Inside Halo 3’s $10 Million Marketing Push
Posted by Paul Hamilton Categories: Corporate News, First Person Shooters, Release Dates, Xbox 360
Microsoft has known how important Halo 3 will be to their success this generation since before they even announced the Xbox 360. Halo 2 sold $125 million on the first day, but then the original Xbox was just struggling for recognition in the wake of the PS2 juggernaut. Now the 360 holds a tenuous lead in installed base and isn’t selling the way Microsoft may have hoped. If it’s possible Halo 3 may have become even more important to Microsoft’s strategy than they originally hoped. Fortunately, they’ve been planning ahead.
In an article released today on Brand Week, the calculated ten-month marketing efforts behind Bungie‘s trilogy finale is dissected starting from the Starry Nights TV spot launched last November through the public beta this spring/early summer. They talk about the Project Iris viral campaign and the efforts they’ve gone to secure strategic branding partners. This has included the Mountain Dew Game Fuel limited edition soft drink that comes plastered with Halo 3 imagery plus a total of $5 million from Pontiac to help push the launch of the game on September 25.
And they aren’t done yet. Microsoft will begin the full blitz with the new Believe campaign that will lead up to the launch taking place at midnight in over 10,000 stores to give Halo fans a chance to grab the game as soon as possible. It’s an interesting read about the science behind building a monster.
Read More 
| Brand Week via Kotaku
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Peter Moore Has Big Plans For EA Sports
Posted by Paul Hamilton Categories: Corporate News, Electronic Arts, Sports
Peter Moore, long known as the public face of Microsoft‘s Xbox division, stepped into his new digs as EA Sports president last week and started off saying he wants EA Sports’ brand to compete in a broader arena than just the video games market, facing off against general sports brands like Nike and ESPN.
Despite selling millions of copies of its flagship titles each year, EA Sports has struggled to expand effectively and EA seems to be banking on Moore to help them widen their reach. “That could mean broadcast sports, sports camps, the ability to license consumer products around the EA Sports brand,” he told the New York Times. Moore is also looking to leverage EA’s technology to create social networking and news sites, all centered around sports and of course the EA Sports name. “I think we have an opportunity to aggregate information and bring it to life with video technologies,” he said.
“If we look at this connected world we’re entering, sports is a sort of social and cultural glue that reaches across the globe,” Moore continues. “There is an opportunity for EA Sports to evolve beyond a games brand to become a true global sports and entertainment brand, and I think we can compete there.”
Read More | New York Times via Level Up
BioShock Art Book Available Online…for Free!
Posted by Steve Van Neil Categories: Action, Adventure, First Person Shooters, Games for Windows, Microsoft, Take2, Xbox 360
Coming hot on the heels of a truly tremendous Xbox Live demo, 2K Boston/2K Australia (formerly Irrational Games) has posted a free PDF file which contains sixty-odd pages of concept art from the game to be printed out at your leisure. How cool is that? Word of warning, however: Ken Levine’s forward to the book contains spoilers, so tread carefully.
BioShock is poised to blow minds on Xbox 360 and Windows in just seven days.
Read More | 2K Games
Halo 3 Pre-orders Top One Million, Merchandising Blitz Begins
Posted by Steve Van Neil Categories: Bungie, Corporate News, Culture, First Person Shooters, Microsoft, Xbox 360
Halo 3 won’t be out until September 25th, but the hype machine is already well in gear. Microsoft has just announced that pre-sale numbers for Bungie‘s upcoming behemoth have already exceeded one million copies. Chris Di Cesare, Microsoft’s director of creative marketing, says, “This September, Halo 3 will push video game entertainment into the forefront of mainstream culture.”
And he’s not kidding. Microsoft is backing up its big gun by way of some big merchandising deals with major brands. For starters, Pepsi is releasing a Halo-branded version of Mountain Dew, called Mountain Dew Game Fuel. 7-11 is getting in on the action with Halo-themed Slurpee cups, as well as a Doritos promotion. Not wanting to be left out in the cold, Burger King will be doing its own in-store promotions, Pontiac is launching a Halo 3- themed contest, and Comcast will offer its subscribers all kinds of downloadable Halo goodies. Phew! A marketing campaign of this depth and scope is truly unprecedented in the gaming industry.
Read More | Next Generation
Sony Updates PlayB3yond.com
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: PlayStation 3, Trailers
Sony has updated their PlayB3yond.com website with a couple of new videos, with promises of more in the future. The two new videos, “Smarter” and “Capacity,” attempt to highlight the benefits of Sony’s new console. The videos use new game footage of Resistance: Fall of Man and Warhawk to bolster Sony’s claims, and the Resistance footage offers a little Matrix-like interactivity. While Sony plays a little fast and loose with the media storage numbers in “Capacity,” the videos show off the Sony hype machine firing on all cylinders. It doesn’t hurt that the videos are narrated by Lance Henrikson of Aliens fame.
Read More | PlayB3yond.com
Burger King Offering Exclusive Xbox/Xbox360 Games, $3.99
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Corporate News, Xbox, Xbox 360
Burger King announced that they will be offering three exclusive Xbox/Xbox 360 games this holiday season for $3.99. The games will be available starting on Sunday, November 19, and will be compatible with both the Xbox and the Xbox 360. The three game titles will be Pocketbike Racer, Big Bumpin, and Sneak King. Gamers will be able to play as their favorite creepy mascot as well as the subservient chicken. The games were developed by Blitz Games, whose contributions to the gaming world include titles like Barbie Horse Adventures. Jeff Bell, vice president of global marketing for Microsoft’s Interactive Entertainment Business stretched a “Have It Your Way” metaphor to the breaking point, stating, “Consumers are saying, ‘Let me have what I want, the way I want it. In essence, Xbox also is an invitation to consumers to have it their way.”
Read More | Gamerscoreblog
Rumored Best Buy Holiday Planning Presentation
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: PlayStation 3, Wii
Over at the NeoGAF forums, a user has posted a couple of slides that purport to be from Best Buy’s upcoming holiday console roll-out. If the slides are accurate, gamers would see the Playstation 3 demo area set up by October 20th, and Nintendo’s Wii kiosks set up on October 29th. According to the slides the current Xbox 360 console demonstration areas would be removed, and demo consoles would be moved to the shelving areas like the Xbox and Playstation 2 are currently featured. The new demo area would basically be a complete Sony home theater solution, from a Sony Bravia flat-panel television, a 7.1 surround system, and, of course, the 60 GB Playstation 3. Matching the Bravia LCD with the Playstation 3 will ensure that gamers will be able to see for themselves if a full 1080P video path offers an improved gaming experience.
Read More | NeoGAF Forums
Konami Disputes Pro Evolution Soccer Exclusivity
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Culture, Sports, Xbox 360
In a statement today on Konami’s Japanese website, Konami apparently denied the exclusivity of their Pro Evolution Soccer 6 release, declaring:
It has been falsely reported on some websites that KONAMI will release its “Pro Evolution Soccer 6” exclusively for Microsoft’s Xbox 360. These reports are not true. KONAMI is currently proceeding with the production of a multi-platform release of “Pro Evolution Soccer 6” so that as many people as possible can enjoy the game.
Gamespot has dug into the statement a little further, but this has only muddied the waters. The actual text of the statement would seem to be refuting any websites that claim that the game will be exclusive to the Xbox 360, and not “next generation” exclusivity as claimed by Microsoft. However, Gamespot’s source at Konami indicated that the release was aimed at Microsoft’s release specifically. This whole thing very well could come down to a semantic issue, where the marketing-speak that Microsoft chose for their press release conflicted with Konami’s understanding, and should be clarified soon.
Update: 1up was able to talk to the series creator, Shingo Takatsuka, and he stated that the exclusivity window would be through the end of the year only, and that a PS3 version of the game was already in development.
Read More | Konami Japan via Gamespot
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