PlayStation
7 HN mentions · mentioned in 5 months, 2013–2026
0:22 · 21M views · Jun 11, 2013
A short, deadpan Sony instructional video from E3 2013 showing how to 'share' a PS4 game by physically handing the disc to a friend. It was Sony's jab at Microsoft's planned restrictions on used games and game sharing for the Xbox One.
HN cites it as a famously effective piece of marketing and as Sony's clearest public stance on used games versus Microsoft's.
7 comments from Hacker News
You're probably right; its hard to say when speaking in retrospect and on hypotheticals. Ultimately I tend to feel that the success of Xbox 360 is predominately attributable to the early failures of the PlayStation 3. PS3 was WAY too expensive, inflation-adjusted one of the most expensive consoles ever made outpacing everything on the market today, and had almost no great launch titles. When you consider that X360 had CoD2 as an exclusive launch title in 2005, the story kinda writes itself; people may have bought the console on these points + the promise of Halo 3 in the future, but it likely would have done well without it. Its also important to recognize: The PS3 did outsell the Xbox 360 by the end [1]. Its definitely the closest margins of any of their competing generations; generally Playstation does much better, not just a little better. But this is not the sense that I have growing up in that generation; I have the sense that the 360 dominated. Reality is a bit different. Sadly; whatever gains Microsoft won during the X360 generation, Mattrick immediately threw away with X1 [2]. Their early DRM policies set Sony up to drop what is arguably the most effective piece of video game advertising ever made [3], the forced Kinect bundle communicated to customers that Microsoft's vision for the future is more important to them than the games themselves, and Sony got their pricing and launch lineup (Infamous?) under control. [1] [LINK] [2] [LINK] [3] this video
It was Adam Orth (aka 'Sweet Billy') but clearly others shared similar views. Sony capitalized on the larger always online controversy with a low budget ad poking fun at the concept[1], which was great marketing. [1] this video
Sony also used to mock digital only approaches. this video Now at a time when memory and storage prices are at an all time high - they pull a move that directly hurts the customer.
They said this about their used game policy: this video (for those who can't watch it, it sounds like they gave the green light for all kinds of used games and sharing)
Sony released this tutorial years ago in response to Microsoft making it harder to share Xbox games with your friends: this video That's lived in my head since.