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Reddened cheeks in abundance as an Xbox advert for Final Fantasy XIII is revealed as using footage from the PlayStation 3 game. Naughty, naughty!

The Xbox iteration of FFXIII is famously not up to scratch compared to the PS3 game. Others have blamed differences in each console’s capabilities for that, although that’s still no excuse for trying to fool punters into believing that the two versions are on a par, visually-speaking.

Either way, an eagle-eyed viewer spotted the attempted subterfuge and complained to the Advertising Standards Authority. They, in turn, sat down and actually played both versions of the game next to each other; comparing, contrasting and noting that “...there was a discernable difference in the picture quality of the two – the PS3 image in video sequences appeared sharper and colours were more vivid than those of the XBOX 360." Well, we could have told them that.

But that’s not the end of it, with the ASA ruling: "We considered that, because the ad promoted the game on the XBOX 360 platform, it should have featured footage derived from that console."

"Because it did not, and because we considered that the use of PS3 footage in the ad exaggerated the quality of the footage available on the XBOX 360, albeit marginally, we concluded the ad was misleading."

And so the advert in its current format has been banned from British TV forthwith and corporate wrists have been duly slapped. If the ad in question was still running that’d be even funnier, however FFXIII has already been out since March and a XIVth outing is heading to PS3 and PC platforms this September.

Meanwhile, Final Fantasy maker, Square Enix, has defended the ad claiming that the offending footage was taken from cinematic cut-scenes and was compressed for broadcast purposes, although it admits that it was ‘played back’ on a PlayStation 3. Furthermore, the publisher tells the ASA that it “…did not believe any average viewer, or indeed avid gamer, would perceive any difference in the output (of the two versions) unless reviewing the materially forensically.”

Hmmm, in that case a glittering career in the CSi awaits us all. But is this the first time a PS3 game has been used in place of its Xbox 360 counterpart, or vice versa? Apart from that, do you even care that there are visual disparities between Xbox 360 and PS3 versions of the same game? Graphics, good or bad, shouldn’t really make any difference to actual gameplay, should they?