DIGITISER
  • MAIN PAGE
  • Features
  • Videos
  • Game Reviews
  • FAQ

THE MOST SHOCKING PLAYSTATION ADS EVER

13/3/2019

28 Comments

 
Picture
Something Sony is often credited for is helping gaming grow up. When it launched the PlayStation, it set itself apart from Sega and Nintendo, with advertising that was grittierr, darker, and more obscure. 

As the PlayStation family grew, so did the self-conscious edginess of its advertising. Nowhere was this more true than Europe, where PlayStation ads would go out of their way to court controversy - bringing its own reward by sparking moral indignation and public outrage. 

Here's a gallery featuring some of Sony Europe's most baffling attempts to shock. 
SEXLESS BABY
Picture
If you've ever been fortunate enough to witness a birth first-hand, you'll know there's nothing magical or pretty about it.

It's an eruption of blood and viscera, with screaming and grunting and the ripping of skin, and then this horrible purple, squished thing appears, and somebody hands you a pair of scissors and asks you to cut through a tube of meat, and it's so tough that you spend several minutes hacking away at it in a daze, and then you get through it finally, and it explodes in an eruption of claret which goes everywhere, like you've suddenly found yourself in a Tarantino movie.

Sony thought this would be a good way to advertise the PlayStation 2, albeit with a tattooed, sexless, baby. Why? 

WHY?
FULL-GROWN BABY
Picture
What troubles me about this image is that they've clearly gone for a model who's intended to be sexy, yet that's offset to some considerable degree by the disgusting sight of her giving birth to a fully-grown man.

​Perhaps somebody within the advertising agency has a fetish about disappearing up a lady's chuff and then being squeezed out, all covered in amniotic fluid. Again; I've seen what happens when even a small human being emerges from a lady's chuff, and it's about as far from sexy as it's possible to get. In fact, it's literally the most unnatural thing I could imagine. 

And-far-worse-for-the-man-joke. 
STILL ATTACHED
Picture
Further evidence of Sony's utter obsession with birth and umbilical cords and that, this time to promote the PS3 wireless controller. Yes, we get it. Very clever. Also: basically disgusting.

IT ISN'T JUST A LUMP OF MEAT. THEY NEVER TOLD ME IT'D BASICALLY BE A HOSE FULL OF BLOOD.
SELF-HARM
Picture
Self-harm is a good way to promote your consumer products, yes? As that bloke from Manic Street Preachers taught us all, cutting yourself is all cool and edgy and that, and not sad or damaged or anything. Here's another idea for you: a load of turds in the shape of the PlayStation icons, hanging from nooses made out of umbilical cords. Plus they've all got erect penises. Which are pierced.
GIRLS AND BOYS
Picture
The world has changed a lot over the past decade or so, and most of us are now far more accepting and understanding of what it means to be transgender. Suffice to say, could you imagine the absolute hellstorm Sony would justifiably find itself in if this ad ran today?

​Imagine that now. I'll wait...
SNIFFING KNICKERS
Picture
Here's a man sniffing underwear in the shape of the PlayStation button icons. What a lovely image it conjures; a filthy bedsit, and an ageing pervert in some way getting off on the musty stink of vaginal discharge. Thanks for that, Sony! Sign me up for your new console!
WEIRD ORGY
Picture
This poorly-Photoshopped, Giger-esque, fetish tableaux - as with most of these ads, you'd be hard-pressed to realise it was trying to sell you a video game console - is perhaps most distressing because of the lady drinking urine from a monkey's skull. 

You know who else drank urine? The pervert Rolf Harris apparently enjoyed sipping on his very own amber nectar.

"Can you tell what it is yet?"

"Yes, Rolf. It's your piss."

"ROFL."
FOURBOOBS
Picture
Would this be sexy? I mean, would it actually be sexy in real-life? You'd just be a bit freaked out if you gave a new romantic interest a special cuddle, and she had a couple of extra lumps on her back... like Quasimodo, or a camel. Or, most likely, you'd be worried that they were massive tumours.

​Not so much "Added enjoyment" as "Sudden, unwanted concern".
FLESH SHAPES
Picture
Again, with the weird sex stuff. Here, a skinny model is frolicking with a bunch of hairy PlayStation flesh-lumps, as her husband walks in on her. At least, that's what they want you to take from this, but it looks more like she's paying a visit to the world's most distressing soft play centre. 

Easily the worst aspect of this image is that curious, dark, crease in the fold of the X. I think it's meant to be an anus!!!!!
BLATANT RACISM
Picture
This billboard campaign ran in the Netherlands to promote the release of the white PlayStation Portable. It doesn't take a genius to realise why it might've proved sliiiiiightly controversial, and was swiftly taken down, following the wrong sort of publicity. You know: what with it being quite astonishingly racist and troubling. 
ENGELBERT THUMB-ER-DICK
REVEAL:
Picture
You're going to have to press reveal to see the final image, because, upon first glance, it appears to show a semi-naked model with a very slender willy. Closer inspection - and let's face it, everyone would be looking at it as closely as possible - would reveal that said penis is actually a thumb.

​Because, y'know... uh... PlayStation... reasons... 
28 Comments
Johnny Blanchard link
13/3/2019 08:48:33 am

Having had the joy of helping to deliver my daughter in the back of an ambulance on the Basingstoke ring road I can tell you it would make a fairly good advert for Call of Duty

Reply
Paul
13/3/2019 09:57:52 am

I’m rubbish with medical things like blood and stuff, so I’d faint. I’d rather be in the waiting room pacing like they did in a 1940s film.

Reply
Playfriendtion
13/3/2019 09:08:09 am

Bring back the bizarre 'mental wealth' girl eh? And Lynch's duck

Reply
Kelvin Green link
13/3/2019 02:20:09 pm

Here she is:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWmbUMStlGI

Reply
sonicshrimp
13/3/2019 07:55:27 pm

Well, it worked. I only knew her as ‘bug head girl’ but the image is still in my brain and I remember it was for PlayStation!

Must...buy...Sony product...and...grow...head

Reply
NIALL MAGUIRE
13/3/2019 10:27:41 am

Haha that was thoroughly great stuff

Reply
DEAN
13/3/2019 10:39:53 am

Fucking hell!

Only seen one or two of those before - I know Sony have done a lot of weird shit to promote their bland blasted consoles but... wow.

I don't know if it's clever or not - can't tell the difference much these days - but I can tell you:

The picture of the lady giving birth to the (presumably) fully formed man has got unpleasant fingers and you'd have expected them to have at least made sure that the model had gorgeous digits - they're an important part of play!

I quite like the mother and son one - it's sort of brilliant but shouldn't the mother's cord be dangling rather lower down?

Reply
Spiney O'Sullivan
13/3/2019 12:15:37 pm

The mother and son one is genuinely clever, though it has the benefit of text actually explaining what the product they're trying to sell is.

Reply
Ross
13/3/2019 11:10:36 am

Are these from the Alan Partridge School of Advertising?

Reply
Mark
13/3/2019 11:33:45 am

These are pretty sick they did it all for the media shit storm but I think you have missed one of the most controversial ones think it was for cool boarders where a guy is saying I love the powder and some other ramblings caused a meltdown in the tabloids

Reply
Robobob
13/3/2019 12:30:36 pm

This is like a glance into the freakish advertising of a dystopic parallel universe. Jaw droppingly awful.

Reply
Spiney O'Sullivan
13/3/2019 01:45:08 pm

To be fair to them, most games adverts from the early 90s before Sony brought in their special brand of weirdness were either vicious jabs at competitors or massive walls of text that also made vicious jabs at competitors. This artsy madness was at least something new. I also seem to recall a lot of ads featuring pictures of women in some state of undress with a caption about how whatever game was being advertised would mean you couldn't pay attention to them, though that might have been more in the late 90s as the lads' mag era got into full swing and other companies decided to try to do what Sony were doing while missing the point (because to be fair, it was basically impossible to get the point).

Though even back then people probably would have balked at that weird racist PSP one...

Reply
Meatballs-me-branch-me-do
13/3/2019 01:27:43 pm

What about those two from Sony India where there is a wall of female nattering and the slogan “Playstation: Because your girlfriend bores you shitless”?

Reply
colincidence link
13/3/2019 01:46:17 pm

When you get past everything else wrong with the VITA one, you realise... Touching both sides of the console is not a feature.

Reply
Spiney O'Sullivan
13/3/2019 02:04:48 pm

It sort of is, as the back of the Vita is a screen-sized touchpad that mainly gets used for virtual shoulder buttons. But anyone would be easily forgiven for not getting that, as an advert that fails to actually explain a key console feature is a core part of Sony's overall marketing strategy for the Vita.

That strategy, incidentally, boils down to:
(1) Make it pretty and technologically advanced but far too expensive.
(2) Don't really explain why it's worth all that money.
(3) Make sure nobody can afford the (often faulty) memory cards.
(4) Drop advertising and support for it about two months after release so that the only games available for it are Japanese visual novels.
(5) ????
(5) Profit!

Reply
Spiney O'Sullivan
13/3/2019 02:06:22 pm

And yes, that marketing plan does involve two step 5s, but that's the level of strategic genius that we're dealing with here.

colincidence link
14/3/2019 04:14:03 pm

Oh, shit, I take it back. I never realised that. I worked at GAME for all the right years to be embarrassed by this (can't remember touching a Vita tbh)

Nick
13/3/2019 04:22:05 pm

The PS1 and PS2 marketing pushes were really different. I guess it was the last hurrah of traditional media high concept advertising before it all went social media algothinymajig. You can practically taste the Champagne and cocaine coming off of these.

Reply
Sedric-and-Charlie
13/3/2019 04:51:56 pm

I'm honestly not sure where or when it was ever shown, but Sony commissioned that madbollocks short film "The Future Of Gaming" to promote the Playstation 2. I still don't quite follow the plot, except that there are ornate warmachines with biomechanical innards and somehow Playstation is to do with that, or opposing that, or wholly unrelated to that

Reply
Sedric-and-Charlie
13/3/2019 05:40:08 pm

(I did actually quite like 'The Future Of Gaming' and its predecessor 'The History Of Gaming', but I tend to like pretentious films. Didn't make me want a games console though)

Reply
Klone
13/3/2019 05:25:02 pm

Flesh circle is definitely most disturbing, as the arrangement of hair suggests a chest and pubic mound. This in turn suggests that flesh circle is penetrating the lady, which is wierd and bad and wrong, like most of the others! I don't know how any of these ran.

Reply
PS1Snake
13/3/2019 06:18:51 pm

Those early adverts certainly had a bizarre sex-cult vibe to them. I suppose it was a not-so-subtle reflection of how gaming had an “alternative world” feel to it back then. All that's gone now that consoles have become lifestyle devices.
Now it's all about family-friendly cinematic experiences and “better with friends” bs. I suppose that's why I feel a strong sense of detachment in regard to the current gen.

Reply
Clive peppard
13/3/2019 08:33:32 pm

When cutting my eldest daughters umbilical cord I thought I’d be witty and said “I declare this baby born” the look of disgust the midwife gave me haunts me to this day

Reply
RichardM
13/3/2019 09:20:21 pm

I didn’t want to be one of those dads who struggled cutting it, and snipped it with savage gusto. The midwife looked at me like I was a serial murderer. Oh well! Can’t win them all!

Reply
Mr Biffo
13/3/2019 09:51:36 pm

Legends.

Penyrolewen
13/3/2019 10:13:00 pm

Yeah, births.
They’re mental aren’t they? Did y’all have to write those birth plan things? WHY? Having been at 2, neither went anything like the ‘plan’ and from what I’ve heard from mates, NONE OF THEM DO. So why write these long plans, fill in forms about what you want and all that when all that really happens is that everyone reacts to either medical emergencies or what the mother wants at that point? Pointing out to. my wife the fact that she was diverging from our carefully agreed and thought-out plans didn’t seem wise at the time...

Reply
Duncan Isaac
14/3/2019 06:52:43 am

Before ad execs just ripped off YouTube memes. "Sex! Now that we've got your attention: buy Ridge Racer V and Fantavision(?!)"

Reply
anto
5/4/2022 08:52:51 am

Dude you are just filled with hate and have no sense of artistry nor history. Clickbait.

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    This section will not be visible in live published website. Below are your current settings:


    Current Number Of Columns are = 2

    Expand Posts Area =

    Gap/Space Between Posts = 12px

    Blog Post Style = card

    Use of custom card colors instead of default colors = 1

    Blog Post Card Background Color = current color

    Blog Post Card Shadow Color = current color

    Blog Post Card Border Color = current color

    Publish the website and visit your blog page to see the results

    Picture
    Support Me on Ko-fi
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    RSS Feed Widget
    Picture

    Picture
    Tweets by @mrbiffo
    Picture
    Follow us on The Facebook

    Picture

    Archives

    December 2022
    May 2022
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    November 2020
    September 2020
    July 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014


    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.
  • MAIN PAGE
  • Features
  • Videos
  • Game Reviews
  • FAQ