When a big brand takes a chance with TV advertising, it's a sign that it's enjoying good times. The ad featuring the girl with the funny head is a testament to the power of PlayStation and the confidence that Sony Computer Entertainment (SCE) currently enjoys. She is "Fi-fi the cyber-pixie", created by the TBWA agency in Britain and, no, she doesn't look like that in real life.

The president of Sony's European division, Mr Chris Deering, a US marketeer who worked with Atari and Columbia Pictures before joining SCE, explains what it's all about.

"There's a risk, as you become more mass market, that you're seen as expected, rather than respected," he says. "Part of our objective is to keep signalling our core audience, the 18 to 24 age group. They're easily bored and the intent on PlayStation has always been to be a little bit unpredictable. "We wanted to avoid ending up with a mass brand personality like Coca-Cola. This ad says: `You thought you had us figured out, but not quite'."

Fine, but what does it actually mean? "The message is lofty in some ways. Get off your butt and make something happen in your own time. Set a goal and go for it. We wanted it to be mysterious, alluring and totally captivating. The objective was to be somewhat controversial and illicit, rather than straight up."

To elaborate the point, Mr Deering likens the ad to the "Think Different" campaign from Apple Computers or Nike's "Just Do It" slogan. They are big names to drop, but he can get away with it. The success of PlayStation since its introduction in 1995 has been unqualified. Worldwide unit sales will soon exceed 60 million. By the end of Christmas, Sony's Irish office estimates that there will be half a million PlayStations in Irish homes. The Republic already boasts the second highest per capita penetration of the console after Japan, a success story that Mr Deering attributes to national traits ("a love of fun"), a young population and a local office. "It's important to have an Irish office with Irish staff," he stresses. "It provides a strong point of contact for retailers and consumers."

Regionalisation of the marketing strategy includes dubbing Irish voices on to the ads (Fi-fi refers to Phibsboro and not Grimsby as in the British version).

In 12 months, Sony will launch a new console to build on the awesome penetration of the existing PlayStation. Backwards compatible, meaning current games will play on the new machine, PlayStation 2 will be a serious box of tricks for under £300. A DVD (Digital Versatile Disc) player as well as a games console, it will have a graphics workstation more powerful than the Pentium III and back-end connections for Internet access.

When first announced in March, however, the PS2's DVD ability was not confirmed. So, what changed? "The original spec said it was technically capable of DVD," Mr Deering explains, "but it had not been decided to make it DVD-based. Maybe they wanted to see what happened to the format. It had a very good Christmas and sales continued to grow through the summer, so perhaps that had an effect on the decision."

Isn't it more likely that it was a response to Nintendo's announcement that its next console, Dolphin, would be DVD-capable? "I really don't know if the Nintendo announcement made a difference," comes the reply, "but it was something that was noted".

One suspects that Nintendo forced Sony's hand. As part of a giant corporation, Sony Computer Entertainment could soon be poaching business from its hardware division, a problem it would have preferred to avoid. However, Mr Deering does not see this as an issue.

"The characteristics of the movie-playing PS2 are such that if you have a home cinema set-up, the chances are you will want a higher-end machine."

So it's a low-end DVD player?

"It's a solid spec, but yes, there will be higher-end machines on the market. The intent is to promote it as a one-stop entertainment unit, but it won't be pushed as a DVD player that can also play games. It will be sold as a faster and more wonderful interactive entertainment device that also plays passive entertainment like DVD movies."

Mr Deering sees wider benefits for DVD as a whole: "If PS2 adds millions of DVD players to homes, it will grow the DVD business faster. Laser discs reached a plateau of five million, so if DVD expands closer to VCR penetration, all of the companies involved will do more business."

The good news from Mr Deering's viewpoint is that his new machine's DVD double life will take PlayStation to an older audience at a time when the current console has saturated the teenage market. "There is a conscious migration towards making PlayStation into a family unit, proudly displayed in the main entertainment room," he confirms. "PS2 will be seen as a family entertainment control tower, and that doesn't exclude any age category. Like TV, where kids watch MTV and the cartoon channel and dad watches sport, kids can play games on PS2 and dads can watch movies."

There is less enthusiasm when it comes to the subject of Internet capability.

"Personally, I think it's Sega's biggest mistake," he says, shooting across the bows of the newly launched Dreamcast which has made a great deal of its online applications.

"Until such time as a lot of people are hooked up to wide bandwidth, where you can get two-way instant feedback, I don't think online gaming is going to be the main event for the Dreamcast or PlayStation 2."

Mr Deering returns to a favourite theme, the simple "plug-in-and-play" user-friendliness of PlayStation, which he believes is key to its success.

"The whole area of game machines, as distinct from PCs, is about simplicity and predictability for the average Joe. You don't have to worry about ISP configurations and losing your tax files.

"With baud rate [modem speeds], call costs and regulations across different countries, the online applications are almost a nightmare," he says, "and you have to be very, very careful if you're going to do something that it's going to work. It's an exciting new feature, but it won't be the main event at the launch."

Problems with establishing Internet access contributed to the slippage of the introduction of the Dreamcast, and the application is still not available in Ireland. But if going online is so riddled with pitfalls, why does PS2 make provision for it?

"You have to allow for it," says Mr Deering, "because you can't predict what will be happening in six months. But, to be honest, we haven't really worked out how the Internet application will work. "A lot of ISPs have come to us and we're open to ideas. But I can say for definite that PS2 is much more relevant as an entry-level DVD player, than an entry-level Internet machine. It's not being positioned as Web TV."

Wherever Mr Deering puts the marketing emphasis, he knows he is handling a hot piece of property. PlayStation 2 will be the first of a new era in home entertainment products, and our living rooms will never be the same again.

Despite the rising PlayStation sales, Sony's first-half profits plunged by nearly 25 per cent as the high value of the yen took its toll on exports, according to figures released earlier this week.

The company's mobile phones business was hit by heavy losses, while its entire electronics sales fell 6.8 per cent to 2.2 trillion yen.