PlayStation’s TV advertising budget blitzes Xbox

I cancelled my satellite subscription a few months back so I couldn’t even tell you if we’ve had a lot of local video game advertising on TV – but apparently it is still a massive thing over the US of A.

And according to a report by the Wall Street Journal the marketing team at PlayStation have been on a TV advertising bender so far this year by spending nearly 80% more on television advertising compared to Microsoft.

Since January this year PlayStation have spent $59 million on TV advertising compared to Microsoft who have only spent $34 million. But what is even more surprising is where this money is being spent. The Xbox 360 was often mocked as being your typical jock console and that Microsoft specifically targeted this beer guzzling, sport watching demographic.

Well according to the report Sony has spent nearly $13 million of that money directly on two sporting channels, ESPN and Fox Sports. Comparatively Microsoft has only spent $5.5 million on sporting channels.

However in the end most of the ad spend for both these companies will take place in the last few months of the year so expect to see a big uptick in these numbers at that time. Last year Microsoft was the top video game advertiser with a total 2013 TV spend of $73.6 million, which we are definitely expecting Sony to blitz this year.

The second highest spender last year was also not Sony; it was Activision who goes all out around the release of Call of Duty.

I expect Activision could even sneak into first place this year with the obvious massive push around the new Call of Duty and the highly anticipated Destiny which will need a ton of marketing to ensure it hits the ground at a sprint to live up to that ten year dream.

Last Updated: June 30, 2014