PS Vita marketing blitz underway

Sony is committing $50 million dollars to the PlayStation Vita marketing campaign, the largest in the company’s history.  The senior director of hardware marketing at Sony outlined the plans to put the PS Vita in the minds of American consumers in a recent interview with the New York Times.  John Koller told the newspaper that this is “the largest platform launch in terms of marketing investment we’ve ever had.”  By now you’ve surely seen the product tie-ins with Taco Bell, and the onslaught of media coverage across the web, it’s all an attempt to sway you into purchasing a Vita, and relaying the message of what this “next generation” hardware is capable of.

By some standards, the PS Vita launch in Japan was lackluster, but the company believes that the Vita will resonate with the American consumer better than it did the Japanese.  Executives have tried to make a case for the launch lineup in Japan as being not one that was aimed at the core Japanese audience.  Titles like Uncharted: Golden Abyss and the broad range of both 1st and 3rd party offerings is one of the most diverse lineups that have ever launched with any system.

The PS Vita’s focus is to get those core gamers, that play alot of games, to “Never Stop Playing”, and to keep them engaged on a handheld in the same fashion that they do with a console.  So how does Sony get gamers to set down their mobile phones long enough convince them that this quite pricey alternative is worth their attention?

That’s the $50 million dollar question.

The PlayStation Vita First Edition Bundle launches this week, with a full release on February 22nd.