back to article Ads watchdog: PS3 graphics 'discernibly' better than Xbox

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) this week announced that the PS3 produces better quality pictures that the Xbox 360 - at least in Final Fantasy XIII. The conclusion follows a complaint from a punter which alleged that an HD-broadcast ad for Final Fantasy XIII on the Xbox 360 was misleading because developer Square …

COMMENTS

This topic is closed for new posts.
  1. Michael Downie

    Odd that...

    ...considering that ads like that tend to have a small print indicating which platform the images are from. I would have thought them putting "PS3 footage" on the bottom of the ad would have negated the need for an investigation.

    You don't see Wii customers kicking off because the graphics on the Wii version of Toy Story 3 are significantly worse than the PS3 graphics shown on the advert.

    1. LinkOfHyrule
      Joke

      It was probably a fanboi

      It was probably a fanboi who complained to the ASA. He's got a good few days of forum bait out of this now - "PS3 is da best the Advertisingz standardz thingy even says so, so it must be true!"

      Wii owners are apparently to busy dusting their wiis to be making complaints if internet gaming forums are to be believed!

      1. Dan Herd
        FAIL

        Ah, internet gaming forums...

        ...where everyone who bought a Wii spends their spare time.

    2. Monty Burns

      and thats because....

      they are busy enjoying there game. This person was obviously bored of the game and had nothing better to do other than write and complain about a very small (but accurate) point.

      I guess they should consider themselves lucky. In the US he would have probably bought the console and game, played it for 3 seconds and then sued the publisher for 10gazillion dollars, claiming emotional damage or something else just as absurd.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Also

      They note that one hardware setup was used for both consoles. All this means then is that that particular TV model shows the PS3 better. Is it not possible that different hardware could cause different displays? On top of that, different versions of the Xbox360 have different HD components. The version of 360 you use will effect your output to the screen.

      One of the huge problems with testing processors or any computer platform is that different test strings benefit one product far more than another. In this situation, based on other posts here, it appears to be the codec used that is causing problems. Since the game is what is being advertised, not the codec, one could argue that the game is the same cross platform, while the hardware is the issue. Now, since Square is selling neither PS3s nor Xboxes, they have no responsibility here.

  2. John Sanders
    Flame

    lol

    "we concluded the ad was misleading"

    And the way you titled the article too.

  3. Tigra 07
    FAIL

    Kinda useless

    Is this just a way of telling us that the ASA use tax money to buy Xboxes and PS3s to play with?

  4. David Gosnell

    The hardship

    The hardships they have to suffer. For their next adjudication, a questionable claim that a 4TB SSD array allows faster loading times than a ZX Spectrum audio cassette...

  5. Mike Brown

    misleading ads

    there is hundreds. th ones that annoy me are the ones for eye make up stuff. they always say "look how bold and lush your lashes look with our black gunk" then underneath mention that the models lashes are enhanced in post production and filmed with lash inserts. how can that be allowed?

  6. Code Monkey

    Either...

    Either he works for Sony or needs to switch off his console and get out more.

  7. Jim_aka_Jim
    Coat

    Another misleading title...

    but the larger point is: is this the start of MILLIONS of disclaimers spoiling decent trailers?

    You can watch a movie trailer in HD, 'available on DVD and BlueRay', then buy it on DVD and complain that the quality isn't as good as the trailer?

    False advertising is bad, I completely agree. Idiotic consumers spoiling it for everyone else: worse.

  8. Mark Broadhurst
    WTF?

    Bias title

    I do like how they normally drop the fact that its only one game from the title.

    I'm sure other games the opposite is true (GTA4 for example).

    If you drop the game the story is much more interesting.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    On behalf of the PS3 fanbois to the Xbox fanbois

    Haw-Haw!

    1. corrodedmonkee

      of course...

      Whilst the standard PC gamer knows that 'top quality graphics' on a console is a misnomer.

  10. Mr Brush
    FAIL

    EPIC FAIL

    Of course the pre-rendered sequences are better on the PS3, they're being streamed in HD from a Blu-Ray disc with buckets of storage, rather than being downsized and shoe horned onto a bog standard DVD.

    In other news:

    Ursine Mammals prefer to defecate in Arboral Environments

    Dolly Parton sleeps on her back

    One legged duck swims in circles

  11. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    And yet

    advertisers can get away with smallprint so small you can't read it on standard definition screens...

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Probably on Final Fantasy XIII ...

    The game was initially a corner stone of the "PS3 vs Xbox 360" arguement employed by Sony fanboys because Final Fantasy XIII - which was in development for many years - was initially aimed exclusively at the PS3.

    The development team far later into the development cycle had to port this to 360 too, and as most of the graphics engine was developed specifically for the PS3 I'm sure it was difficult to get the best out of the 360 in the port.

    I think most games that are developed from the ground up for both platforms are not notably different in terms of graphical performance. Modern Warfare 2 seemed to do better on 360, but I recall GTA IV looked crisper on PS3. Apparently.

  13. Charles 9
    Flame

    FF13? D'uh...

    The title of the article is rather misleading since it makes one assume the general case when it is in fact being described for one particular instance where the differences are well-documented.

    To fit on the more limited space of the Xbox 360 DVDs, a lower-quality video codec was used for the FMV clips in the 360 version of FF13 (indeed, many are saying they used an inferior codec, Bink, to that normally available to 360 developers--perhaps due to licensing issues since Square already owned a Bink license). That said, the in-game graphics are pretty bloody close to each other, and this holds out for most of the multiplatform titles available in this current generation.

  14. 20legend
    Grenade

    PS3 graphics 'discernibly' better than Xbox...

    shame the games aren't

    1. MJI Silver badge
      Joke

      Your forgot this icon!

      Game quality! I think the PS3 exclusives are much better, the Uncharted series alone is reason to buy a PS3, then Gran Turismo 5 in the autumn, and of course Ratchet and Clank

  15. IR

    Wait

    They actually had in-game footage in a game advert? They are nearly always just cut-scenes, which of course look significantly different to what you see 99% of the time when playing, especially on Final Fantasy.

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Pint

    Maybe so but...

    Maybe so and as 360 owner, I would be inclined to agree.

    Betamax was supposedly better than VHS, and we know what came out on top!

    Sony botched the marketing of the PS3, overpriced it and never gave enough support to the game studios, 360 surged ahead. The PS3 may be very good, but Sony just kept shooting the poor thing in the foot time and again!

  17. jason 7
    FAIL

    ASA - Fantasy dreamers.

    These are the same folks that told me using the term 'magical' was perfectly acceptable when describing the attributes of the iPad. Quite how you quantify 'magical' I don't know.

    I wrote back asking if they wanted to buy some 'magic beans' for £50 a go.

    I havent heard anything.

    However, the PS3 has shown one thing. If you hamstring a console with a crappy outdated GPU (RSX) and then have to resort to bypassing it to do anything fancy in Cell, that the next gen consoles should just bulk up on pure CPU grunt/bandwidth and do all the fancy stuff in software.

  18. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Old news

    The PS3 and 360 versions of FFXIII have been compared extensively since the 360 version launched back in March.

    The main difference is in the CG scenes where the video had to be compressed more in order to fit in the DVDs of the 360 as opposed to the higher capacity blu-ray of the PS3. Additionally the game had been developed for the PS3 over a number of years, and was ported in a relatively short time to the 360.

    360 owners can take comfort in the fact that this is probably the only cross platform game that looks better on the PS3; in almost every other case the opposite is true. This is partly thanks to the 360's much more powerful GPU, and partly thanks to the much simpler architecture and far superior dev tools: if you spend the same effort/money building a PS3 version and a 360 version, the 360 will always end up looking much better. In the case of FFXIII Square Enix simply spent a lot more time optimising the PS3 version.

    By the way, I own both consoles, and I actually prefer using the PS3 as it's much more quier so hopefully I won't be accused of being a 360 fanboy.

  19. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    Nope..........

    The ASA STILL hasn't done anything remotely useful during its lifetime.

    And it doesn't sound like they're trying to either. Almost as useless as OFCOM.

    How much did this little exercise in saving society cost, one wonders.

  20. Stu 18
    Thumb Up

    cool expense claim

    Oh dear, we have to buy two high def tvs an xbox and ps3 to do our research. Now where did I leave that big bottomless pit of taxpayer money?

  21. Lance 3

    Status quo

    That is status quo as they have done that for ages. Name a game that was multi-platform and they will always pick the best graphics for the ads. I'm sure there was small print listed that listed that images may come from a different platform.

  22. Anonymous Coward
    Coat

    Ahh, this brings back memories...

    ...of seeing PC games at Electronics Boutique, with all of these awesome screenshots... that were all from the freaking Amiga version. The PC version was usually CGA or some crap, all cyan and magenta. God damnit.

    Worthless cretins, Amiga users and their blitters and coppers and funny-ass graphics modes. Use 320x200 like God intended, damn you! What the hell, 482x360? That's unnatural!

    *stalks off in a jealous rage*

  23. This post has been deleted by its author

  24. Semaj

    a

    Ah they are both good consoles.

    And the graphics REALLY don't matter - the only FF games worth playing are 3, 7 and 8. Everything since 8 has been complete and utter tripe.

  25. Chris Beach
    WTF?

    PS3 Better, nope!

    mmm, odd seeing as even now the 360 often comes off better in direct head to heads, better AA and less tearing normally.

    Ok its a pointless slight margin but hey, just see http://www.eurogamer.net/digitalfoundry.

  26. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    Of course it's not just FFXIII that's better on PS3

    It's a whole raft of multiplatform titles. The problem is, alot of gamers are too stupid to see that Eurogamer/DigitalFoundry are cherrypicking what games, and even what parts of games to compare. So they come away with the twisted view on reality. That of course keeps Eurogamer/DigitalFoundry's masters in Redmond VERY happy of course.

  27. M7S
    Thumb Up

    I'm impressed

    That they conducted a simple and sensible investigation. There's not much that they can do about it other than ban the ad, but it is nice to see a regulator using commons sense.

  28. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Just wondering...

    Does anyone actually have anything worthwhile to say, or is it just going to be PS3/360 owners trying to justify one way or the other?

    I agree with Mike Brown - advertising products like conditioners, mascara and the like using "falsies" and then further enhancing (i.e. completely fudging) the image in post-production is much more of a case for false advertising than this.

    As someone else mentioned, a simple note advising the graphics came from PS3 would have been enough.

  29. Paul Hates Handles
    Coat

    meh

    It's just the in-game FMV coming from bluray instead of a more compressed format. In one game.

    Better ingame video != better graphics... Meh.

  30. thecresta
    FAIL

    This article

    = TROLL MAGNET

  31. Jimlad

    Colours more vivid...

    Seriously? Reds redder, blues bluer? Xbox 360 in inability to output full range of RGB values shocker.

This topic is closed for new posts.

Other stories you might like