Consoul Magazine

Well, this piece was going to be a long and thoughtful post-mortem of GDC '07 and the announcement of Sony's new MMO online interface, Home. The rest of the gaming press and blogosphere have already talked that to death, so instead here's a picture of a blond girl in a pink bikini, sitting on the toilet with her pants down.
This is the cover of Sony's new PS3 lifestyle magazine called CONSOUL. How nice of them to shamelessly steal my name. This free monthly magazine debuted earlier this month in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Here's my own (admittedly very rough) translation of the media release:

Sony Computer Entertainment Deutschland (SCED) brings its own lifestyle magazine to the launch of the PLAYSTATION3 on the market. In co-operation with the Köln agency, the first edition of CONSOUL will appear on 06/03/2007 with a run of 500,000 copies. The new monthly trend magazine appears in Germany, Austria and Switzerland and is distributed through stores catering to the gaming & internet scene and other selected outlets free of charge.

CONSOUL covers the PLAYSTATION 3 from the perspective of lifestyle and entertainment enthusiasts. High production value photo shoots, reports on sports, fashion and design, and music and movie reviews will fill CONSOUL's pages, as well as features on the technical highlights of the PLAYSTATION 3, and outstanding games and gadgets. The articles, which are all written by an independent specialized editorship, don't lose themselves in technical details, but inspire curiosity to find out more and targets a readership which sits around the fringe of video game topics.

PLAYSTATION 3, which will be available with the European-wide sales launch on 23 March 2007, is more than just a next generation game console, but a multimedia high-end entertainment centre. CONSOUL welcomes this new dimension of digital convergence, which is made possible with the start of the PS3. "The PlayStation brand will be shaped with PS3 as high definition home entertainment. With CONSOUL we look directly at the lifestyle of our customers. We address all, the fun of new emerging gadgets, the digital life of the internet, and naturally our outstanding games and films", said Uwe Bassendowski, Managing Director of Sony Computer Entertainment Deutschland GmbH.

Wow. I'm still not sure exactly where the girl on the toilet fits in, but she will no doubt attract some attention. I'm somewhat dubious about the "independent" editorship, but this seems to be the direction in which Sony's 'decentralized' PR is headed (see also thinly-veiled Sony mouthpiece blog ThreeSpeech). I'm curious to see what this magazine actually contains. If anyone could send me one, or provide some scans, I'd be much obliged.

UPDATE: First they take my name, then they take my story.

So I had a subtle dig at Threespeech in this post. Well, they've responded by ripping off part of the post (complete with my re-sized, re-named cover picture and my own bodgy translation) and posting it on their site, without credit. Do not underestimate the petulance of Playstation.

Thanks to good folk like Chris Kohler @ WIRED, N'Gai Croal @ Newsweek and Brian Ashcroft @ Kotaku who gave credit where it was due.