Sony Behind Fake YouTube Viral Campaign

Wowzer writes "Sony is up to the same old tricks again. Following in the footsteps of their fake PSP Graffiti campaign, Sony has hired marketing company Zipatoni to set up a YouTube-based viral marketing scheme for the Sony PSP. The company did this by registering the domain alliwantforxmasisapsp. There are no disclaimers to show it isn't 'real', but the website's whois points out it's setup by Zipatoni." From the C&VG article: "The lies don't end there, fake comments have been posted at Kotaku only linking to the Youtube video to increase its pageviews: 'Good call on DJ max. Regarding music: if changes were to be made for westerners, this guy should be considered - LOLZ'" Update: 12/13 02:37 GMT by Z : The Washington Post has an article stating that the FTC will look into situations like this, if they perchance to come up.

It's called Marketing

[nephillim]

... it is not lying... it is, and has been for many years called marketing.
the beer commercial shows you that when you open up one of their beers you get 20 naked women to show up at your party, but the "other" beer brings balding middle aged men.
This is no different from any other commercial on any other form of media.
Hell, Some drug ads never say what they do (so they don't have to give side effects) similar to Sony not saying this is an ad.

Re:What is going on?

[eldavojohn]

What is going on?

Well, there's nothing wrong on the surface. It's just that the consumer doesn't 'know' that it's Sony's marketing blitz. Sony is probably doing it out of pure motive of trying to gather interest and make the news (mission accomplished--see article). But there are some people that don't like being lied to regardless of the conditions.

As consumers we feel we have a right to know where our advertisements are coming from. When we don't know who's advertising what, we get annoyed. Some of us even associate it with evil like SPAM marketers.

Essentially what it comes down to is Sony trying to present third party opinions of their products but not only are these opinions biased and untrue--they may be monetarily compensated for saying these things. They essentially lose 'street cred' among gamers. They aren't doing anything illegal, they're just using tricky marketing tactics that make the news. Some people hate it, some people might gobble it right up. Either way, I just spent two minutes talking about it to you.

Re:It's called Marketing

[fistfullast33l]

If Nintendo or Apple did this, it would be called genius. Instead, it's a total marketing scam because it was done by Sony, who most likely just paid the company to market it and said you guys are the smart ones, you figure out the campaign. This article smacks of teenage journalism, completely down to the Liar, Liar DVD cover. Are these guys just realizing now that marketing companies play dirty to get you to buy their product? Welcome to reality, children.

I'm also a little confused as to how the comment on Kokatu was linked directly to this marketing company. The commenter is mrjohnstamos who has no linking information whatsoever and only one comment. Suspicious, but nowhere near the proof that the evil hand of Sony is behind this.

Can we get some real news now?

Re:It's called Marketing

[AcidLacedPenguiN]

The problem isn't that Sony paid for cheap-tactics marketing, it's that the attempt is so thinly veiled. Have you even looked at the site yet? It is so obviously created by a marketing firm that is pretending to be an authentic teenager. I don't know about anyone else but if I'm going to have someone lying to my face I'd rather they actually make it believable.

The Apple way

[Opportunist]

I know I'll get tagged flamebait, troll and whatnot, but this is pretty much the way Apple's products are being marketed. The items are made "trendy", they are sold via the way of being "hip" and "cool", and that everyone wants one because they're hip and cool. How many ads do you know that talk about the features and unique things the iPod can do? How many of the accessoires that you can buy for it do really have additional value to it?

Aside from the ITMS, which a good deal of iPod users never touched, what's the advantage over other MP3 players on the market? I mean, technically, not from being "cool".

Now, I hate Sony maybe even MORE than the average /.er, I've had my share of problems and (needless) lawsuits with them. But what they do here is exactly what marketing is about today. Creating a hype. Making the product cool and thus making people want it. Not because it is technically superior or offers more utility than the competition, but simply because "so many say it's cool, so it's gotta be cool".

If you have an iPod, ask yourself why. Because you compared it and you actually found it REALLY superior to the other products in that market sector, or because someone told you it's cool and that you should have it? You needn't answer. Just ask yourself and try to be honest with yourself.

Re:It's called Marketing

[fistfullast33l]

I don't know about anyone else but if I'm going to have someone lying to my face I'd rather they actually make it believable.

So alliwantforxmasisapsp.com [alliwantfo...isapsp.com] isn't obvious enough for you? How about the following quote from said website:

consider us your own personal psp hype machine, here to help you wage a holiday assault on ur parents, girl, granny, boss - whoever - so they know what you really want.

Nope, I guess that's definitely a hormone raging teenager who really really wants a PSP. The scary thing is that statement resembles many fanboy comments on slashdot, but that's all I'm going to say about that.

Re:What is going on?

[Chris Pimlott]

Just because someone is bad at lying to you doesn't mean you should excuse their attempts to lie.

Re:The Apple way

[TubeSteak]

Sure, but IIRC, most companies do their advertising in an open and obvious fashion.

Sony isn't being criticized for trying to make their product hip & cool, but for being sneaky about it.

IMO, there are enough people out there that dislike advertising & marketing, to the point that most corporate sponsored "viral" campaigns will get their covers blown off fairly early.

Some people take satisfaction in unmasking 'dishonest' campaigns, others just don't like being manipulated.

Re:The Apple way

[urbanradar]

You seem to be missing the point. What's wrong isn't that Sony is trying to be cool. There's nothing wrong with that (even though it seems to have backfired horribly).

The difference is that Apple designates their adverts as such. When you watch/see an Apple ad, it's still clear that this is the company presenting itself to you. Sony wants you to believe it's not them presenting themselves to you but somebody else praising them to high heaven.

A company can go "Hello, we're Apple and we're really hip, just compare this personified PC with this personified mac!" all it wants. But it can't go "We're just a couple of random teenagers with no connection to Sony - but let's all buy PSPs!"

There still is a thin line between marketing and lying. A very thin line, yes, but it's nonetheless there.

Re:Trying to make it 'cool'

[thatguywhoiam]

Is it my imagination or is Sony's strategy for their playstation line to attempt to make their product 'cool' rather than to make it a good product for gamers.

You repeat yourself. A 'good product for gamers' is intrinsically 'cool' , is it not? So yes I think they are aiming for that.

Over the life of the PSP it has been outsold by both the GBA and Nintendo DS and has failed to make a larger impact largely because it is not a particularly good portable videogame machine.

When Nintendo comes in 3rd place (GameCube), we rightly point to their streamlined operation and say this is fine, one need not dominate the entire marketplace to 'win' (which is an illusion anyway) as far as gamers are concerned; we like that they continue to produce great products and don't vanish in a sea of debt. To turn that around now and crow about the DS outselling the PSP by a wide margin is just a little two-faced. And we aren't even talking about PS2s, which clobber everything. See how this works? Don't give in to the fanboy one-upsmanship. Its pointless. I'm sure there are plenty of happy PSP owners out there, who the hell are you to tell them that they really don't like their game unit?

Re:It's called Marketing

[Lisandro]

No, bullshit. Sorry. This is NOT marketing, and in fact it's borderline deceiveing. I don't give two shits if they call it viral marketing, or astroturfing, or whatever. It is a scam simply because it intends to mislead the consumer by making him beleive that what he's seeing was created by someone who really would like a PSP for Christmas. The fact that this one is so poorly made that it begs to be laughed at is irrelevant. I don't know what saddens me most, the fact that a lot of people just can't grasp the difference or (even worse) that they're so used to this kind of promotion that think it's normal.

By the way, this was created by a PR agency - just click here [zipatoni.com].

But then again, it's Sony we're talking about. It's not like they have a track record [wikipedia.org] in this sort of matters...

Re:The Apple way

[EzraSj]

but this is pretty much the way Apple's products are being marketed. The items are made "trendy", they are sold via the way of being "hip" and "cool", and that everyone wants one because they're hip and cool. How many ads do you know that talk about the features and unique things the iPod can do? How many of the accessoires that you can buy for it do really have additional value to it?

Ugh. Talk about missing the point. The issue with this advertising method is not that it appeals to peoples sense of 'cool' or 'trendiness'. Every company on the planet tries to appeal to the cool factor in every advertisement! Have you seen a coke commercial lately? A car commercial? A cell phone commercial? Appealing to hipness is not the relevant issue here, since sony and every other company under the sun already does this.

The issue here is that Sony is straight up lying in order to create this hype. They've created a website through a third party that is almost certainly meant to deceive parts of their target audience into thinking it is real and NOT an advertisement. The difference is analogous to buying an ad on the side of a bus (something that makes itself obvious as an advertisement) and paying some kids to talk loudly about the next great product from company X while sitting on the bus. One is clearly marked, the other is not.

Think about it this way. If this was really a 'viral marketing' scheme aimed at us savvy gamers who are tasked with 'figuring it out' then they failed miserably, since it takes us about .085 seconds to realize this is all BS, and its also just pissing most of us off. There's nothing to figure out - its clearly a lie. But for those webusers who aren't as able to differentiate between fact and fiction (some of us might know them as the majority), this would be a useful and deceptive hype building tool. And that is what is wrong with this. It isnt about what they're trying to accomplish, its about how they're doing it.

Re:Once again Sony is Satan...

[TomHandy]

That is, of course, ridiculous. If Apple or Nintendo were to do this, you would see plenty of people criticizing them for it, saying it was lame, etc. Seriously, there seems to be this notion that Apple or Nintendo never get criticized here, but that seems pretty far from reality.

The big difference of course though is that Apple and Nintendo currently don't NEED to do this. They didn't need to create fake blogs to get people to talk about current or upcoming products, because there are plenty of real ones that do this for them. Sony of course doesn't always need to do this either........ if you have a successful or in-demand product like the PS3, you don't need to create a website like alliwantforxmasisaps3.com.

Outside of that though, historically speaking, Apple and Nintendo haven't really had to do this, or even when you could say they had to do, it isn't the kind of thing they normally would do. I mean, remember, the Mac has minuscule marketshare, all things being equal. Nintendo's GameCube came in third place. But Apple and Nintendo haven't used that as an excuse to create some goofy fake site to try and add hipness or something to their product lines.

And really, Sony doesn't have to do that either. The other tact to take with the PSP is to keep releasing high quality titles like MGS: Portable Ops, and get REAL buzz going again for the platform from real people.

Blame the advertising company.

[MaWeiTao]

This to me just demonstrates the quality of the advertising and marketing industry. They produce this sort of garbage more for their own reputation and portfolio than they do for the good of the client.

They want to demonstrate that they're capable of doing extreme, creative work but the end result is lame and far from being creative. It's like they produce the first crappy idea someone comes up with. And it seems they're obsessed with Adult Swim and Youtube.

I'm curious is Sony openly embraced these campaigns or if they were forced into it by the marketing company. I wouldn't be surprised if it's the latter. From personal experience, I've found the people at many of these advertising companies to be very arrogant. I also get the distinct impression from their surveys that they seem to have a habit of fabricating market research which somehow always demonstrates that their way of doing things is the most effective.

I realize everyone seems to enjoy bashing Sony and I can't say I disagree with much of what is said. That said, I can't say this is unique to Sony. I'd say most consumer goods companies use this sort of advertising. To single out Sony for this over anyone else is a bit foolish to me. What I do hate is this sort of advertising, to me it's an insult to my intelligence. But then, I hate advertising in general.

sony has too much money to deceive you

[teh_chrizzle]

What sony is doing is not called marketing, its called deception.

i think you have your terms confused.

when a prominent media figure uses lawyers and journalists to avoid telling the truth, that's called spin .

when a government official enlists the help of others to not tell the truth, that's called a national security .

when a huge multi-national corporation doesn't tell the truth, that's called marketing .

when a regular person, doesn't tell the truth and has no money, politcal affiliation or legal representation that's lying .

lying is bad. spinning, marketing, and national security are what keeps us safe at night.

Critique

[MeanderingMind]

You don't need to have spent years on the internet to know that when someone makes common mistakes/shortcuts like luv and ur, they don't do it halfway. You'll never see the following sentence on the internet by someone doing it unintentionally.

Hello everyone, I was just thinking that ur all going to luv my latest blog entry.

This sentence of my creation highlights something everyone who's ever used IRC, read Barrens chat, or hacked the e-mail of a 14 year old knows. People who use ur and luv and similar shortcuts and mispellings will not be using proper punctuation, spelling and grammar. It doesn't happen.

Yet, here is what we have from the website. I will be pointlessly dissecting it.

here's the deal::: i (charlie) have a psp. my friend jeremy does not. but he wants one this year for xmas.

People do not use colons on the internet. That key is the jaded and lost son of the realm of QWERTY. People also make assumptions, assumptions such as their identity being well known. They won't be specifying that they are "charlie", you should already know that. If you don't, you're a noob. Jeremy fails to be derided for not having a PSP. Lastly, no one speaking like this would specify "this year", or type "one" out. Number keys are there 4 a reason.

so we started clowning with sum not-so-subtle hints to j's parents that a psp would be teh perfect gift. we created this site to spread the luv to those like j who want a psp!

No one on the internet can spell subtle, let alone know where to use hyphens. A common thing to notice is the use of larger words here were smaller ones would have sufficed. "started" could be "were" or "did". "created" is two syllabels longer than "made". The last sentence would more improperly be "we maed this site 2 giv luv 4 u who want a psp liek j!"

consider us your own personal psp hype machine, here to help you wage a holiday assault on ur parents, girl, granny, boss -- whoever -- so they know what you really want.

Again with the long words. Very few words over 2 syllabels are in the common lexicon on the internet. "consider", "personal", "holiday", "whoever", all unknown to the internet mind. Again with the hyphens as well. There are no "girl"s on the internet, only "gf"s, and when was the last time we saw "granny"? What kid this supposed age would have a "boss"?

we'll let you know how it works for us. pls return the favor.

more to come,
c&j.

Anyone who uses ur is not going to type out "you". "you" is four characters too many as it is. Also, the kind of comraderie shown in this last sentiment is completely foreign. This is the internet, not a high tea. There are no favors, there are only noobs and 1337 h4x.

if ur goin 2 b 1337 u hav 2 b cool like m3 lol

Re:aahhh, but you forget

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

"Ah, but you forget, it is now "cool" to hate Sony and talk about how much you hate them at every chance you get."

It wouldn't be cool to hate them if their products were more worthwhile.

Re:It's called Marketing

[Ryan Amos]

I've always wondered how many of those "fanboys" are 22 year old peons at a marketing firm designed to start "internet hype."

Seriously, for about $50,000 you could pay a small army of net nerds to hype your product for a few weeks and get more exposure to clients than spending that money on a national TV spot. You think marketing companies don't know this? They've been astroturfing internet forums for years, and they've gotten really good at not looking like astroturfing.

Re:It's called Marketing

[Chris Burke]

If Nintendo or Apple did this, it would be called genius.

Oh hell no. If Nintendo or Apple did this, I would say "Fuck you, Nintendo" or "Fuck you, Apple".

Show me the Nintendo or Apple advertisement that pretends not to be an advertisement, and you have a point. No, "The Wizard" doesn't count. Until then, this is simple: Sony hired someone to astroturf for them, and thus I say "Fuck you, Sony".

Astroturfing is not new, but it's always despicable. Like the phone makers that paid models to hang out in bars flaunting their technology. If Apple paid people to hang out in bars showing off iPods, then they'd be just as bad. So far as I know they don't. Sony is engaging in the same practice, which is to make it appear as though someone likes their product because they truly like it, when in reality they are paid boku bucks to pretend they like it. That's simply rotten.

Re:aahhh, but you forget

[thatguywhoiam]

Ah, but you forget, it is now "cool" to hate Sony and talk about how much you hate them at every chance you get.

Sadly, you are right. And I did forget. I wonder what the half-life for that phenomenon is. (Probably the length of time between the rootkit and the first breakout hit for the PS3. Or Spiderman 3, whichever comes first.)

Re:Trying to make it 'cool'

[Total_Wimp]

I try not to get pissed reading /. and I'm not sure why this post is an exception. Perhaps the post itself is innocent/naive enough, but it was the "informative" mods that set me over the edge.

#1. Everyone in gaming wants you to think their stuff if cool. Everyone. It's nice if the reason you think it's cool has something to do with quality, but in the end, that's not an absolute necessity. Question, which one was it, the GBA, or the DS that Nintendo purposely set out to look uncool? Neither? Well, thank you for entering reality. (BTW ads showing sweater-wearing yuppies smiling and laughing while they play with their Wii are very, very cool, if you're a sweater wearing yuppie.)

#2. The PSP is a fucking awesome game machine. It also happens to be a passable music and movie player. Don't let your prejudices prevent you from being honest about this. In playability, in fun, in versatility, it god-damn rocks. Is it better than the DS? I'm not gonna touch that with a thousand foot pole, not the least because I don't happen to own a DS and thus would not be able to make a fair comparison. However, even if the DS were ten times better than the PSP, that DOES NOT mean the PSP "is not a particularly good portable videogame machine." Say what you want about the relative merits of the two, but you are smoking crack or worse if you think the PSP is actually bad for playing games.

#3. I'm sick and tired of this "the DS sells better" crap. Do you live in Japan? What was that answer? Say it a little louder for us here in the U.S.? That's what I thought. Though /. has an international readership, the vast majority of readers are Americans. This is the score in America:

Wikipedia says [wikipedia.org] that, "On December 1, 2006 Nintendo of America released launch-to-date information indicating that the Nintendo DS had sold 6.63 million units in the United States." Nice numbers. Wish I sold that many of the Total_Wimp Portable Game Console.

However, according to Sony [scei.co.jp], they had shipped close to that number, 6.39 million units, by the end of March and had exceeded that number, 7.57 million, by the end of June. The number shipped by the end of September was 9.57 million.

Two points here. One, I absolutely know that number shipped does not equal number sold. I am also not a moron enough to think that Sony didn't sell all the stock it sent back in April and July by Dec 1. Yes, I freely admit that I do not know the exact number of units Sony sold by Dec 1, but despite whatever you may think of them, they're not quite stupid enough to ship 3 million more units into a market that can't sell that last 6 million units it sent. It's time for you all to admit it, Sony has sold more PSPs in the US than Nintendo sold DSs. And it's done that despite Nintendos very significant lead in release date.

Point two. Who cares about the fact that Nintendo outsells the Sony in Japan. I'm sure the game designers do. I'm sure the Japanese do. But the last time I was in the store and decided to give the DS another shot, I was greeted by Elite Beat Agents [gamespot.com], an anime inspired game that featured "yelling guy", "frantic gut" and a whole lot of other anime stereotypes that I've been actively trying to avoid now for several years. My daughter loves this stuff. I'd buy it for her in a heart beat (or an "Elite Beat". Har! I crack myself up!) But if I never see another sweat drop, bloody nose or chibi, it'll be too soon. So why, may I ask, would I want to encourage the game designers to be making more games specifically tailored to the Japanese taste? Heck, as far as I'm concerned, it's a blessing the PSP isn't selling as well in Japan. Game designers will need to cater to their core audience and for the moment, that audience looks American

Re:It's called Marketing

[AcidLacedPenguiN]

I dunno, I just want them to be good at what they do. . . I mean, if you're getting paid to lie shouldn't you be good at lying?

Re:It's called Marketing

[HappySqurriel]

If Nintendo or Apple did this, it would be called genius. Instead, it's a total marketing scam because it was done by Sony, who most likely just paid the company to market it and said you guys are the smart ones, you figure out the campaign. This article smacks of teenage journalism, completely down to the Liar, Liar DVD cover. Are these guys just realizing now that marketing companies play dirty to get you to buy their product? Welcome to reality, children.

I would have to disagree with you on this because, as far as I can tell, Nintendo is loved (in part) because of how classy of a company they are; in other words, people like them because they don't do stuff like this and had Nintendo produced this marketing campaign it would have hurt them far more than Sony. Basically, Nintendo doesn't pay artists to grafitti on walls, they don't produce ads in European countries focusing on "race" to promote the new color of thier system, and they don't make fake blogs to talk about how great their system is and this is why some people like them.

Look at the Wii comercials, no matter how crappy you think they are the main message is "look, the Wii is fun to play" ... How original, showing people playing games in your comercials rather than creepy babies or ravens or self solving rubics-cubes.

Re:It's called Marketing

[j00r0m4nc3r]

You are right. Those other people are wrong. What if Sony just made up fake movie reviews, or music reviews. They have actually done this and gotten in big trouble for it. They invented a fictional movie reviewer and plastered fake quotations (ie "The best film I've seen all year!!!") on their movie posters. TOTALLY 100% WRONG. This is no different. The consumer has a right to know what is an ad and what is not.

It's called Pathetic

[SloWave]

After looking at the site I don't know whether to laugh or cry. Do middle school kids really talk and act like that today or is this just some marketing dweebs wet dream. No other middle school generation could've ever been this dorky as what I saw on Sony's web site.

Re:Trying to make it 'cool'

[HappySqurriel]

Not over 90, sure. But your comparison is one-sided. Here is the data from metacritic:

Actually, if you noticed I was pretty balanced and looked at both game sales and game ratings; the fact is that game reviews are largely subjective and represent how well a game apeals to the core-gamer demographic, game sales represent how a game apeals to to the masses. I also have been trying not to directly compare the PSP to the Nintendo DS, mainly because the Nintendo DS is one of the fastest selling consoles in the history of videogames (because of it's performance in Japan).

I also (initially) made sure I referenced that the PSP was lacking in good "portable" games which (for the most part) was not understood by you. The fact is that the vast majority of handheld owners play games in a very different fashion to people who play games at home; traditionally they play in shorter bursts, and they also really like 2d content (most of the people I know who are big portable gamers became so after 2D games were abandoned on home consoles).

Oh yeah and Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children is a movie ...

Come on. Mario Kart is not a port? Castlevania, not a port? Again I'm not slamming the DS, I like the DS, but the games have limited appeal for me. The PSP seems to have limited appeal for you. Subjective. The DS 'wins' in pure sales, if you care about that.

I'll give you Mario Kart, but the difference between the DS and the PSP is the PSP is similar enough to the PS2 that it has recieved (more or less) direct ports from the PS2; most DS games are drastically different than their Gamecube (or other system) counter parts.

The Xbox has never been successful financially, perhaps the quarter that Halo 2 was released, but thats it. The GameCube was a 'failure' by your own definition! There are more PSPs in the world than GameCubes!

You keep jumping around on what you claim my definition of 'failure' is. My definition is essentially that the Gamecube/XBox were successful because they had several critically acclaimed software titles, and sold a reasonable ammount of software per console which imply that they were good systems to own; the PSP has not gotten to this point yet (it would be debatable to say whether the DS has either) and I think it would be foolish to argue otherwise.

Re:It's called Marketing

[scot4875]

Why is this so hard to understand?

When you see the hot model on TV eating McDonalds (lately it's just been a group of racially diverse trendy-looking idiots smiling while they eat the garbage) you KNOW that it's an ad.

With an astroturfing campaign like this, you don't know whether or not it's a genuine fan site or if it's Sony-sponsored. This site even goes so far as to display an image that says "this is not an ad."

Can you seriously not see the difference? The first ad is clearly a McDonalds ad -- they just try to give you a favorable impression of their product by showing pretty people eating it. The 2nd is masquerading as a fan site, trying to make you think that there's someone out there that really does believe all of the things they're saying without being paid to believe it.

--Jeremy

Re:It's called Marketing

[L7_]

There are no such things as astroturfers. Hell, *you* are probably paid by anti-marketing firms to spew nonsense about marketing firms! [Made tounge in cheek!]

I think that when people distrust everyone on the internet as much as they do "people from London on Craigslist" or "Russian girls on Myspace" or "GNAA on Slashdot" or "Brazilians on Orkut", and realize that you can't really trust who edited that Wikipedia article on self STD diagnosis or posted that blog about using 'sudo \rm -Rf /' to fix your Nvidia drivers, then the internet will become a better place. There are going to be people eeking out an existence by modifying the information and posting on message boards to market consumer products and post Amazon referral links. Its a shady business and some people just don't get why.

As soon as we show as much trust to random people on the internet (even our friends on the internet aren't to be trusted!) as we do to people walking down the street in a major metropolitan area, is when we trust them enough.

Re:It's called Marketing

[HyperHyper]

you just proved that this type of marketing works - here you are talking about their product and speaking on their behalf whether you like it or not. Some people think that there is no such thing as bad marketing and I'm still not sure if I believe it or not. Regardless, you are spending your time focusing on them when your mind could be focused on another product - Good or bad.

Why is everyone so offended by false advertising anyways? It's been around for years and people aren't serious about getting rid of it. If they were, they would push to have a law passed where the penalties are so severe that it would deter the offenders. You can ignore it and enjoy life or focus your "anger" and spout obscenities. Your choice... /HH

Re:It's called Marketing

[Chris Burke]

you just proved that this type of marketing works - here you are talking about their product and speaking on their behalf whether you like it or not. Some people think that there is no such thing as bad marketing and I'm still not sure if I believe it or not.

Yeah, all the coverage on the Sony exploding batteries was a marketing coup for them. And why are convicted sex offenders so upset at having to go door to door to announce their presence -- there's no such thing as bad pr!

I'm sure my "Fuck Sony!" comments are really the response they wanted.

Anyway, I didn't say it didn't work. I said it was fucking despicable.

Why is everyone so offended by false advertising anyways?

Yeah, why would anyone be offended by lies? Why would I be upset that someone portraying themselves as an average joe is really a corporate shill?

It's been around for years and people aren't serious about getting rid of it. If they were, they would push to have a law passed where the penalties are so severe that it would deter the offenders. You can ignore it and enjoy life or focus your "anger" and spout obscenities.

We do have laws about it, but the problem is that since an unfortunate court decision on the 14th Ammendment, corporations are granted all the rights of human beings and thus any effective truth-in-advertising laws would run afowl of the 1st ammendment. Thus it joins a thousand other issues that you might want to just hand-wave away with "people aren't serious" that are actually more difficult to solve than it would seem at first glance, and which no, it doesn't make sense to devote all our resources to.

I'm not sure what that last sentence means... as if because I author a post on /. containing the word "fuck" I'm not enjoying life? Fuck, venting about evil marketroids' works is a great way to increase my enjoyment of life. Fuck Sony in their lying ass! See? I feel better already!

Re:It's called Marketing

[Lisandro]

Oh, you mean like the ads I'm seeing on TV saying "Panadol, It's my choice"? Or like so called infomercials out there, which is half an hour of someone raving about how good a certain brand of blender is?

The same Panadol ad with the Panadol logo at the end? Or the shopping channel infomercials that reminds you every 20 minutes that the "show" you're watching is a paid advertisement? Come on, the line might be thin, but it's still there. The fact that advertising nowadays is pretty fucked up doesn't excuse it.

Re:Trying to make it 'cool'

[ZackSchil]

The GC was cheaper than the competition and had occasional must-have titles. That's the best part about even Nintendo's biggest failures, they're usually lower priced and have enough good games from first party alone by mid-life to justify the purchase.

Sony isn't exactly a powerhouse developer and their hardware is more expensive. Sony platforms live or die by third party support and for whatever reason, the software sales never came and 3rd party support is drying up. Calling the PSP a dead platform is a little premature but I don't think being very concerned for its future is unjustified.

Ok, fine, the glee with which people make this analysis smacks of fanboyism, but the analysis its self isn't wrong or hypocritical.