UK - ASA moves to ban Wii U commercial over off-TV game o...

[robometal cowboy]

UK - ASA moves to ban Wii U commercial over off-TV game option
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Ad

A TV ad for the Nintendo Wii U games console included the claim "Say someone wants to watch TV when you're halfway through a game ... do both, and everyone's happy". The player was shown switching from playing on the TV screen to playing on the built-in screen of the GamePad controller.

Issue

The complainant, who believed that the option to switch gameplay to the GamePad controller would not be available on all games, challenged whether the ad was misleading.

Yes, a single person has complained about the commercial, stating that it misleads consumers into thinking that all games offer off-TV play. I swear, things like this make it very, very hard to have faith in humanity over the tiniest things.

Link

[Triforce of the Gods]

People are stupid. Move along, nothing to see here.

[Chosenoneknuckles]

Tbh, it should've had a simple disclaimer along the lines of 'this doesn't work for all games'. It is misleading in this vein [such a shame that, excluding Wii U unique games like ZombiU, that it isn't a universal feature, tbh].

I've seen far more nitpicky complaints [in general]...

[Entity]

Well. Not all games do have the feature, so it is somewhat misleading yes. But seems l\more like they could have contacted Nintendo instead of banning the commercial like this.

[ninjablaze]

It would be nice you if you could off-TV play every Wii U game. It was one of the features I was probably the least excited for before I got one, but now it's honestly the best thing I like about it.

[Lockdale]

I also thought that all Wii U games use off TV Play, until I finally got a Wii U. I also believe that ALL Wii U games should have that feature. It's perhaps the biggest selling point of the Wii U.

I do not condone banning the commercial however. I think an edit like a quick disclaimer would help.

[void3953]

So I suspect all XBox Live commercials will be banned next, right? All Kinect commercials too. Oh, and All Move commercials and that Wonderbook thing.

Shouldn't they ban all games systems and games commercials in the first place then? I think that would be the easiest thing to do in this case.

[Berrix]

I also thought that all Wii U games use off TV Play, until I finally got a Wii U. I also believe that ALL Wii U games should have that feature. It's perhaps the biggest selling point of the Wii U.

I do not condone banning the commercial however. I think an edit like a quick disclaimer would help.

Yeah I can agree with this, though it hasn't truly affected me on the games I play. Though I do have a local Target employee who damn the whole company cause of it's "lying and misleading pitch of portable gaming," stating to many who go there that the system lies about making your game portable into the controller.

[ninjablaze]

So I suspect all XBox Live commercials will be banned next, right? All Kinect commercials too. Oh, and All Move commercials and that Wonderbook thing.

Shouldn't they ban all games systems and games commercials in the first place then? I think that would be the easiest thing to do in this case.

I...don't see the connection you're trying to make here.

[Fuffelpups]

This is just stupid, not every game can use every System Feature.

[Mirai]

ZombiU

[Sammet]

It's crazy that a single complaint gets this banned. But then it's not like it's on all the time either - I watch my fair share of tv and haven't seen it since before Christmas (when I saw it 3-4 times).

[chris_the_wing]

This reminds me of a story I read not to long ago about a UK billboard for an eye lash extending make-up product. The photo on the billboard was deemed to unrealistic and it was banned as misleading advertising even though it didn't show a before & after comparison. The model may have simply had long lashes, but because the product wouldn't produce the same result on the average person it was pulled.
This falls right in line with that, a result (off TV play) promised by the advert that the product doesn't deliver on.

[void3953]

So I suspect all XBox Live commercials will be banned next, right? All Kinect commercials too. Oh, and All Move commercials and that Wonderbook thing.

Shouldn't they ban all games systems and games commercials in the first place then? I think that would be the easiest thing to do in this case.

I...don't see the connection you're trying to make here.

XBox Live doesn't work with all games.
Kinect doesn't work with all games.
Move doesn't work with all games.
Wonderbook doesn't work with all games.

For that matter, certain games only work on certain systems. It's not a difficult train of thought to follow.

I think the connection speaks for itself.

[Vidaluko]

This is the kind of people that made the accesories boxes said: console not included

[ddddd]

IS Off-TV some sort of an "official feature" that appears in the boxart? Like the controllers list on the back of the box.

[Entity]

I also thought that all Wii U games use off TV Play, until I finally got a Wii U. I also believe that ALL Wii U games should have that feature. It's perhaps the biggest selling point of the Wii U.

I do not condone banning the commercial however. I think an edit like a quick disclaimer would help.

NO! ALL Wii U games should NOT have the feature. ZombiU is the prime example of that. Looking around in your bag and getting distracted from the TV screen is one of the main, and BEST points of the game and shows how much potential the WiiU has with the two screens.

[uWaAvenger]

Simply put all games DO NOT have this function and it should have a small disclaimer in the ads.. it is indeed Fair.

[Frank]

I do not condone banning the commercial however. I think an edit like a quick disclaimer would help.

That's what the banning means though, that they're not allowed to show it in its current form. If they made an edit to make it more obvious that it only works with some games then they'll be free to re-submit it.

[BigLord]

It is fair to have a disclaimer, true, but BANNING the commercial over that stupid issue? Really?

*facepalm*

[Chased]

The complaint is 100% correct, the removal of the ad is 100% correct. There is nothing wrong with this. Nintendo just needs to add a huge disclaimer in this ad and they should be OK...

BUT this specific advertisement needs to stay off-air! Not even a minute of more exposure to the public.

Let me just remind you that there are too many people asking about which games support the off-screen play function and there is a page in Wikipedia for this.

This is false advertising and it is a serious legal matter, even if what is in the advertisement is not that serious.

[KHRZ]

To be honest, the first thing I thought when seeing the commercial was that people would be misled by this... because the average person doesn't perform the kind of deduction that the TV-dependant feaures won't all be possible on the gameplay, and what 3rd paries decide is outside Nintendo's control (unless they assumed Nintendo would restrict others). So yeah, "misleading advertisement" doesn't neccesarily mean that even people with half a brain will get tricked.

[ddddd]

I also thought that all Wii U games use off TV Play, until I finally got a Wii U. I also believe that ALL Wii U games should have that feature. It's perhaps the biggest selling point of the Wii U.

I do not condone banning the commercial however. I think an edit like a quick disclaimer would help.

NO! ALL Wii U games should NOT have the feature. ZombiU is the prime example of that. Looking around in your bag and getting distracted from the TV screen is one of the main, and BEST points of the game and shows how much potential the WiiU has with the two screens.

Everything zombiu does can be easily replaced with a popup window obstructing the main TV view (just like RE5 did with log reading and item management). If Ubi wanted to do it, the game could easily have had Off-TV play for at least the story mode. Doing it would murder the so-called innovation of the gamepad use in the game, so obviously they wouldnt do it.