of YouTube’s commenters: “It’s visually interesting but it comes across as some kind of dystopian vision of the future. An Orwellian kind of hell sponsored by Sony.” Hell. By Sony. And I am not entirely sure I ever saw anything I could actually buy.
But Will It Bite?
Another batch of ads featured real Sony products, but not in any way that helped the consumer decision. We begin with the PlayStation 3, according to this video, a dangerous, volatile and ugly beast that does… something:
Somehow they manage to convey all the tension of gaming without any of the fun. It’s violent through and through, except for that quick bit with the butterflies.
Here is the Bloggie camcorder, whose simple demonstration has been so perverted, it would cause Steve Jobs—or even Steve Ballmer—to shoot the director between the eyes:
Never mind that, on this complicated-looking copy of a Flip camera, the 270º swivel lens is the only thing everyone would figure out immediately, why does the product have to be man-sized? And what’s with the fingers guy?
In this whole mess, the most organic ad I could find was for Rolly, the short-lived zany Bluetooth music robot. I love the ad, but I actually know the product. The ad, to a lay person, would be confusing at best, and at worst would suggest a degree of interactivity that the product simply didn’t have:
F*** You, Buy a Sony
The ads that Sony should really be ashamed of, though, are the so-called expert ads, some of which ran on our own site this past holiday season. I will admit to being a fan of Peyton Manning and Justin Timberlake, but they’re not experts, and I wouldn’t trust them any more than I trust any of the other people on the so-called panel.
In the Sony Reader ad, when the poor actress has to ask the incredibly dumb question “Can I read a lot of books on this thing?” Amy Sedaris says yes and holds up her book, I Like You. It’s worth noting that unlike her brother’s works, Amy’s book is highly visual, with color photos and lots of sight gags. It’s excellent, but you would never ever read it on a Sony Reader—or on a Kindle.
In the camera ad, when the actress mentions that all the cameras look the same, baby-seal photographer Nigel Barker explains that “the technology in their cameras and camcorders makes it easy to get the best shot.” This is something every camera maker would say about their cameras. It doesn’t differentiate, and it can never be proven wrong.
During the TV ad, Peyton and Justin play pingpong. ESPN’s Erin Andrews says to a bewildered family, “You can’t fake Sony quality.” Justin chimes in with, “The more sports you watch on a Sony, the better you get. At sports.” And then a TV appears with the words HDNA scrawled across it, though the announcer says it’s called a Bravia. I don’t know what HDNA is, and I was there when they unveiled it.
In a rather ironic twist, these ads got remix treatment by the Gregory Brothers of Auto-tune the News fame. This isn’t some Gray Album bootleg, but a viral video sanctioned by Sony’s marketing department, an approval that shows Sony can make some daring choices when they want to. But was it the right move? I enjoy this remix more than any of the original ads, but it doesn’t clear up any frustration either. It is a distortion of a distortion of a message.
Don’t you feel like the Gregory Brothers know this? They openly mock the customers, and they repeat “these all seem the same” over and over—and over. I couldn’t help but flash a knowing smile when Julia Allison explains that the Sony PC is different because it has a Blu-ray drive and an HD screen. Like every other Windows laptop in that range.
Where Do They Go From Here?
When criticizing advertising, the easiest thing to do is to point to Apple as the counter example. “Well, Apple would’ve done it this way.” But truthfully, Apple achieves what most companies strive to pull off, an entertaining but earnest look at the product being sold, or a comedic vignette that drives a single sales point home. (Say what you want about Justin Long, but Hodgman’s Eeyore of a PC sure sells Macs.) Like everything else, Sony needs to focus. Instead of hiring 20 different artists to conceive of crazy shit, why not create a global ad campaign that focuses on specific actual products, and portrays their standout features in a way that doesn’t sound like it’s mocking the products or the customers? My only fear is that as Sony has less and less to brag about, this strategy will be harder to work out. Still, it’s worth a shot: Pick your best products, get closeup shots, play some baby music in the background, and tell us why we should buy them. No psychedelia, no anthropomorphic gimmicks, and no smirking.
The complete “We Miss Sony” series
• Video: Describe Sony In A Word
• How Sony Lost Its Way
• Sony’s Engineer Brothers
• Infographic: Sony’s Overwhelming Gadget Line-Up
• The Sony Timeline: Birth, Rise, and Decadence
• Let’s Make.Believe Sony’s Ads Make Sense
• The Return of Sony
Report: Sony To Launch New PlayStation Smart Phone In 2010 [Sony]
The Wall Street Journal reports that Sony will release a new smart phone “capable of downloading and playing PlayStation games” later this year, as well as a competitor to Apple’s iPad that may also play PSone titles.
The Journal notes that the original PlayStation game-playing smart phone is being developed by Sony and mobile handset manufacturer Sony Ericsson. That’s a story that we’ve heard plenty of times before in various incarnations, but with declining PSP sales, a cool reception to the digital download-only PSPgo, and increasing competition from iPhone and iPod gaming, the timing sounds logical.
Sony’s other device that “blurs distinctions among a netbook, an e-reader and a PlayStation Portable,” according to the Wall Street Journal, is targeted for a 2010 launch.
Ghost In the Shell Live-Action Script Draft Incoming! [Hollywood]
Steven Spielberg, filmmaker and part-time game designer, plans to make a live action version of Masamune Shirow’s Ghost in the Shell futuristic cop manga. Scribe Laeta Kalogridis is hard at work on the screenplay.
At a recent Q&A for Martin Scorsese’s Shutter Island (she wrote the script), Kalogridis revealed that she’ll “turn in a draft in a few weeks”. According to website ANN, the screenwriter was cautiously optimistic about the Hollywood adaptation, adding, “Cross your fingers, guys — [it has a] female lead.”
“I can say that Ghost in the Shell was a seminal visual experience,” she told UGO.com last month. “It has spawned so much amazing — not just direct stuff, like the television series — but The Matrix and the evolution of cyberpunk. For me, it is an meaningful as [William Gibson's] Neuromancer.”
DreamWorks has the film rights to Ghost in the Shell and plans on making the film in 3D. Kalogridis, who executive produced Avatar, replaced writer Jamie Moss, who had joined the project in 2008.
Ghost in the Shell was first published in 1989 and then turned into an anime in 1995, a animated feature sequel and two television anime. Since then it has also been made into games for the PlayStation, PS2 and PSP.
Live-Action Ghost in the Shell Script Draft in Few Weeks [Anime News Network] [Pic]
Error 8001050F: Why the 10-Year Delayed Millennium Bug Brought Your PS3 To Its Knees [Playstation]
Remember December 31st, 1999? The lines of people at supermarkets, stockpiling tins of baked beans and bottled water, convinced the millennium bug would strike at midnight? Turns out the PS3 Error 8001050F was a millennium bug 10-years in the making.
The PlayStation blog has been updated with Patrick Seybold, the senior director of corporate communications writing:
“We are aware that the internal clock functionality in the PS3 units other than the slim model, recognized the year 2010 as a leap year. Having the internal clock date change from February 29 to March 1 (both GMT), we have verified that the symptoms are now resolved and that users are able to use their PS3 normally.”
According to Wikipedia, other electronics such as debit card machines in shops, and phones have been affected by the “Y2K+10″ or “Y2.01k” millennium bug, due to problems encoding binary numbers. Apparently even Windows Mobile has had problems this year! Apart from the obvious, of course. [PlayStation blog via Kotaku]
When PlayStation Meets Hurt Locker [Clips]
A recent Fox News report has shown that while video game controllers can sometimes be used by US and British forces in combat, they can sometimes be used against them as well.
This clip shows a humble PlayStation 1 controller, seized by US forces in a raid on a bomb-making “factory” in a remote village in Afghanistan. The soldier says it’s there as an initiator device, which for the improvised explosive devices (or IEDs) so popular amongst Taliban and insurgent forces in Afghanistan and Iraq is the mechanism used to set the bomb off.
[via 1UP]
