PlayStation: Launching PS5 During a Pandemic is a 'Massive Challenge on Every Front' - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 01 September 2020 / 2,811 Views
The ongoing coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has been a challenge for the world and including the video game industry. Sony is working hard to launch its next-generation console, the PlayStation 5, this holiday season.
PlayStation’s head of global marketing Eric Lempel speaking with GamesIndustry in an interview says the company has faced many challenges in getting the PS5 ready for launch.
"It's a massive challenge on every front," said Lempel. "Not just for the parts of the organization that I oversee, but for all parts of the organization. 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.
"We are still committed to doing that. It's more challenging than ever, but our gamers expect a lot from us. It's a chance to celebrate the beginning of a new generation. This spot kicks off PlayStation 5 marketing efforts, and this is just the beginning. So you can see this as the initial entry. Hopefully, it looks high quality, hopefully, it captures the imagination of the viewer, and from here, it just gets bigger and better.
"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.
"The genesis of this is that we're moving into a new generation and to us generations matter. It's a chance to raise the expectations from players and gamers, and really introduce something new. So for this spot in particular, we focused on three distinct areas: the haptic feedback, the adaptive dynamic triggers, and 3D audio. And we wanted to show what it would be like to be in the middle of all that."
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel dedicated to gaming Let's Plays and tutorials. You can contact the author at wdangelo@vgchartz.com or on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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Honestly, I think both companies have set things up so that they can delay the consoles, if necessary, with minimal blowback. Obviously covid-19 is easy cover. But, Microsoft delaying Halo takes the pressure off of everyone. That's a big, newsworthy title. If Microsoft can't pull that off, everybody will be forgiven for delays. Dropping sound bites like this serve to soften the blow even more.
The fact that nobody has set a date or a price had been assumed to be due to competitive forces between the two. At this point though, the companies certainly know what the others plans are. These are giant companies (especially Microsoft) with lots of intelligence capabilities. The only reason left at this point to have not announced is that they are unsure if they will be able to hit the dates.
I'm sure they both have consoles ready. The concern at this point would be having enough inventory. If inventories are going to be super tight, that makes it last necessary to launch at a low price. Of course, launching at a high price can screw up the whole generation, as evidenced by Xbox One. On the other hand, launching at a price that will create demand of 10 million units when you only have 3 million available can put a bad taste in many people's mouths. You want your console to be wanted. But, if people want one and realize there is no chance they're getting one for 6 months, that leads to disappointment.
in other words, I think the lack of release dates and prices is due to the companies' uncertainty about their ability to launch when and how they want.
No denying there will be challenges. One of them will be people having available income.
I guess it won't be possible to have people lining up to buy consoles at launch. If everyone has to keep 6 feet apart then the line will end 5 miles away from the store.
Console launch delay coming.
yo33331 at first I thought they weren't announcing to preserve momentum, gather as many month 1/2 buyers before losing some due to pricing. Though at this point I have to agree, we are way too close to launch to still be having leaks about price.
Both sides are waiting for each other to announce. Microsoft is ready to undercut and Sony is full monkaS. Especially with Series S still not officially announced which will likely undercut the digital PS5 by at least $100.
i think right now,
its gonna be hard to prioritize buying a console,
switch is a hit coz its cheap 3 year old handheld console while shelling out 500+-700 bucks is gonna hurt the wallets of the masses!
Oh yes, Sony mentioned that they would have "hundreds of events" in various places to show the new console instead of having a spot at E3. So what happened to that marketing idea?
The pandemic happened. Touching things in a public environment would suck since they would have to wipe the kiosks down every time they had someone play it. That would suck.
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