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Sony Killzone resolution lawsuit will not be dismissed

A judge has rejected Sony's bid to get a class action lawsuit against the company dismissed. The lawsuit aims to refund those that bought PS4 launch title, Killzone Shadow Fall, after it was revealed that the game's multiplayer component did not run at 1080p resolution, despite all advertising claiming otherwise.

Sony attempted to get this lawsuit dismissed based on a number of counter arguments but ultimately could not convince the court. However, according to Courthouse News, the original complaint against Sony needs to be slightly ammended before the suit can proceed.

Killzone-Shadow-Fall-4

Back in March, an analysis performed by Digital Foundry revealed that Killzone Shadow Fall's multiplayer ran at 960×1080 resolution, which is significantly lower than full 1080p (1920×1080). The lawsuit's chief plaintiff, Douglas Ladore, claimed back in August that “gamers quickly noticed and complained that Killzone's multiplayer graphics were blurry to the point of distraction.”

Judge, Edward Chen, rejected Sony's bid to dismiss the suit because all but one of the counter arguments “either ignore important factual allegations… or they require this court to construe the complaint in the light most favorable to Sony”.

The one counter argument that was accepted (which has not been disclosed yet), means that the plaintiff now has 30 days to amend his claim and proceed with the lawsuit.

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KitGuru Says: Sony is not having a very good month at all. However, in this case, Sony did heavily market Killzone Shadow Fall as a 1080p title, when it in-fact isn't. Sony will likely come up with a settlement agreement some time next year to make this go away. What do you guys think of this? 

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9 comments

  1. Søren Chr. Nielsen

    While I feel bad for Sony with all the trouble they’ve been going through of late, much of which was not of their own doing, this particular issue is totally justified. If a guilty verdict is reached, this will be a victory for the consumer and a loss for the world of false advertising. I’m hoping this will create a precedence for future cases, where companies make false claims in advertising campaigns, in order to keep the companies in check and keep them honest.

  2. This is utterly pointless. People are complaining for something that is so dumb. It did run 1920×1080, rendering two 960×1080 on screen to render 1920×1080 at any point in the game. It does not suffer from any blur at all.

    Does people heard of what interlacing means? This is similar to 1080i which renders two 1920×540 which you will see 1920×1080 all the time.

  3. Your missing the point Sony claimed the game was 1080p and the standard for that is 1920×1080 & not 960×1080 so some people may have only picked up the game based on the fact they where told its 1080p, I understand the fact that this is a little overboard to sue some one over a resolution but I guess people don’t like being lied too.

  4. I had this exact same argument before back when this was a news. Have a look at Sony explaining the new technology they used for the rendering of Killzone.

    Btw it is not 960×1080, you do get full 1920×1080 rendered by 2 960×1080. Same pixel count, same quality of image, no such thing as “blurry to the point of distraction”.

    Please note when the game was out, people could not see the difference comparing screenshot from multiplayer to singleplayer because it looked similar, until Sony went to public and explained their technology of interlacing 2 960×1080 images to achieve a 1080p 60fps for the multiplayer. That was the time people without proper knowledge of resolution rendering start flipping out and did this pointless lawsuit. Sony was like “we used TWO 960×1080 render and using their new rendering method to combine them to 1920×1080” and people saw them as “bla bla bla 960×1080 render bla bla bla bla”.

    Sony did not lie, it was 1920×1080 and 1080p OUTPUT TO YOUR SCREEN, NO PIXEL LOST. If they were to get lawsuit for that, every other game should as well because they are rendered from 1×1 1920 times horizontally and 1080 times vertically. Does it sound ridiculous now?

    Not to mention, this could have been done by other game companies as well. Nothing wrong with companies improving their game engine graphic rendering to provide maximum performance AND target resolution.

  5. The game is 1080p except for multiplayer.

    While the diference is probably minimal (half-HD is still better then 720p which is quarter-HD), and clearly not “blurry to the point of distraction” (but for the sake of framerate which may be more important in multiplayer), the justice should make Sony reflect on their way of marketing their games (and every company in the inustry).

  6. Cryss Roxas Leonhart

    There’s a real issue if the deciding factor of whether or not I purchase a game should be down to the resolution it’s played in ~.~

  7. BradyAlucard[sillibk]

    The Multiplayer is 1080p no matter what. It’s factually true.

  8. BradyAlucard[sillibk]

    It’s not 960×1080, though… It’s interlaced.

  9. BradyAlucard[sillibk]

    It’s not fucking false advertising… the game is factually 1080p.