For The Orbit, Marta Litson looked back at Sony’s failed marketing ploy in 2006 to promote the PSP via a fake blog called “All I Want for Christmas is a PSP”:
The blog purported to be authored by “Charlie” and his friend “Jeremy,” who wanted to convince Jeremy’s parents to buy him a PSP for Christmas. It featured amateurish videos, printable PSP-themed greeting cards, T-shirt iron-ons, and posts written in exaggerated hip-hop and internet slang.
The site’s content was intentionally crafted to appear grassroots and authentic, but the over-the-top “cool” language and clumsy attempts at viral humor raised suspicions among visitors.
Sony had quite a few marketing misses in the mid-00s after their original off-kilter edgy aesthetic wore thin. This was just ridiculous. That said, if I got a PSP for Christmas, I wouldn’t be unhappy…