| Khuutra said: In the PS1 era, Sony came into the market with the same idea that Sega and Nintendo had been operating under: a brand had to be built around a face, and that face had to have power. Crash was an answer to Mario, and Solid Snake was reframed in a way to overshadow James Bond (as ridiculous as it sounds now, Goldeneye vs. MGS arguments weren't that uncommon back in '98, just because the character filled similar niches). Cloud was held up opposite to Link. That was the image of Playstation, as the fans defined it to fans of other consoles. These faces are old and powerful symbols. |
While I can completely understand why you'd say that, everything I've ever read about the Playstation brand has suggested something completely opposite.
Sony came to the market wanting to distinguish from Nintendo/Sega and as such they didn't want a mascot for the Playstation. The original mascots for the system were Polygon man, quickly replaced by Sofia from Battle Arena Toshinden. That's what Sony were pushing.
Eventually, you know, things changed. Sony signed exclusive publishing deals with Universal for Crash and Spyro, Lara Croft gravitated her way towards stardom, Solid Snake returned in a blaze of glory etc. And all of these characters, to some extent, became mascots for the Playstation. Eventually Sony grew to accept this (i.e. the infamous Crash Bandicoot advert), but they never seemed too fussed about creating their own 'official' mascot.
And that's become exactly their undoing now. Their brand got built around multiple different faces during the early days, but Sony's interest in having a mascot was never more than a passing marketing opportunity here or there. In making a mascot brawler they need that kind of brand recognition that's seemingly become impossible to get access to again due to the fact that none of it was ever owned by Sony. They've made progress since the PS2 with Kratos, Drake, Sackboy, Ratchet etc. but they're all relatively new and don't share the same nostalgia levels that Crash, Lara or Snake would.
