The gaming console market has been around for over thirty years. And all these years, we have been watching the battle between the giants of the gaming industry. This makes the history of gaming console advertising as colorful and confusing as the industry itself. From the very first and primitive commercials, to real short films, I invite you to walk with me through several decades and see the most incredible advertising materials of the past years.

First generation of game consoles 1972-1980

The seventies gave rise to many modern devices, including home electronic entertainment. Advertising at that time was simple, like the consoles themselves. Here’s an example of an advertisement for Magnavox Oddysey. The development of this device began back in 1966, and it was first presented to the public six years later, in 1972.

All this console could do was display white dots on the screen and give the player the ability to control them. There were no barriers or scoring, and various games had translucent overlays on the screen. However, look how proudly the announcer speaks about this product. And most importantly, every advertisement emphasized that this was a learning device. Yes, the console gives you the opportunity to have fun, but it teaches and develops you and your children. The attachment became a commercial success and a revolutionary product, although it sold only 300,000 copies.

And of course, the success of Megavox brought rivals to the market, such as Atari Pong and Koleko Tellstar. Tellstar is interesting because in a fairly short life cycle, 14 modifications of this console were released; it seems that the developers themselves did not fully understand what kind of product they were publishing and for whom it was intended.

The last to be released in the first generation was a home gaming system from Nintendo, called the Nintendo Color TV-Game. Unlike many competitors, the image on the screen was color, which attracted many buyers. The console was never released for sale outside Japan, but managed to sell as many as 3 million copies, and became the best-selling console of the first generation. What’s most interesting is that the advertisements for this Nintendo creation were completely ordinary, a little gameplay and a happy family.

Second generation of game consoles 1976-1983

And so we come to the second generation of home gaming systems, the beginning of this generation was given by the little-known Fairchild Channel F console, the main hero of those times was the Atari 2600, and although there were many alternatives on the market in the form of Intellivision, Odyssey², and ColecoVision, the Atari 2600 remained a monopoly for a long time. And it’s not surprising, just look at some of the advertisements from that time.

Some game! Pac-Man in heels, a child who grew old watching TV and just a psychopath. Can you imagine such advertising nowadays?? The Internet is one thing with its endless amount of schizophrenia, but these are promotional videos that should convince the target audience that Atari is the best choice for you and your child.

When I watched this video for the first time, I sat in silence for some time and tried to understand the director’s thoughts. It looks like he followed the rule – what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger. A terrifying cut to the accompaniment of a rather pleasant relaxing melody, and a quiet voice inspiring us – centipede, centipede. It seems that in the eighties there were no advertising ethics yet, and advertisers used all possible tactics. And sometimes they just blatantly lied to their audience.

The hottest game since Space Invaders! Nice music and animation. Everything would be fine, but the game was released in a terrible state. You can even see this in the video itself, just look at this ghost, he has epilepsy. It ended sadly, since Atari released 12 million copies of this game, and as you understand, it could not sell them all. I had to bury them next to their other missing one called E.T. But that’s a completely different story, I’ll just say that this game sold seven million copies and became the best-selling game of that time. The power of advertising and a famous brand.

That was interesting. Here we have government officials, scientists, old people and a couple in love who were frightened by strange underground creatures called Dig Dag. Why are all these creatures underground?? do they pose a threat? What’s Harrison Ford doing there?? It seems we will never know, but the melody is catchy.

All this time we have only studied advertisements from Atari, let’s now look at an example of Colecovision advertising. Since Atari took the leading position, rivals began to compare their systems with the leader and look for any possible advantages of their system. This example shows this well.

Third generation of game consoles 1983-1987

1983 brought us a decline in the game console market. Industry revenue, which peaked at about $3.2 billion, fell by almost 97%. The crisis led to the bankruptcy of many large market players, including Atari. And in 1985, Nintendo came to save the American market.

Futuristic design, robot, emphasis on a pistol and an unusual name. Nintendo made a very correct advertisement. Nothing extra, straightforward and fast. And their tactics worked. But of course, Nintendo sometimes had some pretty weird ads too.

Although this ad looks terrifying, the underlying message is quite interesting. You can’t beat us! A kind of challenge for all players, and real gamers love challenging games. I really can’t imagine that anyone thought it was a good idea to air such an advertisement. As a child, I would have hidden from her behind the sofa.

In the next advertisement everything is standard and banal. A nerdy guy and a cool guy, a couple of friends that are only possible on television, play NES. And they both have incredible fun with The Legend of Zelda. Moreover, at this moment the cool guy reads out a rap.

And although Nintendo controlled almost Singbingocasino.uk the entire market, a new rival appeared on the horizon – Sega Master System. And although the console was technically better, it was unable to win its place in the market. However, this was not Sega’s last attempt.

Despite the fact that Master System was not a bestseller, Sega sold enough to gain a foothold in the market, mainly due to South American countries. It is also important to note the fact that Sega had previously managed to gain a good foothold in the American market due to its arcade machines.

Fourth generation of game consoles 1987-1995

The fourth generation is often called the golden era of home consoles, and everyone remembers this time for the great confrontation between the two giants Sega and Nintendo. Sega struck first; never before has the world seen such a tough and merciless advertising campaign.

Two main directions were chosen. The first is to show everyone that on their Mega Drive (which already sounds provocative) you can play games from arcade machines, which was almost impossible before; many arcade games had to be greatly cut down for home consoles. Although, to be honest, they were also cut down on Mega Drive, but not so radically.

And the second direction is to humiliate Nintendo as much as possible. I have already spoken in previous issues about their brilliant idea – blast processing and sega does what nintendont. It was important to show that Nintendo is a console for young children, and MegaDrive is for cool teenagers. This is exactly why Sonic was invented. Actually, I already talked about this. And this tactic worked until the Super Nintendo came out. And now nothing could help. They immediately lowered the price, gave free games and even free speakers. But nothing stopped Nintendo from grabbing a larger piece of the market.

And most importantly, Nintendo succumbed to provocations and also began making slightly psychedelic advertisements for real boys.

And while Sega and Nintendo were fighting, in the background, separately from everyone else, Neo Geo was developing, a wonderful console with a crazy price of $650. In addition, the gaming system was advertised as a device for adults.

And although the quality of the games was excellent, the price affected sales, and SNK, after releasing the second modification with a disk drive, abandoned attempts to break into the home console market.

Fifth generation of game consoles 1993-2000

If the fourth generation was the golden generation of home consoles, then the fifth can be called the golden age of schizophrenic advertising. I don’t know what caused this, but it was during this era that many companies chose the strangest and most unusual image to interest the viewer. This was due to fierce competition, since for the first time in a long time a single leader was not identified. Let’s look at all the competitors.

The first set-top box with a CD drive called the amiga cd32 was the first to enter the market. Due to problems with payments for patents, the set-top box was never launched in America, and soon the parent company Commodore went completely bankrupt.

And if in this advertisement everything was even more or less logical, then in the advertising video from Panasonic 3do the player literally lost his head.

But these are still minor things compared to what kind of advertising Atari decided to release on the market. This Atari Jaguar ad was Atari’s last cry of despair before finally leaving the home console market.

Sega this time decided to turn to the intergalactic genie for help, and the stoned guy whom they probably picked up on the street. The final result was a terrible advertisement, which to this day many consider the most disastrous and schizophrenic advertisement for a gaming console.

A strange advertising campaign, complex architecture and a rather ill-thought-out launch of the gaming console led Saturn to complete failure in the world market, but Sega still had Japan under its control, and in order not to lose its last foothold, Sega decided to create a real hero for its console.

In general, the idea is simple, if you don’t play Saturn, an angry guy will come after you and knock the spirit out of you. The name of this hero is Segata Sanshiro, which means – play Saturn! In total, several dozen of these advertisements were made, and at the end of Saturn’s life, when Sega was preparing to release Dreamcast, they had to get rid of the hero beloved by the public, sending him into space.

After all the efforts of Sega’s advertising department, any advertisement will seem normal, for example, the launch commercial for PS1.

Sony entered the fight for the gaming market in 1994. At the time, no one knew what to expect from the electronics giant, as many other companies had failed to maintain their position in the very tight gaming space, which already had plenty of competitors. Sony’s original advertising method was to step out of the shadows of giants like Nintendo and Sega. To do this, they had to reach people previously uninterested in home gaming systems and market games in a way that had never been done before. Their entry into the gaming market was shrouded in mystery, an unusual message that was meant to confuse the audience, and at the same time interest. The slogan became "[E]NOS lives". Red E meant "ready". The "NOS" symbols meant the ninth of September, that is, the release date of the PlayStation One.

And the main reason that made the PlayStation so popular is the display of gameplay in their videos and discs with demo games. Before this, no one had released such discs; for Nintendo it was too expensive, since they used cartridges, asega, atari and others, did not have their own magazines, and did not have convenient ways to distribute these demo discs.

Over time, Sony began to conquer the entire market, the success was stunning, and gave Sony the opportunity to further develop its strategy. The slogan “Don’t underestimate the power of the PlayStation” became quite popular, and a new, deeper commercial was aired, which for the first time went beyond the boundaries of simple advertising and amazed all viewers with its depth.

It should be noted that this ad won several awards. What about Nintendo, what could they show in contrast??

Nintendo didn’t have any special tactics with the advent of the Nintendo 64; they focused on the fact that their console was the most powerful and that loading games from cartridges was much faster than from a disk. Although, of course, they also had enough strange, and sometimes overstepping the bounds of morality, advertising

Sixth generation of game consoles 1998-2004

May 12, 1999 – Sega of America announced that the advertising campaign for the Sega Dreamcast will be $100 million, thereby telling the world that they are fully confident in the success of their new creation. Later – before, during, and after the launch of the console, all of America was inundated with promotional materials about Dreamcast, from printed materials to advertisements during the 1999 MTV Video Music Awards. Even the launch took place on the significant date of 9-9-99, consumers could not live a day without seeing Sega advertising.

However, with all the money invested, the advertising itself was nothing special. In addition, Sega spoiled its image as a failed Saturn, and lost the support of several publishers, for example EA. Therefore, the console did not sell poorly, the start of sales can generally be called excellent, but with the arrival of the PS2 it quickly faded into the background. In 2001, Sega announced the end of production of home consoles. And the saddest thing about this is that the console is not to blame for this, it’s just that Sega by this time had large debts, and no support to fight such a giant as PS2.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1HwY0ljgu0 -Sony Playstation, live in yours, play in ours

The first commercials released before the PS2 had almost nothing to do with the system, but they showed Sony’s intention to take the gaming business seriously and for the long haul. They told everyone that PS2 was just the beginning of the future we dreamed of. And it worked, selling over 500,000 consoles on the first day, a number that took PSOne four months to reach.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObuZ-aL7wQ8 -The Third Dimension, David Lynch
In 2001, Nintendo launched the Gamecube, its first console on discs, albeit small ones. Before the first presentation at E3, the phrase "The Nintendo Difference" was used, the purpose of which was to show the difference from competitors. Then the slogan “Life is a game” was used.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIgpuGw168k -Nintendo 64, world in a cube
And then another player, Microsoft, enters the fray and presents to the world the most powerful sixth-generation console DirectX Box, or more simply XBox. Bill Gates himself starts advertising, talking about online capabilities and the built-in hard drive. $500M was allocated for the advertising campaign, kiosks with presentations of demo games, a lot of printed materials, and of course television advertising were purchased. And I want to show you the best example of all the original xbox advertisements, the idea in this advertisement is so cruel that it was soon banned and taken off the air all over the world.

Seventh generation of game consoles 2005-2011

Microsoft quickly ended support for the original Xbox and decided to win a larger market share with an accelerated launch of the new generation of its console. The Xbox 360 was officially announced on MTV on May 12, 2005, and more detailed information about the console was presented that same month at E3. And immediately an aggressive advertising campaign began. For example, here’s another banned ad from Xbox. Although this ad is not as terrible as the previous one, they managed to find fault with it because it teaches children to shoot each other.

The PS3 release will always be remembered as a major fall from grace for the Sony brand. With development experience and the best-selling console in history under its belt, Sony was poised to take the world by storm. However, in the first few years of the PS3’s life, Sony lost everything and released a whole stream of terrible advertisements that completely killed interest in the console.

And if this advertisement seems creepy to you, then the next one may well leave you feeling disgusted. I cut it down a bit since the original is three minutes long.

Why these advertisements were made, I have not the slightest idea. And most importantly, I don’t understand what they were supposed to convey to the viewer? Buy a console and you’ll go crazy? At the same time, the slogans themselves were quite adequate – play beyond the limits, and – this is life. Later, Sony will correct everything with a stream of new, high-quality advertisements with the slogans it only does everything and later live long play, but they will not be able to completely correct their situation.

Nintendo, in the seventh generation, went aside and created a game console that occupied its own, different niche in the market. And thus emerged as the winner of the seventh generation, although it became more focused on the casual market. Their Nintendo Wii console originally had the loud name Revolution, and all advertisements for this console placed great emphasis on the revolutionary control method. Almost all the advertisements were of the same type, two cheerful Asians knock on the door, offer to play Nintendo Wii, and then everyone on the screen has incredible fun. Simple but effective.

Eighth generation of game consoles 2012

And so we have come to the end of our journey, but this is far from the end of the road for home gaming systems, and we will see many more creative and innovative advertisements. Already now, at the very beginning of this generation, there are enough interesting ideas and slogans, and a real battle is taking place between the three heavyweights Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo.