Split-Screen :: The Game-Geek’s Daily Read

by Ravi Sinha
There are a lot of things going on with Sony, however, the company has never gotten its act together as far as advertising goes. “Wow the customer enough so he’ll buy your products” – how Sony haplessly wrestles with this tenet like the Titans against Zeus in Greek mythology is simply uncanny. But while the viral campaigns and unintentionally frightening babies of the first world market failed due to terrible conception, our home-grown PS3 Indian ad unintentionally admits to one of the console’s main defects.

It’s inoffensive enough. Footage of Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, Ratchet and Clank Future: Tools of Destruction, Heavenly Sword and MotorStorm is spliced together against the yellow backdrop of an expanding PS3. The commercial ends with the system contracting back into one piece, and the on-screen words, “Fun Anyone?” Nothing is wrong with the bits of footage either. Each game is showcased for what it is, what it does best and why it’s so much fun (Heavenly Sword users must be laughing their asses off right now).

Only one problem: These games are two years old. Granted they were the console’s launch titles, but that was the US launch. Surely, they could have used footage from their other India-available exclusives like Resistance, Metal Gear Solid 4, Quest for Booty and…and…

And that leads us to the fundamental issue of the PS3 itself. This ad was competently executed but suffered from the fact that 2 years later, Sony has only seven noteworthy exclusives to brag about in India. Not that it’s much different around the world (LittleBigPlanet still hasn’t released). The sad fact remains that though Sony ably marshaled its franchises during the PS2 era, we are yet to see some big dogs enter the arena. There’s no Gran Turismo, Jak and Daxter, Sly Cooper, Killzone or God of War. I know, I know. Not yet. But in front of Microsoft’s current combo of Fable II and Gears of War 2, to have nothing in India around this time is, for lack of a nicer euphemism, pathetic.

Here’s a suggestion and a very simple one. If Sony wants to give MS nightmares in this generation and this part of the world too, then release Resistance 2 and LittleBigPlanet close to, if not on, the rest of the world’s release dates. You could even splice together footage from MGS4 and Quest for Booty. As such, the PS3 is mocked for its lack of exclusives around the world. Don’t repeat the same mistake in India of all places.