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April 5th, 2007, 07:40 Posted By: wraggster
via wired
Sony is shifting its marketing focus for the PSP platform to the 13-17 year old demographic, with a new marketing campaign titled "Dude, Get Your Own."
I spoke with PSP senior product manager John Koller this afternoon about the PSP's recent price cut, and he says that the move towards the teen market is based on who's buying the system:
Most of our registered owners database stats have shown the 13-17 year old consumers far outpacing other groups in terms of purchase. The intend-to-purchase crowd is living mostly in that group as well. We're looking to expand beyond where we've been. PSP started as a device to appeal to 18-34 year-olds, but north of 26-27.
"There were a few reasons," says Koller, for dropping the PSP's price now. First, Sony "received some savings on the cost of goods, which we wanted to get to the consumer." Second, "Wal-Mart sold 110,000 units in five days on Black Friday [last year] when they dropped the price to $169." Finally, the aforementioned shift to the 13-17 year old market.
The desire to more directly target that 13-17 year-old market was what led to the All I Want For Christmas Is A PSP campaign last year, Koller said. "That campaign clearly did not work," he said, but it was an attempt to "identify ways of speaking and marketing to that 13-17 year-old consumer. It was an effort to be able to target that individual in a more quiet manner and not go out and promote it and have it be something that was found. The way it was done is not correct... In the future, we'll be more clear and transparent to the consumer."
Going forward, Sony will unveil the "Dude, Get Your Own" campaign.
The idea this year, says Koller, is to "break out of the home cycle." A significant amount of PSP users in that 13-17 group play the device at home. "The teens that are doign this value the ability to utilize the portability," Koller notes paradoxically. By portability, he clarifies, he means "I can play it upstairs while my parents are watching the TV downstairs."
This, of course, is of little value to adults with their own apartments and TV sets. For teens, it is a big draw, which is one reason for the high sales in that group.
But Sony wants them to get it out of the house and "into more of a lifestyle focus." That's the reason for adding the T-Mobile hotspot functionality that Sony touted last month. Koller says that Sony will "regularly launch" firmware updates this year with functionality that is strongly directed at that 13-17 market, although he could not reveal details on any of them.
Sony has found that more and more PSP owners are using the device for multimedia applications, specifically, downloading music and movies from their PC to the PSP. "There's a lot of that," says Koller. In fact, Sony says the "second most valued use of PSP" is as a music playback device. "Music shot up substantially" over the holiday season, he says.
As for releasing a new hardware redesign of PSP that includes more onboard storage, Koller would not say.
In the meantime, Sony isn't giving up on the embattled UMD movie format, although -- again -- they're going after that teen market with "more targeted content, rather than the kitchen sink approach," says Koller. "What we're seeing from studios is that they are establishing what that content needs to be, primarily action and comedy. They're calibrating that towards what the consumer is."
As far as gaming goes, "there are a few titles we're looking at as hardware drivers this year" -- from God of War to SOCOM to "a number of third-party exclusives" which Koller declined to name. Third party makers, though, are on board with the demographic shift, he says. "They're very aware of the direction that owner registrations have been going in. You'll see a lot more teen-oriented titles launching."
Even with the software release list waning, Sony's American branch still remains committed to delivering unique PSP experiences. "We really want to be able to identify ways to set the software apart from console software. Consumers don't want a mobile version" of a game they can play at home, says Koller. God of War on PSP will be "entirely different than anything you can play on consoles."
Finally, I asked what Phil Harrison was referring to when he lumped the PSP in with his "Game 3.0" concept of user-generated, dynamic, ever-changing content. "The PSP, within the PlayStation brand, sits as kind of the cultural object of desire, the ability to take that content with you elsewhere outside the living room," says Koller. "With a number of initiatives coming out, they'll be able to use the PSP in new and exciting ways."
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