Sony ‘captured the hardcore’ with PS3, not with Pokeball

There’s no denying that Sony has been doing good work on the PS3 side of things as late. With Killzone 2 proving to be a decent success, inFamous, Heavy Rain and MAG all coming, not to mention the selection of PSN titles available, the publisher has done good. Sony knows it too, and is never going to let the opportunity to blow its own trumpet get away.

“There’s certainly a line-up of very strong family-friendly titles that we’re looking at for PS3 in our continuing effort to appeal to that casual consumer,” says marketing boss John Koller. “We’ve captured the hardcore. The install base we have now tells us that the hardcore’s purchased. We’re moving on now to continue to support them with a tremendous line-up of games, but also look at softer brands that maybe we had with PS2 franchises we’re bringing over to PS3, or new IP.”

Koller also hinted at what the PS3’s lineup may have in store by simply saying, “”Think of some of the latter-half PS2 franchises.” Oooh, mysterious!

While I’m sure most of what Koller says is pure marketing talk, this is actually the kind of thing I wish Sony and Microsoft would do more of. Nintendo has its audience, which is catered to perfectly. Sony and Microsoft have their own audience, and it makes more sense to cater to them first than to a demographic it doesn’t even have yet.

I don’t remember LIPS topping charts and making waves in the industry. That’s because the over-rated and badly identified “casual gamer” that has been turned into some sort of Holy Grail simply isn’t interested. MS and Sony have their own perfectly suitable demographic and they should focus on that. For them to appeal to the soccer moms and grandmothers is like a liqor store trying to sell Tickle Me Elmos.