EA misled gamers with Wii Woods ad, says watchdog

Wrong footage

Electronic Arts has been slapped on the wrists by the Advertising Standards Agency, following complaints that adverts for Tiger Woods PGA Tour '09 on the Wii used footage from the Xbox 360 version of the game.

The advert showed Woods swinging a Wii Remote, the subsequent in-game footage used was actually taken from the Xbox 360. Punters complained that the display quality on the Xbox 360 was far better than that of the Wii release.

The ASA ruled that the TV ad could lead Wii gamers to believe that the image quality shown would be that provided by the Wii edition of the title.

The advert did warn that the game is available on multiple formats, EA said. The published also claimed that the game’s Wii edition footage couldn't be used because it “would not be of broadcast quality”. But the ASA upheld viewer complaints.

“Viewers would infer from the ad that Tiger Woods was playing the game on a Wii console,” said the ASA. “Because viewers would not be able to achieve the graphical quality shown in the ad on a Wii console, we concluded that the ad was misleading.”