Portable gaming site Pocket Gamer is celebrating the launch of the pink DS and PSP consoles by declaring today, Pink Friday. The site is running voxpops with women gamers, interviews with women developers and reviews of games geared toward a female audience.
I'm assuming there's a touch of irony in this adoption of the technology industry's panacea for attracting women: make stuff pink. Having seen the site's girled-up logo, complete with sparkly diamond space invader, I'm sure there is. Indeed the site has a short feature analysing the industry's use of pink hardware as a marketing tool. The article ends by concluding that making games machine pink does little to alter the stigma of geekiness attached to them - the writer suggests going for a Louis Vuitton or Mulberry makeover instead.
That's a smart idea. Tapping into the current obession with brand names will at least attract the attention of label-savvy shoppers - and, in certain circles, there's kudos attached to owning any item with limited edition branded status. This is certainly the thinking behind Motorola's Dolce and Gabbana-designed Razr phone, which is being heavily advertised in the fashion press.
A Prada PSP or Dior DS would have cache across the board, across genders and ages. But then, in some ways, you're just trading off one stereotype for another - all women like pink... no wait, all women like designer labels. It's a minefield out there.
Anyway, there's another large demographic group which is often identified with the colour pink - where's their dedicated gaming day? It would be an interesting proposition and just as fraught with political banana skins.
