This is probably going to seem wildly low-effort compared to my usual posts here, but I’ve found a bit of a treasure trove of print media gaming ads from magazines and sites. And they’re amazing. I found it so fun to see what companies used to do to promote their games.
Things have clearly changed a lot over time, some of them are insensitive or even outright sexist, but if you just look at it through a lens of being a time capsule, it’s fun.
This one’s going to be very image-heavy. If you’re using Boost on iOS then you might struggle to scroll through this (or maybe not? It’s happened with all my other posts though, so you’ve been warned), if that happens just visit using your browser :)
Game Boy Advance/SP:
The ‘feet’ collection were from an ad company in Stockholm, in 2005. I think it is to mean you’re using hands to play the GBA, and only have feet left to use for real life:
PS2:
Nintendo Game Cube:
And that’s that! Just interesting to see a time when gaming was a little more experimental and edgy.
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I have to admit, the GBA SP was pretty hot. I still have mine.
I wish there was an easy way to quote/reference specific images. Golden Sun literal fire was nice, but those PS2 ads were… What the fuck
I’m surprised you didn’t post that PSP ad with the white lady beating the shit out of the black lady…to promote the sale of a white PSP.
Never heard of this ad since i was a kid at the time and not Dutch. Here it is.
Wow.
https://www.polygon.com/2017/4/5/15190396/sony-psp-ad-white-is-coming-pepsi-kendall-jenner
The kirby choking one has to become a meme template !
This is probably going to seem wildly low-effort compared to my usual posts here
My man, you just compiled tons of obscure posters from the corners of the Internet. I admire your dedication, and this does take an effort.
*Miss, not man!!!
(I’m just glad people enjoy all this weirdness as much as I do!)
Hmmm… for reasons I cannot justify my brain is telling me the equivalent for “my man, you really blah blah blah” should be “madame, you really blah blah blah”
Though I agree you can’t correct someone by being like “ahem, it’s madame actually” 😛
My apologies, I missed that one!
deleted by creator
PS3 did some wierd shit, too.
And PSVita… The PSVita had this:
I hate to say it actually depicts the concept pretty good
Those PS2 underwear ones are fucking wild
They had bizarre TV adverts as well. You could never accuse early 2000s Sony of not getting weird with it.
I don’t know if any of it really helped. It rode in on the already wildly successful PS1. It had a DVD player in it back when a DVD player was quite expensive. It had SSX and Tekken Tag at UK launch. It could play all your PS1 games and “upscale” them. The only competition it had at launch was the Dreamcast. It was going to sell anyway.
It’s wild how crazy ads. The Mouse one for the GBA Micro still pops up into my head every once and a while. And my friend group still debates whether Mario is hiding a Tribal Tattoo somewhere
this isn’t low effort. These are freaking great!
The nineties was the best decade.
Not low effort posting IMO, this is a part of our culture & has historical value.
The over-the-top edgy/“how do you do, fellow kids?” vibes of the early y2k years is definitely something that I don’t miss from that era.
I can somehow hear Linking Park in the distance while scrolling this post.
Whatever we gained by losing these, it was not worth it.
The gameboy with the tribal tats is killing me.
I like the Nintendo ones, there were ‘risky’ ads here, now they’re very conservative
My thoughts exactly. Some of these ads are just plain weird in a way that they would never dare today.
They were always conservative. A few years before these ads Nintendo participated in Senate hearings where they advocated for censoring the entire medium. They just had a “fellow kids” period in the early 2000s. Luckily, judging by the sales of the GameCube, most people weren’t fooled.
Meanwhile, Nintendo in their rebellious youth:
Note: mario didn’t exist at the time, but i got this image from a news site that added it to censor the woman’s breasts.
I need the Winamp skin
There is only one magazine video game advertisement I really remember from seeing in the wild in an actual magazine, and that was the Quake 3 Arena one of a computer in a crusty-as-fuck basement bathroom in front of a toilet with just a super dirty setup.
It feels VERY Quake-esque, too. So they nailed that image!
Wow this is incredible, thanks for sharing. I find it funny that Nintendo fostered their famiy friendly appeal seemingly right after the GameCube and GameBoy Advance. Those particular ads are saucy.
“go 'way!
baitingamin!”
I’m surprised you didn’t include this one:
Edit: Link to creator:
I just wanted to have actual, official ones shared!
This one is not official, it was done by a girl who goes by shy smith three years or so ago, she just tried her best to make a photo in the ‘style’ of the old Y2K era, and the days of PS2 ads and…everyone ended up believing it was real. She did such an amazing job of it, this one often gets shared as if it were done for Sony.
And…to be fair, the actual official ones got way worse than those I included:
Oh god how is that meant to boost PS2 sales 😂😂😂
Heh this post blew my mind twice in one package: I was definitely one of those that believed it was a real ad. I distinctly remember some discussions about the sexualized nature of it or not. So as you said, super well done.
But secondly, the official ad you posted instead has three nipples at once? And one male two female on top? That almost seems weirder to me.
Are you sure? That’s just a nude girl in the background. Where are they getting away with that?
France did the ‘panties’ ads, there were three of them all up.
Here is another which has explicit exposure, this one from Chile has exposed breasts, also. And far more obvious to the viewer
