‘Play Has No Limits'

25 regions. 5 continents. 1 global launch.

Sony Interactive Entertainment’s goal was to celebrate the arrival of PlayStation® 5 around the world and welcome in a new generation of gaming.

With the launch coinciding with a global pandemic, we needed to create a moment the world could experience as one when it couldn’t be together, ensuring the launch could be experienced and shared without a large physical audience.

The challenge was to create a global cultural moment that was visible to the mainstream, making the iconic brand assets famous while achieving consistency of creative execution at a regional level.

Our strategy was to bring the ‘Play Has No Limits’ global launch campaign to life, shining a light on the product and creating a coloured thread that would light the world blue, one territory at a time. To create a built-for-camera approach that transformed a moment in time into a global content engine.

We harnessed the anticipation of a cultural moment of the launch of PlayStation® 5 in a way that magnified the global campaign through a shared experience that brought the gaming community together.

We surprised fans by creating a launch everyone could experience despite lockdown conditions. The ‘Play Has No Limits’ campaign was a launch the world could experience and share as one, blurring the lines between IRL and URL with a series of shows created and executed in the midst of the pandemic.

Together, SIE and Amplify developed a global campaign using a ‘built-for-camera approach’ that transformed a moment in time into a global content engine. We reimagined what a launch looks like and where it lives, with cinematic shows designed to break through the screen.

An extensive worldwide campaign spanned 25 countries and regions across the world. On the eve of launch, iconic global locations were transformed into mesmerising immersive shows - turning the world blue one territory at a time. Pushing the boundaries of reality, we used anamorphic illusions that created fully immersive content where PlayStation® 5 and the DualSense wireless controller seemingly broke through the screen.

Every show was filmed as it went live. We created edits for each of the territories within 6 hours of activation which were posted on their social channels to celebrate the arrival of the console. Each edit was also posted on a global Twitter thread to build a global sequential moment, resulting in the longest Twitter thread in PlayStation® history.

The campaign culminated in a global hero film bringing all the launch moments together, shared on global social channels, showing how PlayStation® 5’s launch turned the world blue, securing 153 pieces of global media coverage and 860m readership.