Everyone loves a Mascot, after all it gives them something to relate to when purchasing a console. Take Nintendo, you wouldn’t buy a Wii without expecting a Mario game, and in the times of Sega, you wouldn’t even have heard of them if it wasn’t for Sonic. So now here we are with our brand new HDTVs and our PlayStation 3s but something is missing, any idea what it is?
Some people would argue that not having a mascot for a console is a good thing, it means that the machine isn’t tied down to a single stereotype and also shows that it is diverse. However, others love their mascot, after all where would Xbox be without Halo and Masterchief? Would the Xbox 360 even exist if Masterchief didn’t? It’s really hard to tell.
All of this got me thinking really, if I had to choose a Mascot for Sony’s PlayStation 3 who would it be? The obvious choice to many would be Sackboy. He is, after all, a cute little character with plenty of personality and with Sony recently purchasing Media Molecule and also agreeing merchandising deals with various companies to produce little plastic men for us to sit in our bedroom, they may already be going down that road.
As much as I love Sackboy though, I do believe that he has some competition. After all, Nathan Drake has probably been one of the most successful characters on the PS3 so far. He’s charismatic, funny and has starred in two of the consoles biggest games. So wouldn’t Nathan be a good choice? Surely most gamers know him by now.
Another character who could represent Sony is also one of the most well known, yes we are looking at you Kratos. With God of War III about to be released, I have no doubt that Kratos is set to be the lead star in the PlayStation 3’s biggest selling game to date. It surely won’t be long before even those who didn’t know him, will do. But would Kratos be a positive mascot for Sony? He has been accused of being a violent womaniser after all, and maybe that is an image that Sony would rather avoid.
So out of the three characters I have mentioned it seems that Sackboy may be the clear frontrunner, although Nathan Drake is not too far behind. But what character would you like to see front the PlayStation 3’s quest for World domination, do you have an alternative suggestion or do you feel that not having a video game character represent your brand is a good thing?
