Has the sport advert gone gentle?
With new advertising campaigns from Sony and Microsoft, CR is investigating whether game advertising has lost its edge and what the future holds for console manufacturers in a more complicated market than ever
In the past few months, both Sony and Microsoft have launched new ad campaigns before the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X and S launch later this year. Both ads are epic, beautifully crafted celebrations about the ability of gaming to take us to new worlds – something that has been a lifeline for many people while they were stuck.
While the ads were undoubtedly cleverly crafted, the feeling that something is missing is still missing. Maybe it's the generic slogans – Power Your Dreams and Play have no limits. Or maybe they feel so alike that they both rely heavily on the CGI spectacle to create that sense of escape. It may be because none of them are immediately recognizable as belonging to a particular brand. Whatever it is, the two campaigns feel surprisingly boring.
"I think strangely enough they reflect the relatively strange situation that consoles have found themselves in," says writer and consultant Alex Wiltshire, who has written extensively on games, design and technology. “I agree that they are pretty boring. They very much follow an escape from reality [narrative]. The gaming industry brought this idea to market, but in the past with much more visually and intellectually exciting advertising. It's strange that a new generation of technology is coming through and the imagination with which this is communicated has declined. "
While in the past a new console would have meant a leap forward in terms of graphics and performance, Wiltshire points out that companies like Sony and Microsoft are now in a world of "falling returns." Technology is no longer improving exponentially, which means consoles can rely less on the hardware itself. What a console stands for becomes a much more nebulous concept.