Following poor financial results, Sony is set to spend a massive £4 million on advertising in the first quarter of this year in the United Kingdom.

The largest chunk of that cash - £2 million - will go on Killzone 2, by far the company's biggest upcoming title.

The remainder will be split among the PSP range (including Resistance: Retribution and Buzz! Brain of the UK), SingStar Queen and... several titles that came out before Christmas - LittleBigPlanet, Resistance 2 and MotorStorm Pacific Rift (reviewed here, here and here).

That looks suspiciously like an indirect admission that those 2008 titles underperformed. SCEE's marketing director, Alan Duncan, explained it to industry bible, MCV, as follows - "We felt that the chaos of Q4 meant there was a good opportunity for re-promoting our games after Christmas. The creative for the campaign focuses on critical accolade and is aimed at gamers still catching up with all those titles that came out before Christmas."

With those games having been out since 2008, it may be seen as too little too late by many. It also shows that there's not a lot coming up from Sony worth promoting.

The marketing expenditure will be split between TV, cinema, online, in-store promotion and "a great deal of PR activity", according to Duncan. No mention was made of print.

^{Source: MCV}