Sony has a thing for making supremely insane commercials in Japan. And sometimes it works, but for the most part, it does not.
The overall state of strangeness when it comes to commercials for the Vita in Japan has been covered a few times already (as well as their views on gaming as whole). Though this recent ad for the Vita game Open Me somewhat takes the cake…
I mean, the game certainly seems cool, but the commercial both tries too hard and is way too honest. Seriously, who thought using the word gimmicks was a good thing to say? Then you have this spot from earlier this summer. There are two issues with the following.
First, is how it opens up with Sony has “in one swift strike they’ve won the console war” which is fairly ballsy and misinformed, because the Vita was doing quite poorly back then, and hasn’t gotten that much more traction.
Literally five units are being sold a week. I exaggerate, but not as much as you’d think. Meanwhile, the second point of contention is how the song starts out like a funky, Japanese take on the Sesame Street theme, but isn’t, which leads to massive disappointment…
Yet Sony has demonstrated an ability to do commercials that actually sells their product in an effective and succinct manner. Like check out this recent spot that was highlighted by Kotaku, featuring a Power Ranger-esque totally being ignored cuz the kids are way too into Vitas. Perhaps if more spots were like, they’d sell more units? And the same for here in America…