PlayStation 3: The Talk of the Online Town
But the conversation’s not about games. For the gaming buzz Nintendo’s Wii is top of the leader board.
London, 26 February 2008
Sony’s PlayStation 3 has got the online world talking. According to new data, when it comes to the online buzz the PS3 is dominating its gaming rivals – the Wii and Xbox 360.
However, analysis of more than 2 million new pages posted each day on the web in news sites, blogs, forums and other social media shows little of the conversation around the PS3 or the Xbox 360 is actually about the games. In sharp contrast, for the Wii, games are consistently at heart of the discussion.
According to social media analytics tool "http://www.brandwatch.net" Brandwatch, which tracks and analyses millions of online conversations taking place daily across a wide range of brands and issues, PlayStation 3 consistently edges ahead of market leader Wii in online mentions. This is despite the Sony having the least market share of the three main gaming platforms. Across the sites tracked each day by Brandwatch, the data shows that between the 14th and 20th February 2008 the PlayStation 3 registered a total of 5,716 online hits (a hit being where the console is mentioned at least once in an online article, blog or forum), compared to the Wii’s 4,871 hits. Both the Playstation and the Wii typically top the Xbox 360, which trails in third place with just 4,379 mentions over the same period.
What’s on gamers’ minds?
Further analysis of the web content to see which topics and issues are generating discussion reveals that for the PS3 there’s very little talk about games; conversations continue to be dominated by the console’s Blu-ray player, even now that Toshiba has officially lost the format battle. Of the top 10 discussion topics for the console, not one is about a specific game title. It’s a similar story for the Xbox 360. This is in complete contrast to the Wii where four of the 10 most discussed topics are particular games titles, notably: Rock Band, Super Smash Bros, Wii Sports and Wii Fitness.
Could the game be up?
“On the face of it we have three broadly similar games consoles competing for market share. The surprise is that games hardly even figure in the online discussion for two of the platforms,” says Giles Palmer, CEO, Magpie, the technology company behind Brandwatch.
“When most of the buzz about a product or brand is about anything but its core function or service it presents an interesting challenge for the owners of that product or brand. This could signal an real opportunity for marketers to capitalise on or point to a potential problem with the offering. With Sony having now won its battle for the next generation DVD technology, will the buzz about the PS3 be so buzzy?”
For further information and to speak to Brandwatch contact
"mailto:kieran@tannissanmae.com" Kieran Miles or
"mailto:nancy@tannissanmae.com" Nancy Prendergast at Tannissan Mae Communications on +44 (0)20 7243 4440
Notes to editors
Top 10 online discussion topics as monitored by Brandwatch: 1-7 February 2008
PS3
Wii
Xbox 360
Blu ray
Wii-mote/motion controllers
DVD drives
HD DVD
Blu ray
Blu ray
DVD player
Wii Fitness
Xbox Live
Format war
HD DVD
Format wars
Retail price
Super Smash Bros
High failure rate
Hard drive
Rock Band
Game development
Game development
Wii Sports
Warranty
Movie player
Virtual console
Unit sales
Game developers
Retail price
Downloadable content
Failure rate
Game developers
Hard drive
About Brandwatch
Brandwatch is a social media analytics tool built to track, measure and analyse brand mentions on the web. It is used primarily by brand owners and marketers to understand their online brand strength, competitive position and topics being discussed, in order to decide how to best spread their message among influential online audiences.
Brandwatch software crawls the web 24/7 to find conversations taking place in blogs, news sites, forums and other social media. It uses a combination of highly advanced search technology and unique natural language processing to cut through the chaos of the millions of online conversations taking place every day. Extracting key topics, Brandwatch categorises them by influence and sentiment, and delivers relevant, timely, accurate information to the brand owner’s desktop via a powerful dashboard.
Brandwatch’s customers are leading brands including, Sony, Alliance and Leicester and the Post Office. Brandwatch is developed by engineers and scientists at Magpie, a VC-funded technology company based in Brighton, UK.
Magpie and Brandwatch are trademarks of Magpie Ltd. The names of actual companies or products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.
If you would like to know more about Brandwatch, then please do contact us or book an online demo. You can also take advantage of our free weekly update on any brand.
