Forum - View topicAnswerman - Why Isn't Streaming Platform Marketing More Competitive?
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Beatdigga
 Posts: 5148 Location: New York |
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It's worth noting that these companies do share materials and licenses. It would likely be considered poor form to attack people who they're doing business with the following day.
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Wyvern
 Posts: 1792 |
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Thanks for such a fascinating look at marketing history. The console wars were such a big part of many 90's kids childhoods that it's easy to forget that the whole rivalry was pretty much invented to create drama.
Whether the rivalry is real or not, it benefits both companies because it encourages people to pick a side, and that leads to conversations which keep both companies on peoples' minds. It reminds me of a few years ago when Burger King released an ad proposing that they and McDonald's release a combined burger called the "McWhopper," which would "end the beef" (get it?) between the two companies. McDonald's ignored this, which is what Burger King wanted. Because the real point of the ad was to create the impression of a Cola-Wars type rivalry between the two companies, and paint McDonald's as the bad guy for refusing BK's olive branch. That way, people would be talking more about both companies. In reality, Burger King is not a rival to McDonald's (in terms of financial success): BK doesn't have the same global recognition and McDonald's is worth over twenty times more than Burger King is. They're not even in the same league. But by creating this ad, BK made it seem like the two of them were equals, which was a huge boost to BK's brand. I think the US console wars were invented for similar reasons: Nintendo was still dominating the market at the time, but by mocking them, Sega made themselves equal in the eyes of consumers, and eventually they really were very close competitors (for a while, at least.) |
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mdo7
 Posts: 8229 Location: Katy, Texas, USA |
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The same reason why the console war died a few years ago when several of MS's 1st party titles are appearing on Sony's PS4/PS5. I mean if you told me back in 2008 that Gears of War would get a Playstation port, I would've thought you were crazy but yet, here we are in 2025, it finally happened. And I want to note that Netflix has started to pick up their competitor's exclusive shows/titles and stream it on that platform, like for example Netflix in 2023 started to stream HBO shows/titles including HBO Max's 1st party titles too. Netflix also streamed Showtime and Paramount+ titles on there too last year. Hell, I've seen Netflix has started to pick up anime titles from Crunchyroll (ie: My Hero Academia, etc...) So yeah, that era of "Genesis does what Nintendon't" is probably long dead since Xbox 1st party titles started appearing on PS4 and Switch in the last few years. I'm very excited to see the 1st Gears of War to appear on Playstation 5 for the first time, and anticipating Halo: The Master Chief Collection to make an appearance on PS5 and Switch 2. |
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Silver Kirin
Posts: 1763 |
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As someone who was born in the early '90s and who isn't not from the U.S. or Europe, I was actually quite surprised when I finally started using the Internet in the early 2000s and found all those old "Genesis Does what Nintendon't" and "Blast Processing" ads ver interesting. Even as a very young child I remember kids my age and older defending their favorite gaming platforms and companies, but that was done by our own choices, we were not influenced by any commercials, though maybe some old gaming magazines did encourage us, I had some old Club Nintendo magazines from the Super NES and N64 era and they never mentioned their competitors, while I did found some Sony vs. Nintendo mentions in the Spanish edition of the PlayStation Official Magazine. I have to admit that I find it kind of ironic that despite the almost mythical status of SEGA vs. Nintendo's rivalry, it actually didn't last that long, the Genesis vs. NES didn't seem that big, it was only when Sonic the Hedgehog came out when things got serious and by 1995 it seems the "war" was over, though I did found some old SEGA Saturn commercials where they tried to fight Sony, but they aren't as well remembered as the SEGA vs. Nintendo ones. While those kind of aggressively competitive marketing did leave an impact on people's memories, at the same time I believe they left kind of negative effect on those who were really into their favorite brands, and I'm talking about some very obsessive SEGA fans, while I do like watching some "What if..." videos regarding if the Saturn of Dreamcast had been more successful, at the same time I feel like SEGA's marketing was perhaps a bit too effective. So yeah, I don't particularly wish that this type of marketing comes back, now with all types of social media people can fight each other and defend their favorite brands, I also find that really annoying, but I don't think there's a way to stop this kind of stan/fanboy culture at this point. |
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myskaros
 Posts: 610 Location: J-Novel Club |
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Note that some light ribbing can still be found in the more modern age; don't forget the "Official PlayStation Used Game Instructional Video"
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Nate148
Posts: 657 |
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Of course microsoft deserved that L.
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Dr. Wily
Posts: 864 |
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I think a lot of the reason we don't see this kind of competition anymore (on either side of the ocean) is that nowadays there aren't really that many "exclusives". Like back in the 90s/2000s you could only play Sonic on the Genesis, you could only play Mario on the Nintendo, you can only play Halo on Xbox, etc, etc. But we're past that in games now. Nintendo's really the only ones that have games/franchises locked to their platform. Sure, maybe the PS5 has a few, but for most of those it's just a matter of time before they come to PC.
The same goes for streaming services. Sure, a lot of them do make their own exclusives, so to speak, but there's never really been a "killer app" of sorts to force people to choose one over the other, or at least one that's been more than a passing trend. And that's especially the case with anime. Sure, Crunchyroll's the kings of that particular mountain right now, especially with seasonal premiering anime, but they don't make any of their own shows (well, they did, but... we all know how that played out), which means that the studios/companies that do make/own the shows can license them out to whoever they please, and regularly do! It'll never happen, but theoretically next season all the new anime could be simulcast on Peacock. Last edited by Dr. Wily on Mon Aug 04, 2025 8:15 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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numberuno
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The reason is that the soda wars, console wars etc. took place in a time in the American culture when competitive macho posturing was embraced. Back when there were still bragging rock songs like "Back In Black" and "Dead or Alive" - or, rather, well, when rock music existed generally - and rappers made fun of glam metal and R&B music as lame. Answerman can talk about cultural differences, but Pokemon had Ash Ketchum "wanting to be the best there ever was" - and not for any justifying circumstances or noble reasons but solely for himself - and a rivalry with Gary that was even more competitive and bitter in the Red and Blue games that they were (loosely) based on. Also, there were not a few anime clearly influenced by Top Gun, with Gunbuster being a prominent example.
These days? That stuff is passe. Even the Top Gun sequel took the cocky, individualistic and hyper-competitive type who was the star of the original movie (Tom Cruise's Pete Mitchell) and made it - via Glen Powell's Hangman - the closest thing the movie had to a villain, and changed the ridiculous "Top Gun Trophy" competition from the original to a "completing the mission means working together as a team" modern message. Said modernity isn't helping XBox. Remember that XBox's reputation was built on edgy, hypermacho shooter franchises like Halo and Gears of War. (And, er, stuff like Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball aimed at the same audience). Note: it was during this era that XBox and PC Gamers mocked JRPGs, ie. Adam Sessler of G4's Xplay, and their "girlish male protagonists." But their inability to build brands or an identity for the modern era has left Microsoft adrift and resorting to boondoggles like spending billions on major game studios only to shut them down 2 years later, and cloud gaming. The more collegial modern era is tailor-made for Nintendo though. |
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Key
Moderator
 Posts: 19138 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
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Yeah, between overlaps and interconnectedness (I've seen Prime Video redirects to HIDIVE and Crunchyroll, for instance), competitive marketing between anime streaming services isn't just unfeasible; it would be actively counter-productive.
You also aren't likely to ever see much competitive advertising between, say, donghua and anime since there's a lot of overlap in fanbases. On another point, I'm a little surprised no one has brought up the original Burger Wars of the late '70s through mid-'80s, which was going on at about the same time as the Cola Wars and was, in my recollection, just as robust. ("Where's the beef?" wouldn't exist without that.) |
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Joe Mello
 Posts: 2559 Location: Online Terminal |
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I feel like there have been plenty of instances of A vs B advertising up through the present day, just in an understated fashion. Car commercials come to mind as one example. I would reckon that one reason may be corporate consolidation means many brands of the same type of product are owned by the same parent. In those cases, competitive advertising is a zero-sum proposition. |
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MiniMarps
 Posts: 187 |
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Well for one thing, in the US, a lot of the shows that stream on Crunchyroll still have their physical media distributed by Sentai (parent company of Hidive). I imagine it would bad for business on both sides if things got heated between them. Like if you're Hidive, you don't want to say "all the shows streaming on Crunchyroll suck! ... but also please buy those shows' Collector Edition BD Box Sets."
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Piglet the Grate
 Posts: 1435 Location: North America |
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Why would there be competitive advertising between de facto monopolies (how many shows are streamed on more than one platform in a region)? An analogy to the streaming situation would be if the grocery stores got together* with only one selling meat, one selling vegetables, one selling canned goods, etc. so they could all jack up their prices since there was no choice for the consumer who needed that particular food item. (Yes, I am aware of the obvious gray/black market analogy here, but that would be straying off-topic.)
*Assuming that no government anti-trust action would happen. |
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Top Gun
 Posts: 5294 |
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Yeah, car commercials are the first thing I thought of where that type of competitive marketing is still prevalent. Pickup truck ads are practically a dick-waving contest. |
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gsilver
Posts: 764 |
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I think that with streaming platforms, it runs even deeper than that.
They don't want to seed the idea of dropping a subscription in people, even if it's a competitor's subscription that they're encouraging people to drop, especially considering that, in theory, there's no limit to the number of subscriptions that one customer could be paying for simultaneously, and the "forgotten subscription" is far and away the best case (revenue without resource load). Those producing anime would certainly be happy if they could convince more people to subscribe to three different services for one show, like Teasing Master Takagi-san. |
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Lord Geo
Posts: 2998 Location: North Brunswick, New Jersey |
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Sentai (or Discotek, for that matter as well) haven't released a Crunchyroll-streamed anime (that's still streaming on that site) in over three years, which just so happens to correspond with the point where Sony purchased Crunchyroll in late 2021, i.e. any deals made just prior to the sale were honored, but no new deals have since been made. Titles like Science Fell in Love & KonoSuba aren't fully available physically because of that, and only recently has Crunchyroll itself started to fill in those gaps, as seen with Iruma-kun Seasons 2 & 3 finally getting physical releases this year. Hell, the guys at MediaOCD have all but outright stated at Discotek panels & livestreams that anything Crunchyroll has the license to is not available for sub-licensing. The only exceptions in recent time of other companies getting to work with Sony-owned anime companies are Viz & Anime Limited, but even those look to be a case of Aniplex (i.e. Sony Music) deciding working with those companies, not Crunchyroll (i.e. Sony Pictures). |
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