Close-Up: Live Issue - How ads are helping to win the gaming battle.

PlayStation 3 celebrated a successful launch weekend, but did its ad campaign make any difference, James Hamilton asks.

In the avalanche of negative headlines surrounding the European launch of Sony's next-generation PlayStation 3 console, one figure stands out In its first weekend in the UK, the PS3 shifted 165,000 units. Compare that with Wii's impressive 105,000 and Xbox 360's 71,000 for their respective launch weekends and it appears the press has failed to heed Sony's advice from 1994 and has, indeed, underestimated the power of PlayStation.

While those figures will hearten a manufacturer that has been dogged by problems in getting its new product to market in Europe, there will be no resting on its laurels at Sony. Few in the industry think it will enjoy the runaway success it had with the first and second generations of its console. The pounds 15 billion global games market is far more cluttered than it was 13 years ago when the PlayStation launched, and differentiating the Sony brand from its Nintendo and Microsoft rivals will be key to its success.

The TBWA\London campaign backing the launch is certainly distinct. It's vintage PlayStation advertising, not in its message, but its tone. Under any circumstances other than a troubled launch, it would have generated the kind of publicity the console manufacturer thrives on: incomprehension and mild outrage from Middle England, mixed with knowing nods and wry smiles from those who 'get it'.

Called 'this is living', the campaign focuses on a fictional South American hotel populated by a cast of strange characters, including a former footballer who masturbates over videos of his greatest goals and a former Yugoslavian soldier who may or may not be a war criminal of some description. Online, the 'this is living' world is huge. There may - or may not - be a point to the story the characters find themselves wound up in. And that, the TBWA\London head of planning, Tom Morton, says, is the central thrust of the strategy: the console is so powerful, it's almost as if it's a living entity.

'Because the PlayStation 3's artificial intelligence is so strong, it's a box of living entertainment. So the campaign had to be a piece of living entertainment,' he says.

Danny Brooke-Taylor, the joint TBWA\London creative director and one of the creatives behind the campaign, continues: 'People are seeking their entertainment from a multitude of channels, and the PS3 has to compete against them all. Its ads need to be entertaining and evolving in all those channels.