Sony Being Sued for $5 Million

Published: August 7, 2014 12:33 PM /

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Kill Zone Shadow Fall

Sony Computer Entertainment has recently come under speculation regarding the true resolution of Killzone: Shadow Fall. The claim (which you can read here) states that Sony advertised the game (including multiplayer) at native 1080p resolution but does not deliver on this claim. While KZ: SF does run at unscaled 1080p resolution for its single player campaign, the multiplayer portions use what Killzone developer Guerrilla Games calls "temporal projection" to achieve  1080-esque visuals.

"In Multiplayer mode however, we use a technique called "temporal projection", which combines pixels and motion vectors fro multiple lower-resolution frames to reconstruct a full 1080p image. If native means that every part of the pipeline is 1080p, then this technique is not native."

Killzone's multiplayer uses an upscaling technique to appear running at 1080p. But is this technically false advertisement?

The lawsuit states that, had the game stated it did not run in true 1080p for multiplayer, the plaintiff would not have purchased the product, he would not have purchased the game at all, or would have paid substantially less for it. The Plaintiff sites both the back of the box (which says 1080p video output without any asterisks or additional information) as well as various sites "that contained the representations disseminated by Sony-i.e., that Killzone would provide native "1080p multiplayer graphics". The definition of false advertisement reads: Any advertising or promotion that misrepresents the nature, characteristics, qualities or geographic origin of goods, services or commercial activities.

That definition seems to fit the Plaitiffs case for misleading advertising, particularly if he can support his claim that he would not have purchased the game had he known about the visuals ahead of time. Ultimately, the victor shall be decided based upon the decision of whether or not this "temporal projection" is still regarded as legal-to-advertise 1080p.

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Avid shooter and platformer fan. Coffee is the only power up I need. In the spare time I have I will listen to more podcasts than has scientifically been… More about Bryan