PS4’s Carousel: What Sony E3 2015 event has to do with Mad Men’s Don Draper?

Nostalgia seems to be the biggest weapon of Sony Computer Entertainment. FFVII remake and Shen Mue III Kickstarter campaign overshadowed the announcements of Horizon: Zero Dawn and the new gameplay footage of The Last Guardian. Just like Don Draper once said, nostalgia created a bond far more powerful than memory alone. PS4 suddenly became a time machine that “takes us to a place where we know we are loved“.

E3 2015 is very special. This year we’ve got everything there is. Some poor souls might even think that there’s nothing left to dream of. So far we’ve heard the announcements of Doom remake, Fallout 4, Gears 4 and tons of other big games. However the biggest surprises came from Sony’s E3 2015 conference. This was an incredible event for gamers all over the world. I can bet you that there were people in the audience tonight crying tears of joy and clapping like mad men, feeling this incredible gratitude to Sony for feeding their nostalgia.

Speaking of Mad Men. Sony’s presentation was probably the best constructed one so far. It showed us something new but mostly something old. And this was pretty amazing. Final Fantasy VII and Shenmue III are “the holy grails” of E3. Every year we hear rumors of their revival and in 2015 it finally happened. Just like Don Draper in the season’s finale Sony put its audience on the never ending carousel of memories and showed us comforting and incredibly powerful images that can leave no one untouched.

Famous character of the recently closed TV show said in one of its first pitches that advertising is about feeling good, it’s about understanding that “you’re going to be all right”. I think Sony did a wonderful job of invigorating this feeling. For that brief period of gaming ecstasy it really felt like PS4 is the way to go, like it’s the only console to give us those unique and cherished emotions that we’ve felt years ago on Dreamcast and original PlayStation. And after all that’s what electronic entertainment is all about: evoking meaningful emotions.

Kirill Tokarev