Sony has kicked off an Irish PS3 campaign by showing the console to national media and premiering its TV ad.

According to Irish news portal Unison.ie, EURO1.5 million will be spent over seven weeks, with TV, print, online, outdoor and viral advertising.

The company plans to show a live graffiti performance at a Dublin site around the launch date.

“We've never done anything like this to this scale before,” Sony’s marketing director in Ireland Marea Gray told Unison. “It was quite expensive to do, but you have to showcase the product properly.

“What we've done, it's about embodying what the brand is about. We’re not just saying ‘here's a console and here's great graphics’. We’re showing how the PS3 is part of a lifestyle thing.”

 Gray added that the PS3, with its EURO600 plus price tag, wouldn't appeal to any specific age profile.

 “We're just going after people who have this appetite for entertainment. That could be a 15-year-old; it might be a 50-year-old,” she said.

And on the subject of Wii, she added: “We're aware of what the competition is doing and we know that Wii is still spending a lot. Wii tends to go for a very product driven campaign, PlayStation tends not to go down that road.”