"We are really excited about this," says Eric Lempel, senior vice president and head of global marketing at Sony Interactive Entertainment. "Over the last few years -- and even the last decade -- the strength of the titles coming out from our studios has been stronger than ever. We have been thinking about how we unite all of these great games under one brand, and really the purpose of that is to make the consumer understand that, when they see this brand, they're getting ready for a robust, innovative, deep experience that they've come to expect from games coming from PlayStation. So we came up with PlayStation Studios.
"You've seen the animated asset that will exist primarily during the beginning of our titles, but the brand will exist in a lot of different places. There are different, shorter animations that will exist in trailers... It will exist in advertising. It will be in any other creative assets, such as the game packaging and the game discs themselves.
"We think this is a good way to let consumers know that, if they see it, then the quality games they've come to expect from us are here. And this brand will exist for well-known existing franchises, as well as brand new franchises that we have yet to explore."
There will be variations on the video asset, Lempel tells us. And although the clip may look like something you would see before a Marvel movie, the inspiration for the branding came from the games themselves.
"What we really wanted to do was create a way to bring the consumer into the world," he says. "When they play our games that's the nice robust piece that happens, and then you're transported into an adventure with rich worlds, old characters, and really captivating stories. We're all huge Marvel fans. One of our biggest games of all time has a Marvel character in it with Spider-Man. But this is really about doing something specific for our games and our industry.
"The cinematic you've seen is the one that has multiple games in it. But over time, as we introduce well established franchises, we can tailor that opening a bit to possibly show the franchise over the years, new characters that have come into play... There's a lot we can do that we're really excited about."
