There is absolutely no doubting that the coronavirus pandemic has had a huge impact on the preparation, marketing, and roll-out of the PlayStation 5, to the point where some are surprised it'll even launch this year. Sony has recognised that in a new interview with GamesIndustry.biz, where it speaks of the monumental challenge releasing a new piece of hardware has been during a global lockdown and social distancing.
SVP and head of global marketing at Sony, Eric Lempel, said: "It's a massive challenge on every front. Not just for the parts of the organisation that I oversee, but for all parts of the organisation. The nice thing is that we're pulling it together. We will launch this year -- that will happen -- and from my end we will absolutely make sure that we will bring all of the magic and all of the excitement of launches that we have had in the past."
Lampel goes on to say that while doing this will be a challenge, the Japanese giant remained committed to the cause. Today's advert is said to kick off just the start of the PS5 marketing campaign, with much more on the way in the coming weeks. "If the world was in a normal place, we would be out there with demo stations at different events, with the ability for consumers to touch the product and interact with it, and really understand what we are talking about. The challenge, early on, became how do we try to express this with a spot, and at the same time, how do we create a spot given the current limitations presented by the global pandemic? So this was a challenge on all fronts for us."
[source gamesindustry.biz]
Comments 22
It's crazy to think with everything that's happened this year the PS5 is still set to launch as originally planned.
When I step back and count how everything else in the world has been cancelled, delayed and affected I can't fathom how Sony and Microsoft are able to launch these things this year at all. Hats off to them!
I wish they'd just announce the 'price' so we can get over the backlash and start talking about the real price already 🙄
A month at least would be great, it's almost September, if they're gonna launch in November it would be great to have at least a couple months prep IMO.
@theMEGAniggle Preps for what? The console will cost 400-600€. It's not like geez, we don't know if it's gonna be 500€ or 2 000€. I don't get the whole "omg tell us the price already!!!" thing.
“We will launch this year — that will happen”
Sweet music to my ears!
If it sells well at launch, I bet for future console releases they will look back at their strategy right now and consider something similar when it comes to marketing.
@Matej I didn't talk about a price I just said about the release date damn 😅
Has there been any word on any supply issues with the parts? There were rumours of blu-ray disc drive issues causing PS3 to launch almost a year later than originally planned. The PS5 secret sauce SSD can't be easy to make or everyone would have 1 already.
https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2006/03/sony_officially_delays_playstation_3_launch
Sure, COVID-19 affect is real, but there could be other factors in play with a huge millions of units worldwide hardware launch we don't know about.
@theMEGAniggle Sorry about that :/
IMO It's gonna be £499, and £399 for digital edition. They'll take that bigger hit because they can recoup that over the years in digital purchases, and also because they need to make the price difference enticing enough, and it's a positive for them to be able to say those keywords 'from £399' in all their advertising.
@Matej it's okay, why's everyone so on edge on this site
@theMEGAniggle Having especially bad times but that's not an excuse. I guess everybody is tired of this waiting game.
@Matej I totally agree. It's not like people are going to wait until the price announcement before they start saving for the console. Assume the console is gonna be £499 plus accessories/games. I'm factoring in £800 for launch day costs. I don't need to wait for an announcement for this. As long as we know before release (obviously) then that's fine. It's certainly not at the top of the list of things we need to know.
Here's my priority list of unknowns that need to be known:
1. Backwards compatibility (how PS4 games work & whether PS1-3 games work).
2. Launch date.
3. Launch games.
4. Interface (UI, Trophy/Store enhancements).
5. Price.
@Matej yeah maybe. I guess my comment was redundant seeing as they said holiday season. Got £500 saved up so unless something catastrophic happens to me, I'm buying this at launch.
@JonTheGod You summed it up nicely!
@theMEGAniggle Me too. I have recently platinumed Ghost of Tsushima and I think that's it for this generation, I think I will try to sell my PS4 Pro in September maybe to sell it a bit better compared to oversaturated aftermarket during launch window.
There are still some unknowns that I’m sure Sony could tells about, someone has listed them above.
Would be nice if both Sony and Microsoft just let it all out, so we can judge for ourselves and decide what to buy and when.
@Matej ooof that's a double edged sword, I mean you'll get more money but can you sit without gaming for 2 months? I'm sure you can but still. I have so many PS4 games to play even now. I will play them on PS5 as I have the base PS4 so I want all that 4k goodness. Launch games don't really bother me, Miles Morales is great, other than that idk what to get.
@theMEGAniggle I kept the base PS4 which I lent to my brother for occasional gaming when friends gather at his place (he is not much of a gamer himself). So I’ll take that back for some of the backlog clearing until PS5 arrives
I'm curious, why is it expected that Sony needs to release PS5 pricing weeks before launch? Let alone 10+ weeks early?
For me it’s less about knowing the price than preparing for preorders, launch shortages, etc. Having time to figure out how to acquire one is useful. They seem to think they need to convey the “experience” but the reality is that momentum alone will get them high sales this year and they are going to run out of whatever stock they can make. Playstation gamers are going to buy it for new Playstation games regardless. I want to believe Sony execs are just that blown away by their new controller and they want to share it, but the cynic in me think it’s just nerves over the price they are going to set. Reason tells me it’s going to be something like $450 digital and $500 or $550 disk, but the longer they wait the more I think hmmm.. maybe $650 or $700. How much are those controllers going to cost? Hmmm...
I've put aside around £70 and the rest... is point of saving around £20 every month, so my ps5 is waiting for me somewhere in 2022. ☺️ It's good for my backlog... 😂 The only thing that would make me borrow money from family and buy at day 1 is complete backward compatibility (psx, ps2, ps3 and ps4).
I'm surprised it's not being delayed
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