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Wednesday, August 18, 2010

UK Ad Watchdog Criticises 360 Advert For Using PS3 Footage In Promotion

The Advertisting Standards Authority this week upheld a viewer's complaint as it found Square-Enix guilty of misleading gamers by using images from the PlayStation 3 version of Final Fantasy XIII in an advert for the 360 version.

The investigation came as one single viewer complained that a sequence of images was from the supposedly superior PS3 version. ASA officials were sent both consoles and games and determined that PS3 screen quality to be sharper than the Xbox version and ordered the offending advert to be removed from circulation.

A spokesman for the ASA said the viewer's objections had been upheld, adding: "The ASA noted that the viewer, who saw the ad in HD, was concerned that the images from the PS3 version of the game were sharper than those on the 360".

"We tested the two games, on screens with an identical set up, and ran them alongside one another".

"We noted that there was a discernible difference in the picture quality of the two - the PS3 image in video sequences appeared sharper and colours were more vivid than those of the 360".

"We considered that, because the ad promoted the game on the 360 platform, it should have featured footage derived from that console".

"Because it did not, and because we considered that the use of PS3 footage in the ad exaggerated the quality of the footage available on the XBOX 360, albeit marginally, we concluded the ad was misleading".

Square-Enix later confirmed that the advert actually contained no in-game footage and was instead mostly composed of full motion video. The difference in quality comes from the fact that due to 360 DVDs having a lower storage capacity than the PlayStation 3's Blu-Ray disks, the footage had to be compressed on the 360 version, thus slightly degrading the image quality.

The publisher added that there was 'no substantive difference' in the output of the game and that most people, even avid gamers wouldn't notice the difference.

1 comment:

kk said...

nice post! thank you for sharing!