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Sony in hot water for misleading PS Vita ads

By Salehuddin Bin Husin - on 27 Nov 2014, 8:24am

Sony in hot water for misleading PS Vita ads

The PS Vita is now on its second incarnation, with a slimmer body and screen seen here. Still, the original version is technically superior, due to its OLED screen.

A recent FTC (Federal Trade Commission, similar to CASE) investigation in the US has found Sony to be guilty in a case brought forward FTC. The FTC alleged that Sony's PS Vita ads were misleading, making the PS Vita appear to have capabilities it did not have.

While not a legal issue yet (and will likely never be), Sony has preemptively headed off a legal tussle by offering a $25 refund or a $50 voucher to redeem a game on the Playstation Network (as of now, the game's still unnamed) to customers who bought the Vita before June 1st, 2012.

There are a multitude of issues here, mainly dealing with misrepresentation of how remote play, cross saves and cross platform gaming is handled between the PS Vita and the PS3. The FTC makes claims that some of the features didn't exactly work as advertised or were missing in games altogether.

A statement on the FTC's page clearly highlights the issue the FTC has with the PS Vita's advertisements.

As part of its launch campaign for the PS Vita, Sony claimed that the pocket-sized console would revolutionize gaming mobility by enabling consumers to play their PlayStation 3 games via “remote play,” and that they could engage in “cross platform” play by starting a game on a PS3 and then continuing it on the go, right where they left off, on a PS Vita. The FTC alleges that each of these claims was misleading.

While Sony kept its word and provided Remote Play on the Vita (and now on  Xperia Z3 and Z2 devices), the claims the FTC made that it was misleading seems to be right. While remote play works like that now, it is Remote Play done via the PS4 and the PS Vita, not between the PS3 and the PS Vita. On the PS3, only a handful of games supported Remote Play, and most of them were just indie games. The point the FTC seems to be making is that Sony seemed to hint that all games on the PS3 would be Remote Play capable, which is obviously not the case.

Source: FTC

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