Sony Agrees to Deceiving PS Vita Users
The FTC has released this morning about the charges Sony Computer Entertainment (Sony) faced in regards advertising their PS Vita back in 2012. This is when Sony released their commercial which revealed features that would come with PS Vita. However, these features were not found accurate when compared to the PS Vita device itself. The claims Sony made sounded revolutionary and attracted much attention at first. However, either the features were heavily limited on the actual PS Vita device, or were not available on the device at all
There were a couple of features claimed about the PS Vita commercial that were deceiving consumers, or seen as nearly lying by the FTC. The FTC released on a press release this morning some of these “deceiving” features:
“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.”
“Sony claimed, for example, that PS Vita users could pause any PS3 game at any time and continue to play the game on their PS Vita from where they left off. This feature, however, was only available for a few PS3 games, and the pause-and-save capability described in the ads varied significantly from game to game.”
“Sony’s PS Vita ads falsely implied that consumers who owned the 3G version of the device (which cost an extra $50 plus monthly fees) could engage in live, multi-player gaming through a 3G network. In fact, consumers could not engage in live, multiplayer gaming.”
“Sony also falsely claimed that with the ‘remote play’ feature, PS Vita users could easily access their PS3 games on their handheld consoles. In reality, most PS3 games were not remote playable on the PS Vita.”
“Sony also misled consumers by falsely claiming that PS Vita users could remotely play the popular PS3 game, Killzone 3, on the PS Vita. In fact, Sony never enabled remote play on its Killzone 3 game title, and very few, if any, PS3 games of similar size and complexity were remote playable on the PS Vita.”
This was another downfall for Sony in which they handled the situation in a rather mature fashion, similar to how they handled the three weeks of downtime for the PlayStation Network.
Sources:
– http://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2014/11/sony-computer-entertainment-america-provide-consumer-refunds
– http://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/cases/141125sonycmpt.pdf
