The number of users and the amount of content they consume through the Xbox Live and Sony’s PS3 Home/Store platforms is growing at an alarming rate. According Dario Raciti’s Imedia Connection article, "How Brands are Winning with Xbox and Playstation", Xbox Live is now considered the leading provider of on-demand, high-definition content in the U.S., providing twice the number of hours as the leading cable operators. The group consuming the largest amount of this content is men 18-34 who are playing more console games then watching any TV network.
With Xbox Live garnering the majority of the attention with 17 million users worldwide consuming over 550 million downloads of digital content Sony is making a push with its PS3 system to expand its services beyond that of Xbox. With its 3D virtual world, Home, Sony is pushing past the menu-style interface from Xbox Live and creating a greater variety of ways to interact with PS3 owners. The 3D world offers a variety of unique environments including a mall and movie theatre where users can meet and interact with other gamers. This has led to over 380 million pieces of digital content having been downloaded from the PS3 Home Store.
The growing number of ways for consumers to interact and receive content through these entertainment platforms is leading to more unique advertising and branding opportunities. CBS recently partnered with Xbox Live exposing over a million new users to its Last.fm service, while Netflix adopted nearly 10 percent of it user base through Xbox Live. Though advertising opportunities are not as wide spread on the PS3 system a few brands have already begun to experiment by opening store fronts in Home where users can purchase products for their avatars.
Vicky Tamaru talked about the affirmation of Xbox as a platform that offers a new world of opportunity for content creators and advertisers in her February 2009 AllBusiness article, “Xbox: Advertising Game-Changer?”
According to Raciti, Nielson has found that consoles alone are as big as the fifth largest network and the numbers are growing everyday. And while in-game advertising can still be difficult the numbers are there to support the advertising opportunities. Advertisers should expect to see more solutions and increased opportunities to brand their products on gaming consoles, which hopefully leads to more effective and innovative advertising campaigns.
