...um yeah, this is an actual ad found in Amsterdam advertising the upcoming white-color PSP in Europe.
...I think it's obvious why this ad would definately not fly in the US. I actually did a double-take when I first saw it.
>_> Crazy Europeans. =P
I'm guessing that this is another reach out for the "free publicity" Ninty got for the Wii name, like they appear to have also tried with PooS.
What the heck is PooS?
and... wow. Racist over, under and through tones while simultaneously leaching the DS' colour branding.
Sony aren't popular this year are they.
That said, United Colours of Benneton taught us that horrible advertising which offends can be VERY effective.
PooS is apparently the name for Sony's new controller - or so it's presumed. Apparently they registered the name not too long ago (albeit with an infinity sign as opposed to a double-o), and it's thought it'll either be used for that or their online service this generation.
Either way, it's freaking stupid.
That could not possibly be more racist =D
Does Sony think anymore before they do things?
Oh wow, that is... this is delicious! Oh, the racism!
Wow...this will definitly catch people's attention...
I'll admit it. I laughed.
Not because 'zomg racism!!1111rofflehax', but because it's a well thought out marketing campaign. It's designed to draw attention and cause some ruckus. This is what it's done, and I laughed. Not enough to buy a White PSP, but I laughed none the less. 
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This is worse than the Sony PSP Tube (Underground trains) adverts saying "Jump here".
It has to be said though. White PSPs are secksy.
It looks it, it feels it and it sounds it, but its not. It's really not.
As Craig said, there is precident for this, with the United Colours of Beneton and everything but...
Bleh, why do avertising campaigners screw everything up? 
Still, its not as good as this one:
www.museedelapub.org/pubg...ndia19.jpg
Is THAT racist?
Debate
Those children just stole my soul.
Also your spoilers died.
SONY RAPED MY CHILDHOOD AGAIN
Besides the racist overtones of this ad (which there are - this ad is much different from the picture of a little black girl frowning with a little white girl smiling), the fact that it's advertising one color is a shock to me. How many thousands of dollars did they spend of the money that we pay them to make an ad for a single color? And it also seems to say, "We condone racism as long as it sells our product." Never mind that this was shown outside the US: racism in other parts of the world doesn't make it right nor justifiable. And especially for the sake of selling a product. Anyone who then buys the product as a result of that ad is saying "We condone racism too as long as we can buy this product." Dee-yang. Talk about selling out.
And of course anyone saying anything like what I said above is still accomplishing what Sony wants - attention on their new product. Even if they don't really condone racism, they have what they want, right?
But my main rant is really about the limited number of colors game machines are being put out in.
(note: originally unintended old coot rant ahead. Figured I'd save some of you impatient whippersnappers the trouble so you can skip ahead if you don't feel like listening to an old man's tale)
Y'know, back in my day - excuse me while I get my rocker out - you could only GET one color of the Game Boy. That was this kinda bluish gray color. The screen itself was green, with a dark blue dot matrix as the only way to tell you were playing a video game and not holding a battery-packed oddly-colored contoured brick in your hands.
The NES was two-toned, gray and gray. Only splotch of actual color on that sucker was the red for the A and B buttons, and the logo on the NES itself.
Of course, there were brilliant ideas to customize these technologically-advanced gaming machines. There were cutouts and labels and stickers, eventually. But as far as I know, none that were commercially available. That's 'cause we didn't CARE about what the dad-blasted machine looked like - we cared about whether it could play games or not! And at 8 bits, whoo, we had a lot of firepower there to look at on those screens! Talk about eye-popping disappearing sprites when too many of them get onto the same row! Even Atari had to strain for that much back then.
But for some reason, as the graphics have gotten better, so has the drive to have a system with its own "color." Started as far as I know back with the Game Boy Pocket, where you could get one in just about any color. Though I guess colors must be hard to come by these days, if they're having trouble churning out these newfangled machines in anything less than "platinum" "jet black" and "toilet bowl white."
I mean, c'mon, if you're going to care what color your machine is, then at least ask for more options! Why not a PSP in red? Lots of people get red cars, why not red game machines? You might get pulled over for speeding more often, but it's YOUR choice, right? Or what about a sporty yellow or blue or green? There are more colors in the world than what you can shake a stick at, and we're selling out for simple black and white, the same as in the newspaper we get every day?! Fer cryin' out loud, kids, let's look at the rest of the rainbow before we give up and hand over two hundred smackers for portable gaming entertainment!
And what about the performance? As much as a fancy car can look real smooth, it's what's under the hood that counts. Any expert on cars can tell you that much. So why not the same for games? I didn't buy a Game Boy to look at the contoured brick lines, I bought it to play games! And not just any games, but ones that could only be played on the advanced processing power of a Game Boy! Playing Tetris outside gave my mother no excuse to tell me to stop playing video games so I could go outside and get some fresh air.
The color of your video game machine as a fashion statement? What a load of hooey! If I paid for anything for more than a hundred bucks, the LAST thing I'd wanna do is go around parading it in front of people! You could drop it and break it, or it could get stolen, or rained on, or get too much sun, and for as much as you paid for it, do you really want to pay for it again if you end up losing it? And I don't want to think about how loudly my friends would laugh if I busted my brand new white PSP in front of their cheap apartment complex down in Podunk Southern Illinois! Probably be the richest developmental project they've seen in years. But I guess the point about fashion statements is that you spend a lot of money on a single new trend so you can look flashy...until the next trend comes out and you end up looking like an old fogey like me, playing your silly outdated white PSP when everyone else has gotten the red or blue or green PSP2.
Now that I think about it, was a famous saying back when cars first came out: "You can get it in any color you like, long as it's black." I'll leave the interpretation of how that applies to this situation up to you.
Guys. Guys. The ad isn't racist. It's part of a series of ads depicting a clash between white and black. In some ads, the black woman has the upper hand. In others, the white one does. They probably deliberately didn't use this campaign in North America because the minute we see white people and black people within 20 feet of each other, our racism alarms go off.
Also, Terg, do shut up. That was the most obnoxious, pointless and meandering rant ever. It almost sounds like you're just making up reasons to be angry at Sony.
Quote:
It's part of a series of ads depicting a clash between white and black. In some ads, the black woman has the upper hand. In others, the white one does.
Woahwhoahwhoahstopbackup.
That black dude's a chick? oo
Ultra is going to have a very interesting search for a wife 
Cycle, chill. I wasn't trying to attack Sony mindlessly. I was trying to do satire. I'm not that good at it, I know, but you could at least say "that was bad humor" or "you didn't make it clear enough that it was supposed to be non-serious" and not say "that was an attack on all things Sony." I don't see anywhere that I said "Sony sucks and/or PSP sucks." Maybe disagreed with a company practice, yeah, but that's as far as that goes.
My point was that I think it's stupid that Sony is focusing so much advertisement on a single new color for a game system, and that they could at least have sprung for the rest of the rainbow. There you have it in a nutshell, without the rant. Fair deal?
I was expecting someone to throw something logistical at me, like, "well it would cost too much to change the factories to make them different colors" or something like that. Kinda wish someone had.
Sorry. My firewall automatically filters sarcasm and subtlety.
Anyways. They probably did focus groups and figured out that most people would either buy black or white. That and they're copying Apple.
Quote:
That could not possibly be more racist =D
that's absolutely correct.
Well Terg, if the PSP does come out with more colors, how are they gonna advertise red and yellow? Showing Indians and Asians duking it out?
i thought that was the plan, but if nobody else likes it, we can just stay with black and white.
...so Sony's advertising the white PSP with Ray Charles? oo
I don't get it. All I see it a picture of some guy flipping me off. How is this racist, or even related to Sony?
The original picture was replaced by what you see now.
Someone should change it.
Why did someone do that. o.o
The image was hotlinked from YTMND. Either the YTMND admins or the site owner have changed the image, likely for that very reason.
fixed
Also, the other pic in question:
Yeah, it's easy to see that the black one's a woman now.
Oh good, so I'm not entirely insensitive in thinking that this ad isn't particularly racist at all.
Only reason I didn't post as such in the thread earlier is since everyone seemed to be having a field day about the fact that this is a horribly racist campaign, and mentioning as such in chat resulting in something of a lash out at me.
They're all more erotic than racist.
Oh, I remember when TTG told me about this ad, but... XD
