Sony’s Marketing Dept. Gets it Right in PS3 Ad

At the gym last night, I settled onto the elliptical with a magazine from the community rack. I’m not a regular People Magazine reader, but as I was flipping through this issue from late September, I saw a PS3 ad. The ad features a teen boy who looks to be enjoying himself and a middle-aged woman as his mother next to him, also looking to be enjoying herself. Both had controllers in their hands and looked to be having fun playing.

The tagline that accompanied the ad referred to the recent price drop but also served to be really inclusive. Unfortunately, I don’t recall the exact content, but I believe it was something about the PS3 being at a price that suits everyone.

People‘s demographics skew very female, and range through various age groups, so this was a pleasant surprise. To see gaming not only marketed as something women of any age do, but without the usual attention being called to her as a female playing games. (See the PSP’s recent lavender release with its ill-considered “Girlz Play Too!” tagline and obvious lineup of Hannah Montana and other similar games). Surely there would be some sort of division in the games, right?

Nope. The game selection at the bottom wasn’t even divided into obvious gender targets like so many other ads are. The games were titles like Batman: Arkham Asylum and others. Not a puzzle game or fitness coaching game in sight.

Even though that lavender PSP stuff is still fresh in our minds, kudos to Sony’s marketing department for this great ad!

Bioware’s Matt Atwood talks PC Release

When a console to PC port arrives with issues like poor optimization or a lack of graphical upgrades, this is naturally, disappointing. Bioware's Matt Atwood, in an interview over at Eurogamer, insists that the upcoming May PC release of Mass Effect will be different:

"We get questions about if we're going to do new content [for the PC
version], but what's the real value there? The game is so robust with
this content. What makes the most sense is to focus on making the
keyboard customisable, increasing the visuals, making the controls very
natural and add things like squad commands and hot-keys for Shepard's
biotic powers and weapons; make those things that, honestly, when
people make ports they just don't do. They just get it going and that's
it. And that's not what BioWare's about."

No new PC-exclusive content is a bit of a bummer, but the rest is still good news. He also touches upon downloadable content planned for both the PC and the Xbox 360:

"We obviously know more than we're ready to talk about, just to be
completely honest with you. But I think you'll see more planets, I
think you'll potentially see more races – you're going to see really
great content.
"

If you'd like more on the newer, shinier side of Mass Effect, the rest of the interview, along with the accompanying PC screenshot gallery should whet your appetite.