Greetings PlayStation Nation!

Like all of you, I’ve been a big fan of our new blog - but until now, I’ve been staying behind the scenes. I’m excited to share my first post here and thought that our new advertising campaign for the PS3 would be of interest to everyone. In fact, the campaign is scheduled to break this weekend in conjunction with the introduction of the new 40GB PS3 here in North America. But as a reward for being some of our most loyal fans, I wanted to get this out to all of you first.

Last year, we launched the PS3 with a campaign that become known as the “White Room” and we received a strong reaction to those ads for being provocative and demonstrating the PS3’s power. With those technology messages now firmly embedded, we wanted to move beyond the “power” message with a more high-energy, entertainment driven focus for the PS3. The games are here, the price point is now $399 and we wanted to make the news loud and clear. But we need to deliver that in a way that befits the PlayStation brand. And so, beyond the brilliant HD games that the PS3 delivers, you’ll also see a big focus behind the PS3’s Blu-ray movie capability and, for the first time, you’ll see a major focus behind the PLAYSTATION Network (did I mention online gaming is free on PS3??) and the exclusive gaming content available on the PLAYSTATION Store, as well as breakthrough services like Home. As Kim noted in her recent post, with so much brewing inside the PS3, the icons and characters of the PS3 world come to life in the vivid black onyx world of the PS3 and nearly burst out of its seams.

The spots feature some of our recent and highly anticipated first-party titles including Heavenly Sword, Warhawk, Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction, Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune and Gran Turismo 5 Prologue, as well as upcoming third-party exclusives such as Haze from Ubisoft and Metal Gear Solid 4 from Konami. I recall seeing some comments on this blog recently lamenting why we weren’t making a bigger deal out of Metal Gear. Well, get ready for a steady diet, because Metal Gear Solid is the mother of all exclusives and we can’t wait for its release. But we’ll also feature other great PS3 games like Burnout Paradise, WWE Smackdown vs. Raw 2008, Assassin’s Creed, Madden NFL 08 and Time Crisis 4 rounding out the genre-defining titles and breadth of a lineup that you can only find on PLAYSTATION 3.

We’re kicking off the campaign in a big way with high-impact: 60 second spots (“Universe of Entertainment”) which feature PS3’s multi-functional capabilities and really kicks off the compelling and addictive nature of this campaign.

The second is our :30 “Only On” spot showcasing some of our gorgeous 1st party titles.

More television spots are still under development and we’ll reveal them as they’re finished.

As we head into November we couldn’t be more excited. We have the 40GB PS3 “officially” launching tomorrow at a price point that will appeal to a wider audience and the 80GB PS3 which is demonstrating phenomenal sales growth since we announced the $499 price point. Add to that the inflow of great games and a PS3 brand campaign — our largest ever behind a hardware platform — and we think it’s going to be a great holiday season for PS3.

And I’d be remiss not to mention the highly-anticipated titles coming in 2008 like Gran Turismo 5 Prologue, Grand Theft Auto IV, Killzone 2, SingStar, Little Big Planet, Metal Gear Solid 4 and of course, Home. And rest assured, we have some secrets and many new games up our sleeves for 2008 as well. We can’t wait to kick it all off!

So, we hope you like the campaign. You guys are our biggest fans and I can tell you all with complete sincerity that we work hard to earn your trust and loyalty every day. Because we know if we can meet your high expectations, you’ll tell your friends and the rest will take care of itself.

Thanks and have fun!