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Forums - Sony - Sony: We “Legitimized [Gaming] As A Form Of Entertainment!

Jordahn on 02 July 2010
puffy said:

That video posted above is required viewing for this topic.

All Sony did with the PS1 was target a more adult audience, which doesn't make something 'more mainstream'.

 

@Killiana1a: You didn't respond to me properly. "Video games are nowhere near the social acceptability as sports or other forms of physical recreation." That's all well and good but what about TV, movies or books? They're all mainstream entertainment and I'm sure they are similar to video games in terms of social acceptability when compared with physical recreation.


Personally, I would have felt better is the console industry did NOT go mainstream.



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mai on 02 July 2010

RolStoppable said:

Exactly, the sales tell us how the PS brand expanded the market. It wasn't by making gaming more mainstream than before, because the household penetration rate in the developed markets didn't grow significantly, if at all.

Can't say anything about per houshold data, but may provide a quick comparison of home consoles penetration in US on per person basis:

NES (1993) 260M/34M ~7,7 per console

PS1 (2005) 295M/41M ~7,2 per console

Not a significant improvement if you ask me. Won't change greatly if we factor in other home consoles of 3rd and 5th gen respectively.

//Source: VGChartz and approximations of US census data.



Jordahn on 02 July 2010
RolStoppable said:

The other misconception is that Sony brought gaming to older audiences. That's wrong because adults, including women, were playing video games on the Atari and NES already. Sony narrowed the audience of people who were playing video games by focusing on males 15-25 years old (their own words, I think that can be found in the youtube video "History of PlayStation").


Something I need to comment on.  No one stopped an adult from doing most anything, including playing a game on an Atari and Nintendo system.  I think that was implied in one of my posts.  Even though SONY mentioned 15-25 year olds, doesn't mean they were limiting those within that age group, and it doesn't mean they were stopping anyone outside of that age group from playing a PlayStation game.  You're causing the misconception here.  



Hackers are poor nerds who don't wash.

Jordahn on 02 July 2010
Killiana1a said:
puffy said:

That video posted above is required viewing for this topic.

All Sony did with the PS1 was target a more adult audience, which doesn't make something 'more mainstream'.

 

@Killiana1a: You didn't respond to me properly. "Video games are nowhere near the social acceptability as sports or other forms of physical recreation." That's all well and good but what about TV, movies or books? They're all mainstream entertainment and I'm sure they are similar to video games in terms of social acceptability when compared with physical recreation.

Television is the mass medium for the masses no matter age or income. People watch television.

Movies are in the same boat as television, but recent years have been hard for movie fans who want original masterpieces. We are seeing a lot of remakes and a lot of cheesy blockbusters lately.

Books are tough. It is hard to criticize them, but clearly we all do not read enough.

I would say television, movies and books alone are solitary, sedentary activities even in comparison to video gaming where one go online and play with others or invite others to play with them in a room.

All are mainstream, video games will be mainstream once the Baby Boomers die off and their antediluvian critical opinion regarding new forms of entertainment they deem as bad or lazy because they did have it when they were young die off.

Video games will be mainstream and I can see Morgan Webb and G4TV becoming the ESPN of video games much to the chagrin of Nintendo fans who loathe her due to her unrelenting criticism and glass half empty view of Nintendo.


All of these general forms of media are mainstream.  The real issue of being mainstream are the genres in these medias such as animation, but then you have your sub-genres such as anime.  



Hackers are poor nerds who don't wash.

Jordahn on 02 July 2010
RolStoppable said:
Jordahn said:
RolStoppable said:

The other misconception is that Sony brought gaming to older audiences. That's wrong because adults, including women, were playing video games on the Atari and NES already. Sony narrowed the audience of people who were playing video games by focusing on males 15-25 years old (their own words, I think that can be found in the youtube video "History of PlayStation").

Something I need to comment on.  No one stopped an adult from doing most anything, including playing a game on an Atari and Nintendo system.  I think that was implied in one of my posts.  Even though SONY mentioned 15-25 year olds, doesn't mean they were limiting those within that age group, and it doesn't mean they were stopping anyone outside of that age group from playing a PlayStation game.  You're causing the misconception here.  

I didn't say that Sony stopped anyone from playing a PlayStation game, I implied that their focus on a particular age group caused many adults to stop gaming. Which makes sense, because most of the games targeted at 15-25 year olds are seen as juvenile by most adults.


OMG.  You just said "I implied that their focus on a particular age group caused many adults to stop gaming."  But your previous statement was "I didn't say that Sony stopped anyone from playing a PlayStation game."  What do think playing a PlayStation game is, NOT gaming???  Yeah, you and others think this obviously.  Playing PlayStation games in general is gaming, and just because there is a target audience for most ANY product does not necessarily stop anyone from trying their products.  And in your OPINION that most "games targeted at 15-25 year olds are seen as juvenile by most adults."

EDIT: I stand corrected.  You have a point when you said "games targeted at 15-25 year olds are seen as juvenile by most adults."  Let me add to this by saying that most adults viewed almost ALL video games as juvenile, but SONY tried to change that image by pushing games that didn't fall into the stereotypical younger audience.  And I'm glad they did.



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Jordahn on 02 July 2010
RolStoppable said:
Jordahn said:
RolStoppable said:

I didn't say that Sony stopped anyone from playing a PlayStation game, I implied that their focus on a particular age group caused many adults to stop gaming. Which makes sense, because most of the games targeted at 15-25 year olds are seen as juvenile by most adults.

OMG.  You just said "I implied that their focus on a particular age group caused many adults to stop gaming."  But your previous statement was "I didn't say that Sony stopped anyone from playing a PlayStation game."  What do think playing a PlayStation game is, NOT gaming???  Yeah, you and others think this obviously.  Playing PlayStation games in general is gaming, and just because there is a target audience for most ANY product does not necessarily stopping anyone from trying their products.  And in your OPINIOn that most "games targeted at 15-25 year olds are seen as juvenile by most adults."

There is a difference between those two statements. The first one ("I implied that...") means that Sony didn't prevent anyone from playing their systems and their games. People chose to not play them, because in their opinion those games didn't seem to be for them.

But actually, I am not quite sure what you are talking about. The conclusion you drew from my post feels so... random.


Justify it however you want because SONY did make and push games that appealed to an older audience.  You have to have a target audience to have a focus to make a product have a more distinguishing feature.  That's how it was done by making more "mature" games.  They helped retained some older gamers while also bringing in new gamers as well. I'm an old guy and a dying breed while the younger ones have stepped up to help continue this thing called gaming.  There are plenty of younger PlayStation gamers that regardless of what SONY's target audience is have bought into the console because of its games regardless of console generation.  Too much blindness from illegit SONY hater here, and too much false justification.  I know where you guys are coming from because I used to be a SONY hater as well.



Hackers are poor nerds who don't wash.

Hynad on 02 July 2010

RolStoppable, do you have any kind of data that would suggest people stopped playing because of the target audience that Sony was aiming at?  There are a lot of assumptions regarding that but not much data to support any of them.  The truth is, while some people stopped gaming,  many newcomers came on board too.  No matter what the content was.

 

The misconception you speak of goes both ways. 



Linkasf on 02 July 2010
Carl2291 said:
RolStoppable said:
Carl2291 said:

Considering that the PSone brought gaming to the mainstream. I think that what he says is true... In a way.

Sony didn't make gaming mainstream and neither did they broaden the audience of people who were playing games. In the latter case, they actually narrowed it. Adults were playing video games on the Atari and the NES which should come as no surprise since many games at that time were ports from the arcades and adults were playing those games there too.

But the damage has been done over the years, it will take a long time until people stop believing in those PlayStation myths.

I think the sales of the PSone, and even PS2, compared to consoles that came before them, say more than enough on how the PS brand expanded the market... Hugely.

And i don't understand how they narrowed it.

I bought 3 playstations because they broke.



Hynad on 02 July 2010
Linkasf said:
Carl2291 said:
RolStoppable said:
Carl2291 said:

Considering that the PSone brought gaming to the mainstream. I think that what he says is true... In a way.

Sony didn't make gaming mainstream and neither did they broaden the audience of people who were playing games. In the latter case, they actually narrowed it. Adults were playing video games on the Atari and the NES which should come as no surprise since many games at that time were ports from the arcades and adults were playing those games there too.

But the damage has been done over the years, it will take a long time until people stop believing in those PlayStation myths.

I think the sales of the PSone, and even PS2, compared to consoles that came before them, say more than enough on how the PS brand expanded the market... Hugely.

And i don't understand how they narrowed it.

I bought 3 playstations because they broke.


You mean... The sales of the console aren't representative of the user base?  

 

Like...

 

With the X-Box 360??



Scoobes on 02 July 2010

I can see where he's comming from. Sony did expand the market with PS1 and subesquently with PS2. Prior to the PS1 nearly all games were targeted to younger audiences with very few adults playing games. Adults and older gamers mostly stopped after the 80s video game crash, but even then, games were mostly seen as a toy for the young or a procrastination/geeks only tool for adults. NES/Master System and SNES/Mega Drive didn't really change these attitudes.

The PS1 was the console that expanded the market by targetting older audiences with more mature themes. Parents weren't just buying consoles for their children but also for themselves. PS2 continued the trend especially with its early use as a DVD player and then expanding its audience later with more casual based games. When I think back, everyone I knew had a PS2 including many 30 something parents who entered gaming with PS1 & PS2. It was almost as if it became a part of everyones entertainment system.

Nintendo are the ones who have expanded the audience this gen by expanding beyond this group to people who would find traditional style video gaming (controller based) intimidating.




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