14 DAY TRIAL // Sony has confirmed what’s next for the marketing efforts of its PlayStation 3, as the company now wants to promote the device as a family-friendly console, which can appeal to younger audiences.
The PlayStation 3 was thought, for long, as a hardcore only device, largely because the Wii managed to take over casual gamers, while the Xbox 360 tried to bridge the gap between hardcore and casual players, with both franchises like Halo, but also devices like the Kinect.
Now, Sony wants to get a piece of the casual pie with its PlayStation 3, largely because the console is now more affordable, following the August price cut, and because there are lots of quality titles coming that appeal to all gamer demographics.
"If you look back at the history on PS1, PS2 the vast majority of the business that we did on both those platforms was done at the sub £129 ($200) price points," Sony Computer Entertainment Europe boss Jim Ryan told OPM UK.
"Now we've only got to £199 ($250) in the UK a couple of month back so you can see there's still a lot of PS3's potentially to be sold. I think you'll see us taking the console more towards a slightly younger demographic, more family market.”
Ryan is quick to point out, however, that this doesn’t mean hardcore gamers and existing customers will be disappointed with the future of the device, as there are plenty of great projects coming from both internal studios and third-party developers.
"The core gamer will absolutely not be neglected," Ryan added. "There's going to be tons of great stuff for the core gamer both from our own studio [and] third parties. There's some quite interesting stuff happening in a number of areas which would allow us to open up a market that we accessed pretty successfully on both PS1 and PS3 but haven't yet got to on PS3."
Sony is expected to make a major announced at the 2011 Spike TV Video Game Awards this Saturday, December 10, and it’s going to be interesting to see what types of customers will the PS3 attract next year.