PS4 Reveal: 3 Guidelines Sony Must Follow To Avoid A Catastrophe
2. Continue To Invest In Entertaining Your CORE Audience (hint: gamers)
This statement may result in miffed responses in the comment box. But...
If you frequently play games, whether it is an occasional occurrence or a hobby (infrequent - casual gamer), or you have a obsessive need to turn the system on, to set a record on a race track, spill buckets of enemy blood, acquire some supernatural treasure, or pub stomp the enemy team in an online competitive game (hardcore gamer), all of the above, with varying degrees of classification, makes one a "gamer" - one who plays games, be it portable systems like a DS variant or the PS Vita, or the console systems where you stay at home and stare at the TV, mashing buttons for hours on end.
But perhaps, maybe you're a person who's Temple Run 2 score is astronomical. Maybe, you're a God at Words With Friends, Fruit Ninja, or any manner of games on the App Store and Google Play. Additionally, if you buy a console just to get a bitchin' DVD/Blu-Ray player, Netflix, or perhaps to enjoy some social aspect of it, or perhaps be that person in gaming forums who is a "respected message board celebrity" but either abysmal in the actual game or doesn't play at all - You. Are. Not. A. Gamer - in both classification, habit, and the sense of marketability. "Geek" (I loathe that term) Culture has largely expanded in the new decade, attracting hordes of people who, for various reasons, where suddenly entertained by something that in years past, would have made someone a "nerd".
Is it a good thing that electronic entertainment has expanded? Yes! However it has also made things significantly more complicated, as far as marketing goes.
In previous console generations, consoles were marketed as games first, everything else second - if you were a person who halfheartedly played games, or was disinterested (before gaming became a huge "mainstream" thing, anyway), more likely than not, you didn't buy a system because it was an expensive investment for something you didn't care about. Can you go to a gaming expo and see a wide variety of fans? Hell yes. Can you sell your $500 console to someone who only has a passing interest in games, or calls themselves a "gamer" although their investment in gaming entertainment is minimal?
Let me answer that for you: no.
Nowadays, that isn't he case. The rapidly increasing diversity (focusing on age group and gender) means that Microsoft, Nintendo, Sony, and various other companies have a huge audience to market their product towards - so it goes without saying that Microsoft wasn't entirely wrong in its logic to market it's console as a multimedia powerhouse - they just did so in a manner that frightened their largest and most faithful audience - gamers. Despite whatever observations on the new wave of millions who play games, and whatever conflicts (LOL) that occur over the internet in regards to electronic culture and whether or not "fake" gamers exist, the hordes of casual gamers that enter the consumer base are not the ones that are going to set up outside of retailers and wait in lines to buy these products as soon as they can, nor will they be the ones investing hundreds of dollars (yes, gaming is an expensive hobby) into their console as time passes - embracing a new market is all well and good, but I can only hope that Sony does significantly more than Microsoft to satiate gamers, as opposed to the guy or gal who just wants the console for Skype and Netflix - neither of which would result in any further profit for Sony or Microsoft.