When Sony Interactive Entertainment announced the launch PlayStation 5 in 2020, it was met with huge excitement across the world. So much excitement in fact, that demand quickly outstripped supply.

Two years later, Sony Interactive Entertainment were ready to announce that PS5 was back in stock once again. Our challenge was clear: reignite the hype of launch, to sell millions more consoles.

The arrival of more stock meant millions more players getting the chance to experience the extraordinary worlds that only PlayStation 5 can unlock. Rather than just showing these experiences, we decided to report them by creating our very own global news network: Live From PS5. Live From PS5 behaved just like a real news network with journalists broadcasting from around the world.

After two years of limited stock, we found that existing PlayStation players had talked themselves out of upgrading. Without a PlayStation 5 available, they gave up on the search and convinced themselves that earlier generation consoles were good enough for their needs. Our strategy was to shatter this misconception by appealing to players’ hearts and heads: their hearts by evoking pure excitement for PS5, and their heads by demonstrating the genuine superiority of the PS5 experience.

Live From PS5 didn’t just look and sound like a news network. It behaved like one too. Running across 51 markets in 32 languages, journalists around the world reported the news 24/7, often in real time.

The core campaign, comprising over 600 assets, ran across TV, social, OOH, digital display and high impact special-builds for a period of 4 weeks.

We also created news, with 20 bespoke activations around the world. Each one being reported on live from our global news network - from a God of War scene in London to a Spider-Man scene in Australia.

We even invited gamers to join the news team themselves, allowing them to report their own breaking news stories straight from their console, using PS5’s create button and publishing them live straight onto the Middle East’s largest OOH site in real time.

In the UK, by the end of February (when the campaign had been live for 4 weeks) PlayStation 5 sales were up 316% compared to the same period the year before. Year-to-date, PS5 hardware was up 180% over the first two months of 2022. All told, this resulted in more PS5 sales than PS4 achieved during its entire life cycle.

Comparatively, the Xbox Series S and X platforms saw sales increase 21% in February compared with January, and saw a 15% increase over February last year. Year-to-date, Xbox sales were down by 5.3%.

In terms of reach, the campaign gained over 4.1 billion impressions. Crucially, Live From PS5 generated over 27 million earned views in media coverage and drove over 24 million clicks to the campaign landing page.