PS3 Home, Marketing, Responses & Traditions
Hey kids, you like being marketed too right? Of course you do! So you will no doubt be pleased to know that PlayStation Home finally launches today and there are a whole host of companies like Diesel and Red Bull who are just dying to meet brand conscious consumers like yourselves!
My own product placement dislikes aside, yes the long delayed social networking/shoppers paradise/sexual predator hangout does finally go live later on today. I have been playing…hold on that isn’t really the right word is it? I’m loathed to use the new catch all videogame buzz-word “experience”, but needs must. I have been experiencing (somewhere an angel just lost its wings) the joys of Home for the last couple of weeks since being sent a beta invite.
In it’s unfinished public beta (or server stress test as I like to think of it) form the service has held up pretty well, with the added bonus that large amounts of the product placement and branding opportunities have been nowhere to be seen. Walk around the shopping mall and there are plenty of “coming soon” type hoardings over the windows.
It its most crude form, Home is still very entertaining. You begin by creating your avatar, which can look disturbingly lifelike. Make a choice from a rather limited selection of clothing (don’t worry, you can soon buy some Diesel products with real money for your fake person!) and begin a tutorial, starting off in your own Home appartment. This overlooks a Monaco style riviera, and graphically it looks extremely attractive.
From here you can get the lift down to the Home Square, wander round, look at some advertisements for PlayStation properties, watch one of the video walls dotted around and then find some real folks and sit down for a game of checkers. Head into the bowling alley, play some pool or bowling once again with other people, perhaps even hop on to an arcade cabinet and play one of the games there.
All joking aside about all this branding and marketing, if you ignore all of that stuff, Home is an entertaining place to spend some time. I can’t really see myself wanting to get parties together and play games and all that jazz but that is predonimantly because most of my friends are on Xbox Live. What I’m really interested in is to see how the service develops and what benefits it gives to PS3 owners.
Also on the subject of consumerism, there was an usual Tweet from Major Nelson a couple of days ago to an NPR article talking to Martin Lindstron, the author of a book entitled “Buyology: Truth and Lies About Why We Buy”. The book details how companies are marketing their products direct to our subconscious and our own responses to them. The radio shows segment is available online and lasts for about half an hour. It makes for interesting listening, and can be found HERE.
I’m very interested in this kind of thing, I try and avoid the trappings of rampant consumerism, but having just worked out that I have spent over £400 in the last two months alone on videogames I’m clearly not as immune as I thought. It would appear a games rental service will be the answer for me in the new year.
Finally for today, at this time of year I always get the urge to start playing Animal Crossing again on the Gamecube. I don’t know why, but Christmas just seems like the right fit for Nintendo’s charming (but never sickly) game. I remember saying on Red Rant (RIP) a long time back that I would buy another Wii when the new Animal Crossing was released. Sadly as the new version is essentially the same game again, but with the option to visit the city, I’ll stick with the original thanks.
My town is currently under a large amount of snow, fairly lights adorn the trees and I have waded through everyone saying “Where have you been for the last 11 months? We were really concerned”. It may be a host of scripted routines, but there is something just so appealing about this game that I can’t stop playing it. Even though I have Fable II, Resistance 2, Prince of Persia and Tomb Raider Underworld sat unplayed on the shelf. At least Nintendo saved me some money so I don’t have to buy another Wii.
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