Chapter 4 The Marketing Environment

Is the PlayStation right for you? That’s a million dollar question. As of February 8, 2014 the console has sold 5 million units. That’s not only impressive but actually record breaking. 


But what is the target market for the console with gamers everywhere now and days with technology beings the driving force of the world. Where does Sony stand in a world that’s always connected? In the gaming world they currently stand on top with the demographic of consumers being generally around age 30 and 40% of the gamers today being female it goes unquestioned that investors and innovators are looking at this map and telling themselves we need to create a console that appeals to this group and beyond. Beyond is an important word because that word was a part of Sony’s marketing strategy to show how their console would lead into a future where technology is king.

The pricing of the console was very important in 2013 the main concern come reveal time was the pricing. In a post-recession economic time how can a company like Sony appeal to new customers and satisfy current customers without breaking the bank of those consumer pockets and the answer to that was price. 


The Xbox One revealed a $499 retail price but included its new Kinect camera that is actually needed for the console to operate. Sony revealed the PlayStation 4 at a retail price of $399 and did not include a new camera but offered its camera as a separate add on retailed at $70. Sony went with a less expensive more appealing pricing which was strongly accepted by consumers and also was a big change for Sony which retailed its PlayStation 3 with a $499 and $599 price tag when the system was revealed. This approach followed a component lifestyle of consumers now instead of the money hungry approach that is not so appealing now and days.

Social media has played a major role in the way we received and send information with everyone having a mobile phone it is not hard to check your Facebook profile or send a tweet to your followers. With that being said PlayStation created a share button on their new controller that allows you to stay connected and share all your glorious moments with your closet friends. 


The Innovators at Sony had lots of ideas for their new controller and the ideas were great, upon reveal Sony showed off the Dual shock 4 controller which not only had a share button but also a finer grip better vibration and an indicator light that changed color based on how many players were playing at a  time. These are just a few features that showed how much they focused on what the consumer wanted and not on generating money for a fancy console. The only troublesome thing Sony announced was that there was no backward capability for the PlayStation 4 which meant that all your old games were not compatible. But they did have an answer for that , they called it PlayStation now which is a stream service like Netflix and Hulu plus which grants the gamer complete access to a library of PlayStation games from all their consoles from your mobile device, PlayStation and Sony televisions for a monthly fee. This announcement came at high praise and they are now Beta testing the service for their summer 2014 release for the PlayStation 3 and 4 consoles.