Sony again slip up in the eyes of gamers with the news that they've been busted trying to pass off a viral marketing campaign as a video blog thing. I can't bring myself to post the link to it because it sounds so lame, but as always Penny Arcade sum it up nicely in pretty pictures and prose:

I am assuming (and, I believe, rightly so) that you are already aware of Sony's transparent, insulting, idiotic, and ineffective campaign in support of the Playstation Portable. Unwilling to let an increasingly savvy portfolio of titles speak to gamers directly, they chose instead to bring aboard guerilla marketing gurus Zipatoni to do irreparable damage to their brand.

Meanwhile, riots are breaking out as the last few Nintendo Wii consoles in stores are fought over as word spreads that it's actually Just Good Fun.

saw this yesterday, it was completely transparent and 99.9 percent of people should know its a case of 'any publicity is good publicity' but so many people are posting in response to the ebonics speak of cousin pete and charlie as real... which to me speaks volumes of the angry users :)

it seemed to me to be an amusing marketing campaign that some people took a little too seriously... the rap was awesome

i was reading on SA about how gamers are revolting against sonys lame psp viral marketing

seems like sony want to drop the ball


sa thread here:
http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?s=026917cb1bcd3b6f30e0cd15cd1cbaee&threadid=2223448

super dodgy sony website, here:
http://www.alliwantforxmasisapsp.com/blog/

although this is new!

Busted. Nailed. Snagged. As many of you have figured out (maybe our speech was a little too funky fresh???), Peter isn't a real hip-hop maven and this site was actually developed by Sony. Guess we were trying to be just a little too clever. From this point forward, we will just stick to making cool products, and use this site to give you nothing but the facts on the PSP.

Sony Computer Entertainment America

there we go. it was a completely tongue in cheek marketing campaign that i believe hit its mark. wd sony for what you were attempting to do

Despite the transparency (which for some people is only visible in hind sight), I'm not entirely comfortable with companies posing as real people and taking advantage of social channels to gain a consumers trust without their knowledge. I believe advertising should be disclosed as such.