2. What stage of the product life cycle does this product describe? Which of the four main marketing strategies applies here? The product life cycle is a good way to identify the marketing strategy formulation. The product life cycle has 4 phases: introduction, growth, maturity and decline. Sony PlayStation 4 was released on November 15, 2013 in North America and Sony claims to have successfully sold 1 million units of PlayStation 4 on the first day of launch. They double the amount of sales compared to PS3 sales in the first month, as shown in Figure 1. Furthermore, Sony has to exert strong promotion to create awareness about PlayStation 4 because it is a new product. So, Sony PlayStation 4 is being introduced. Sony PlayStation 4 is considered a gaming console and must regularly update and update its product, pricing, promotion and positioning strategy to compete in the industry. The main marketing strategies that apply in this phase are product, promotion and price strategies. The product strategies at this stage have largely expressed the specifications of PlayStation 4 and the advantages of its features as to why it is better than other gaming consoles. Sony shows product qualities that attract the interest of the target customer market, hardcore gamers. Avid gamers demand their games to be visually appealing and of superior quality, and Sony PlayStation 4 proves that they are capable of doing just that. Furthermore, at this stage, Sony offers the customer the opportunity to provide information about the product so that it can improve and perform better than its competitor. This strategy will be discussed further in point 4. Sony uses various pricing strategies to attract consumer interest in the introduction phase. The odd price is exercised by... middle of the card... given better brand loyalty, 93% of PlayStation 3 owners said they were interested in buying a PlayStation 4 over an Xbox One (7%). Demographic segmentation is based on factors such as age and gender. The Entertainment Software Association (2013) reported that 51% of US households own a dedicated game console. The gender demographic is 55% male and 45% female. Furthermore, according to the same resource, the average age of a player in 2013 is 30 years old, of which 32% are under 18 years old, 32% are between 18 and 35 years old and 36% are over 36 years old. However, not all players included in this survey are considered core gamers. The composition of hardcore gamers is more aimed at the younger demographic. The NPD Group's survey (2013) reveals that young people aged 9-17 are most likely to be hardcore gamers (26%), while those aged 18-35 are slightly lower at 21% and the percentage starts to drop from here.