Sony Paid for Fake PSP Graffiti?

Eli Gottlieb writes "It would appear that the Sony Corporation (known for their world-class rootkits) paid graffitists to paint pictures of children using their new PSPs on city walls. Sony "artists" (corporate operatives?) have even been caught in the act of painting advertising campaigns on public walls. Note that these are not paid-for billboards or advertising media, but illegal graffiti in the first place. Beyond that, Sony is attempting to co-opt the subculture and possibly even artistic integrity of real graffists to sell more PSPs! Luckily, people have started to paint back and show that corporate vandals are not welcome." Though it does appear the vandal depicted is copying the image off of a sheet of paper, there's no real proof of Sony's complicity. Take with a grain of salt.

Sounds familiar...

[haunebu]

Remember the whole IBM/Linux graffiti fiasco [cnn.com]?

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Re:Hilarious!

[HoneyBunchesOfGoats]

In some places - here in Gainesville, FL, for instance - there are walls where graffiti is permitted. So these people could be subverting the legitimacy of actual "graffists" both by painting corporate advertising and by painting in illegal places.

Conclusive

[Anonymous Coward]

The graffiti characters all match, despite having been done by different artists. They're what marketers call "on message."

The idea that multiple graffiti artists in different locations simultaneously designed the same PSP using characters and then.... it's so laughable I can't even finish that sentence.

As long as these photographs are genuine, there is *no* way that this isn't centrally coordinated. I suppose it's possible some fanboys might have decided to promote the PSP this way, but it doesn't really seem like fanboy behaviour. It's too organized and the graphic design is too well done.

Nintendo occasionally gets that kind of grass-roots support, but only for their legendary characters, not for a current product shot. Two story Mario 1 mural, sure. Nintendo DS graffiti, no.

Re:Conclusive

[Anonymous Coward]

This may not be graffiti, but I'm sure many people remember these Nintendo fanboys 4 story work of art [yikes.com].

Of course...

[MaestroSartori]

...I personally wouldn't put it past a different company competing with Sony (say MS, who just had a big product launch, or Nintendo who compete directly with the PSP itself) to pay for something like this to make Sony look bad. But then I am incredibly cynical.

Oh, I also work for Sony. But I didn't spraypaint anything :D

What if Microsoft did this?

[Rosebud128]

Do we have proof that Sony did this? There is a story of a guy caught in action, but the story never confirmed he was from Sony or anything else.

Look carefully at the pictures. They do not depict the PSP in a positive light. The PSP is like a toy to the children. And in each picture, the children are not even looking at their PSP. Their gaze is elseware as if they were hypnotized. The swirl look in their eyes resembles the Microsoft 360 logo.

These pictures appeared in the major Xbox 360 launch cities of Chicago, New York, San Francisco, and Philadelphia all around the Xbox 360 launch. And Microsoft has done this type of activity before with MSN.

The more I think about it, the more it appears that Microsoft is behind this. It is even better how their rival, Sony, will get the blame for the graffiti.

Re:Double standards

[uofitorn]

I completely agree. At the University where I work at near downtown Chicago, I still see GTA San Andreas stickers on my commute to work (stuck to streetlamps, mailboxes, etc.) years after the game came out. The chalk IBM layed is certainly more ephemeral than the GTA stickers. I've noticed workers struggling to remove them but they usually give up after a while and let them remain.