Fizziology Exec Says Social Media Buzz Points To Strong Demand For Sony PlayStation 4

 Over 8.1 million gamers around the world watched the PlayStation Meeting 2013 press conference that officially announced Sony’s PlayStation 4 is coming this Christmas. There’s been a ton of press coverage of the event, and stories on N4G and other aggregate sites about PS4 remain hot topics.

Social media research firm Fizziology keeps a close watch on Twitter, Facebook and key blogs to track what press and consumers are saying and thinking about things. When it comes to PS4, things are looking very good for Sony’s PS4 launch. Twenty-nine percent of all social media chatter around the PS4 were gamers announcing their intent to buy the new console. According to Jen Handley, COO and Co-Creator of Fizziology, this type of buzz this early, before the console price point has even been announced, paints a picture for a strong lanch for Sony. She breaks down the numbers in this exclusive interview.

Can you explain how Fizziology tracks consumers in social media?

We use social media as the world’s biggest, fastest, most honest focus group to provide actionable business insights. Basically we tell brands what their audiences, fans and customers are saying and what to do about it.

More technically speaking, we collect feeds from Twitter, Facebook and blogs for a variety of brands and properties, from a variety of industries. We have a team of social media analysts who read these feeds (rather than a machine-based algorithm) and they determine sentiment – positive, negative, neutral and mixed. Then they gather insights and analyze the conversation – from the key lines and scenes in a commercial or trailer that are popping, to likes/dislikes about a product, to geographic and audience breakdown of those who are talking.

Can you differentiate organic conversation from other conversation in social media?

Yes, this is very important to what we do. We’ll differentiate positive/negative/mixed organic sentiment from neutral inorganic sentiment. Inorganic may come from news sources and bots, while organic will be true opinions shared by individuals.

How are you seeing multitasking gamers stay connected and voicing opinions while they’re watching live streams and even gaming these days?

We see that gamers are posting in anticipation of playing, talking about the fact that they have played, and some are live-tweeting while they play. But the majority of the time, it’s not about the gameplay, it’s just a general statement, or an invitation to play- like with Xbox players tweeting their Xbox Live name so others will join.

The majority of people are still neutral onPS4 post-press conference. What does that say about the importance of E3 for Sony?

Post-press conference conversation was 48% neutral, coming mostly from news outlets. So 52% of the conversation was real, organic opinion. Comparatively, for a news release like this, that’s actually a great amount of organic sentiment – we’d expect it to be roughly mid-30s organic sentiment for a press conference. Sony’s involvement in E3 will be important to reach the news media and get the early adopters on board, but they’ll want to be sure to provide a sneak peek and content to their consumers and fans not at the event – they’re the ones driving the mass amount of opinions. For events like Comic-Con, this is where we’ve seen the greatest success.

Does this percentage of gamers want to purchase it at launch and are they the traditional early adopters?

Anticipation is high and those who talked about purchasing at launch, were quite emphatic about it. It seems that these people who were following the news and talking about purchasing early are hard core gamers who already know what games they want to purchase on PS4. They certainly look like early adopters.

Can you talk a bit more about the 21% of gamers who prefer Xbox and where that fits into the equation?

This 21% who prefer Xbox were Xbox loyalists, they were reacting to the news but are unlikely to be swayed- especially because they’re anticipating the announcement of a new Xbox console soon. That made up the majority of this conversation, but there were Xbox fans who had mixed sentiment. They’d state they were loyal to Xbox, but said they were intrigued by the new look of PS4.

What does that mean if Microsoft does launch a new console this fall as rumored?

It seems that Xbox fans are diehard fans. They love the console, the controller, the games, and the interactivity. One thing people liked about the PS4 controller is that it’s similar to the Xbox controller- Xbox’s seems to be the gold standard. So while Xbox fans are talking about the PS4 launch, at this point it doesn’t seem likely that they would switch over.

The 12% of gamers looking forward to the PS4 seems pretty low. What are your thoughts on what Sony needed to do more of at PlayStation Meeting 2013?

What we’ve seen historically help create a successful launch is release content and news to the fans. Now that the press conference has passed and intrigue is high, an unveiling of the hardware and gameplay would help spread buzz.

What impact will price point play in this equation?

At this point, there are surprisingly few feeds about it. There were some negatives that people just assume it’ll be too expensive. I think we’ll see a lot more of this conversation closer to launch as those who aren’t the hardcore fan base are considering purchase.

Given that 3D TVs didn’t take off with gamers after Sony promoted them. What is the early reaction to 4K TVs and gaming?

This was a big part of the industry/neutral conversation, but there is nearly no organic conversation about it at this point.

Can you talk about the games gamers are most excited about on PS4?

Here’s the breakdown of those that gamers are anticipating the most:

Watch Dogs: 25% of game chatter

Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag: 15% of game chatter

Infamous Second Son: 15% of game chatter

Killzone Shadow Fall: 10% of game chatter

Final Fantasy: 10% of game chatter

Source: http://www.forbes.com/sites/johngaudiosi/2013/03/10/fizziology-exec-says-social-media-buzz-points-to-strong-demand-for-sony-playstation-4/