Square Enix Releases Doctored and Misleading FFXIII Screenshots: Shame on Them

February 12, 2010
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Square Enix Releases Doctored and Misleading FFXIII Screenshots: Shame on Them

So Kotaku just posted a batch of new screenshots on FFXIII from Square Enix late Friday night. The reason for the set of new screenshots is to show the differences between the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions of the game. As Kotaku pointed out, the comparison shots are exactly the same aside from the UI changes to match the given console.

Take a look at the banner image. I actually made that image with two separate screenshots. I purposely didn’t put a line through where turns from PS3 to 360 to make a point. Without being told, a person would have no way to tell which version the screenshot comes from or where the crossover from one screenshot to the next is.

Xbox 360:

Battle-360

Playstation 3:

Battle-PS3

The obvious difference in these two screenshots is the “LB” icon in the Xbox 360 screenshot and the “L1″ icon in the PS3 screenshot. Outside of this you will not find a single difference in the two images. I challenge you to open the images up in separate tabs or windows and switch back and forth, you won’t find anything different between them. I have posted only one example here, if you wish to compare all the screenshots you can head over to Kotaku.

Clearly Square Enix is not being honest with these recent screenshot releases. This is completely unacceptable and they should not be allowed to use these tactics without major repercussions. I can understand that a lot of video game sites tend to stick to straight reporting of news rather than enter the opinion side of things but something needs to be done about this.

I realize that we are just a small site here at Golgotron but I hope people who work throughout the industry can realize how wrong Square Enix is to do something like this. I think this calls for sites like IGN, Kotaku, Joystiq, and others to take a negative stance against Square Enix and specifically point out how wrong they are and that we, as a collective of gamers, will not allow such behavior within this industry.

I encourage anybody who is reading this to spread the word and make people aware of Square Enix’s dishonest business practices. I will be sending Square Enix an email to express my dissatisfaction with this incident and I encourage others to do the same.

*UPDATE*

So one of the PR reps posted on twitter and had this to say about the incident, “We are looking into how the #FFXIII altered screens ended up in our presskit &will update asap. This was obviously not intentional…” She also tweeted this, “..Aside from easily being proven as altered, and this method not being one we use, we don’t feel there is a need to enhance the X360 #FFXIII“. These tweets came more than 9 hours ago (as of 9:45 AM PST).

If it was a simple mess up then shouldn’t they have the actual screenshot comparisons? If this is the case then it should take all of 10 minutes to put up the correct images and send emails out to everybody that got the original images and problem solved. This isn’t the case, however. Maybe the guy that has the real images isn’t at work today and won’t answer his cell phone. Maybe they are booting up the 360 version of the game and getting real screenshots right now. Whatever the case may be, a couple of tweets does not make up for this mistake from Square Enix.

Posted By: NamelessTed

Molly

There are very very subtle differences in the two images. The PS3 screenshot looks ever so slightly sharper than the 360.

Either way, game’s gonna be better on the PS3.
http://golgotron.com NamelessTed

I didn’t want to get into all the technical mumbo jumbo in the article because it would probably bore most people. What it comes down to is that the game is running on two different engines on two different sets of hardware. When you look at how the GPU in each system renders certain things like anti-aliasing, shadow maps, and texture filtering. Aside from nVidia and ATI hardware handling these things differently (which usually causes instantly noticeable differences) the 360 version of the game also runs on different engine from the PS3 version.
QuizMaster

What I think would be funny is if on the Xbox screenshot, the character was doing more damage.

I’m missing something. What is the complaint of this article? Are you suggesting that the two versions should NOT look the same?
http://golgotron.com NamelessTed

The point I am trying to make is that Square Enix has clearly taken the same picture and just photoshopped the UI to make it look like a screenshot from the other console. This is dishonest and should not be allowed.

If the two games look very similar, then they should release actual screenshots from each of the consoles. I wonder why Square Enix would feel the need to doctor images in this way.
Mounce

Eh. SquareEnix being dishonest or just plain money whoring imbeciles is all but normal now.

I’m sure it’s one or the other, the 360 version got more optimized and Square fears the lashing they’d get seeing as to how it should have been the other way around, or they somehow did a horrible job on the 360 version like Bayonetta on the PS3(I know not the same developer).

Either way, SquareEnix is still riding on Microsofts’ cock bluntly, you see the ‘Exclusive 360 DLC’ they’re now getting? Sony is constantly getting cockslapped by Square, next is that FFXIII Verus will go on the 360 or better yet the Nintendo Wii or DS for shits and giggles.
lol

People have been releasing doctored screenshots forever.
lee mitchell

nice work devs on taking a photo of lightning fight 3 guys on ps3 then getting lightning to fight 3 more guys on the 360 and take a picture in the same exact pose and damage being done :\
jouy

Big surprise from the Japanese Activision.
Tim Larkin

Don’t worry. SquareEnix has many other things to worry about than bad PR. They have relied on old franchises and old game design for way too long. They will be bought out soon enough.
http://southernfriedgamer.com SFG_BKnight

Nice job NamelessTed
wow

I’m in shock. This shouldn’t be happening at all.
http://www.psinsider.com TheWretched

I agree with Ted. Those are simply THE same screenshots with different buttons overlaid on it.

If you have 2 PCs, one with an Nvidia and one with n ATI GPU, you will NOT get the same picture twice either. It is simply how ATI and NVIDIA render graphics.

Either, it was too much work for SE to make 360 screenshots, as PS3 was ready quite some time earlier, or the 360 screenshots don’t quite match what the PS3 renders.
foker

That is just disgusting ,.. SE go fuck yourselves.
Mutator

why dont care about real life? just play the in the console that you like and shut up, freak , fighting for a game is stupid
Str8trashin

@Mounce

You are a fool sir. But it was ok when Square was on Sony’s cock? Nobody was whining then was they, you people are a friggin joke.
t4cg

I just opened up a few pairs in Photoshop; they’re exact pixel-by-pixel duplicates. Makes you boggle at comments like Molly’s.
joke

I think you are just being jealous that FF13 on the 360 looks that good. Did you expect it to look like a PS2 game ? Grow up man. There are tiny differences in the pictures TBH but still…you`d be better bashing Polyphony Digital (GT developer) for all the fake pictures and trailers they released.
Pietro Di Meglio

Hey, im not blacking up the Xbox 360 here because I hate the damn system but did you ever think that maybe this is how good it looks on the console? I know I wouldn’t believe it either, xbox hardware is a fail compared to PS3 but maybe these shots are legit?
Jorge!

Yeah this is pretty silly. Molly quit being a fanboy err… grrl. and play more Zoop jerk.

Rich, I agree with you on this article, next time though, try to sound less like a middle-aged house wife complaining about the poor service at an IHOP.

PS: I still love you. No Homo.
GRonko

But t4cg, don’t you know that if you display the EXACT SAME PIXELS on PS3, they become sharper and generally better, due to the AWESOME POWER OF BLU-RAY ™ and Cell?
Tim Larkin

I just overlaid the two images in Photoshop. They are literally pixel perfect replicas with the exception of the button. The next question would be: Were these rendered on a PC? Most likely. However, I think this is just lazyness, and not some evil intent to trick the public. After all, the screen shots will look very similar, regardless of how it is rendered.
The truth

Can someone tell me what this article is trying to say? Are the photos doctored? Is the PS3 version obviously supposed to look better, but they’re the same here?
Moath

Half-way through this article I though you were being sarcastic then i realized you were serious. Oh NOES it’s not a real screen-shot? DAMN IT man, we really need to take a stance against the evil corporation of Square Enix.

Why don’t you write about something worthwhile
orakga

ahahaha… Molly proves that people will believe whatever they see fit for their narrative.
http://geeeoff.com Geeeoff

Actually, I kind of agree with Molly, because there are slight differences (although INCREDIBLY subtle) in both sharpness and contrast. Now, this could obviously still mean they are shooped and Square Enix has owned up to it being shooped as well. That being said, look at a game like GTA IV, I mean, without putting the games on both systems and playing them side by side, you won’t see a huge difference. Yes, sure, it’s dishonest to do something like this, but I honestly don’t feel that the PS3 is as far ahead visually as it could be when compared to the XBOX so I think most people wouldn’t be able to tell the difference anyway. This still sucks, but I felt I’d jump in the pool and give my opinion!

… BTW if Capcom ever releases doctored photos of SSFIV, I will murder them…

http://golgotron.com NamelessTed

@Geeeoff,

Any difference you think you see between the screenshots is completely in your head. If you do a pixel by pixel comparison you will find the images to be 100% identical, minus the button icon difference. I am too lazy to find a screenshot right now but people have posted on other sites the comparison shots that they have run through software that compares every single pixel.

Edgar

What evidence do you have that Square Enix doctored the screen shots? Have you seen the two versions running side by side, or are you just blinded by some misconception that FFXIII has to look better on the PS3? Have you considered that Square simply had the 360 and PS3 render the exact same scene for the screen shots? I’m sorry but you need stronger evidence then these two pictures look the same before calling Square Enix out
http://geeeoff.com Geeeoff

@NamelessTed

Dude, don’t get me wrong. These are obviously shopped. I guess the point that I was trying to make is that despite what is released on the press to satisfy fans, the two systems are going to run a very similar looking game. You don’t think that this probably happens a lot in the industry? I think that, in this instance, Square Enix slipped up and instead of choosing a DIFFERENT screen shot, they used the same one. It would be naive of us to think that Activision uses different screen shots for PS3 than they do for XBOX 360 when showing stills for Guitar Hero: Hanson.
So, I hope you understand I don’t disagree with the fact that they are the same photo, or even with your opinion of how wrong it is. What happened here is that Square slipped by not doing a good job of lying and just happened to be caught by a very rabid fan base (Final Fantasy fans). I think that when the game is released and you played on your PS3 at home and then you went to your buddies house and saw him playing on his XBOX that (minus any differences in the performance of the TV’s being used) you would see minor, if any differences at all… just sayin. And I know, it’s the principal, but, just sayin…
Edgar

Well it’s time for me to eat crow. Apparantly Square Enix has admitted that both shots are from the PS3 version of the game, here’s a link: http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-6894-Video-Game-News-Examiner~y2010m2d13-Square-Enix-responds-to-doctored-FFXIII-screens. In my defense this is a very poorly written article. The author should have gone into detail to explain how he knew the two shots came from the same source, in this case the PS3 version of the game. It wasn’t until I read the comments that I began to understand how legimitate the author’s claim was. In the future please give your audience a little more respect and explain your argument, because in you article you come off as a ranting fan boy.
joe

who cares if they photshopped it. Only the 4 people getting it on the 360 around the world is going to be offended.
http://golgotron.com Molly

@Edgar: Makes you wonder why they’re using PS3 shots instead of 360 shots… ;)

And to everyone else: I’ve got bad eyesight! I admit this. And yeah, it’s most likely a case of believing what you want to see. My glasses and love of the PS3 made sure to make the image slightly sharper in my mind :D
http://golgotron.com Cory

It’s a matter of PRINCIPLE, JOE!!!! I’m still pissed they’re even releasing it on Xbox… money-grubbing whores…
looked

The top image is definately darker. Those may be the same images, but it looks like they added a filter, or something to make it look a little different.
Kris

I’m confused. How is this a bad thing?
http://golgotron.com Molly

That’s definitely it, looked. The top image is definitely darker.

At any rate, Square admitted to altering the photos. They said they felt there wasn’t any need to enhance the 360 pics, lol.
random person

you know you guys, the arguing is silly. it should be obvious to any smart person that its the same image just by considering whats happening. your looking at in game shots. forget the whole pixel argument, its too technical. just look at whats happening. now, can anyone honestly tell me that they managed to get a picture where the enemys were in the exact same position, while the waves and shit in the background were in the exact same position, while lightning was in the exact same position, doing the exact same amount of damage, with the exact same amount of health, all at the exact same time. do you have any idea how hard that would be, no hell im not even sure it is possible. you would be damn hard pressed to manage getting the same shot twice on just one console let alone 2. so OBVIOUSLY the pictures are doctored. i mean come on, anybody who cant see this is just not thinking properly. im not a genious here, im a normal guy and i can figure this out instantly. so why cant some of you people? /end pointless rant on a website ill probably never visit again
Sephipt

For all of those saying “This one is darker, there are subtle diferences”, have you at least download the pics and really compared them? There are no differences apart from the Button icons.
jak

and in further groundbreaking news. Victory Secret photos are ALL air-brushed. … PR for Victory Secret replied with a tweet stating: ” do 14 yr. old boys really care…”
Dirk

What is the controversy about? 360 isn’t supposed to have as good a graphics or something? From what I can tell neither version of the game is ugly so who cares? The only legitimate gamers that can say it will matter is those people with both conosoles. Otherwise you are stuck with what is available on your particular console.
David

“The top/bottom one is darker” that is just how LCDs work, scroll in the opposite direction and you’ll see they become equally dark ( one gets the darkness/contrast the other had). It is all an effect of the view angle of LCDs. The further images are from the center of your field of vision the darker they look.
http://southernfriedgamer.com SFG_BKnight

Just wanted to give credit where credit is due.
David Macphail

I highly doubt this is down to Squeenix. They have already released all the technical specifications indicating the PS3 version will be sharper, they confirmed the 360 will have heavily compressed audio and video coding, so we know what to expect.

Doctored screenshots are Microsoft’s handywork. They can’t stand the fact that the PS3 is more powerful than their console and they’ll do anything to pull the wool over consumer’s eyes, especially if it’s regarding one of the biggest releases of 2010.

Don’t point the blame at Squeenix – point it at the company that would actually have something to gain by pulling a stunt like this.
Dude

dude… you can clearly see a difference in the ps3 and 360 builds. particularly the lighting.

i’m sure most agree that great lighting can greatly enhance a game’s appeal.
David

@Dude, look 3 posts above yours.
sid_duiz

this is a fake imamgine, it comes from the same machine, how can it be do the same damage at the same time of the time battle and look at the number of damage, they are in the sae position, still the character are in the same position…
im sorry but this is not taken from the 2 console but just from a ps3 and with photoshop they put only the lb button.
NachoKingP

OK, clearly SE took the same picture and changed the button label. That’s not in dispute (it’s not, just use common sense). Do I think this was some disgusting play by SE to play off that the 360 version is on par to the PS3 version? No. Do I think Microsoft somehow had some say in the media that SE released in their press release kits? Hell no I don’t. They were probably just being lazy and using poor judgement in using pre-release build screenshots that they had in stock photos. I wouldn’t go throwing SE on the fire for it, but I agree that it wasn’t the best use of judgement on their part. I can guarantee they won’t make that mistake again since they got caught with their pants down, at least not for a while until the memory isn’t fresh any more.
MoreDakka

This is actually a more common PR technique than anyone would like…

Haze is another good example of PR that used heavily doctored screenshots. (It primairly made the lighting look way better than it actually did in-game.)
GalkaSmash

Regardless of the doctoring, it still looks like good, visually pleasing game. I can’t says as i’ve been /drooling for this title like most and to be honest i haven’t played anything beyond FFVII. My 4yr addiction to FFXI doesn’t count.. It’s just a case of olde fashioned Yellow Journalism with a dash of laziness. I wouldn’t put it past Microsoft to toss a few dollars to SE for a “Job well done” but i’m not a conspiracy nut. Just a regular nut thank you.

Originally i was going to purchase this title for Xbox, but i decided to go with PS3, why..? Well, i had to justify my buying a PS3 didn’t I? Couldn’t just buy it for FFXIV (/drool).

And finally, who cares what they release for what system? I’m ready for all 3. I like games and good old gaming fun. I never sided with this or that system. Keep putting out good games and i’ll keep shelling out the money, when my g/f says it’s ok to spend.. >.> I guess it’s the Download Content that may be a decider in any of this.

/sigh.. back to pwning gobs in yhoator
Timothy

Screenshots or not.. It’s common sense that the hardware inside a PS3 is a Premium grade while the 360 is Up there it’s just not the same.. BLURAY alone makes graphics and movies look insane. And with BLURAY discs you can fit twice as much information which means you can make things higher quality. Just saying
http://golgotron.com NamelessTed

@Timothy, I first started replying to your comment wanting to point out that you clearly have no idea what you are talking about and go into details of the Xbox 360 and PS3 hardware and also tell you how Blu-ray has literally nothing to do with graphical quality of a video game.

However, I have determined that you are simply trolling and that you suck. I just wanted to let you know.
Jonathan

The PS3 has a better graphics card.. Nvidia vs ATI?.. Come on now. -_- The 360 can never make games that look close to or as good as Uncharted 2, Killzone 2 and now, GOD OF WAR 3. The 360′s done for man..Halo HALO HALO HALO.. GEARS GEARS GEARS.
http://golgotron.com NamelessTed

@Jonathan, please don’t comment unless you are going to say something half-way intelligent. You aren’t seriously going to boil down the systems graphical capabilities down to “Nvidia vs ATI”.

The PS3′s CPU is more powerful when it comes to floating point operations per second but the Xbox 360 destroys when it comes to general computing power.

In regards to the GPUs, there is a bit of back and forth. Both the Xbox 360′s Xenos and the PS3′s RSX are clocked at 500MHz. The Xenos has 48 Unified Pipelines where the RSX has 24 Pixel Shader pipelines 8 vertex shader pipelines, and 8 pixel rendering pipelines. The advantage with the 360 is that there is more flexibility in how to use the pipelines based on the games needs.

The PS3′s GPU can render a maximum of 250 Million triangles per second where the Xenos can render 500 million triangles per second. The RSX has the advantage in overall operations per second since its pipelines are more efficient. The RSX can do a total of 136 ops where the Xenos can do a total of 96 ops.

One main advantage of the Xenos is its 10MB eDRAM daughter-die with its 256GB/s bandwidth. This allows the Xenos to apply a 4x MSAA with no effect to overall performance and offers a great frame buffer. The RSX is only able to do 2x MSAA and it is at a performance cost.

The overall memory bandwidth on the Xenos is slightly higher than the RSXs as well. On top of that the RSX has 256MB of dedicated RAM where the Xbox 360 has 512MB of shared RAM. This potentially allows for a developer to allow the GPU more RAM if required if it isn’t needed on the CPU end. In terms of overall GPU performance, the Xenos is better.

But the Cell CPU of the PS3 saves the day in the end, if the developer uses it. The bandwidth between the Cell and the RSX is 32GB/s, plenty fast. A developer can potentially offload all of the vertex processing onto the Cell Processor and allow the GPU to handle all the heavy lifting of the pixel processing. The Xbox 360 CPU does not have this ability.
Jaimessu

Idc that ffXIII is on XBOX. I love my PS don’t get me wrong, but GAMES: XBOX has had a load of better games lately. PS has been going with mainstream crap. PERFORMANCE: XBOX can be shady, but PSN screws up constantly and consistently and my sis’s PS died two days ago. QUALITY: complain all you want but they are both GOOD consoles. Anyone who refuses to see that is simply immature. DLCs: XBOX is better, hands down. Get over it. I’m happy that everyone can now enjoy FF because b4 it was strictly PS because 360 was out and SONY was still at PS2. now everyone can experience it. Move on okay? “I’m just sayin.”
Spartacus

It’s late and I’m tired and I’ve just finished reading all of these whiney posts from what sound like to me is a bunch of hardcore playstation fans upset that their beloved playstation sold the rights for FF to microsoft in the first place and now need to defend the honor of their beloved playstation by microscopically looking at every minute, miniscule detail they can bitch about. WHO CARES I used to be a PS2 and PS1 gamer, and have always been a FF fan the last one I played was FFX. The reason I bought X-Box was because they offered more bang for the buck at the time and I’m glad FF expanded to other consols because it gives me the chance to play one of my favorite titles again even if the lightning looks a little less sharp I’m still going to play the game because I enjoy playing the game and not picking apart how well the weeds look in the grass. But please don’t let this stop your rants. I’m sure 2 or 3 more people can repeat themselfs for you after this.
http://golgotron.com NamelessTed

@spartacus, I actually am a fan of the Xbox 360 and enjoy it quite a bit.

The reason I wrote this article initially is because Square was releasing screenshots of a game that weren’t real screenshots. It makes me angry and frustrated when publishers and developers try to pass something off as a screenshot when it isn’t.
Tehrob

Seriously, who cares. The console wars ended a long time ago.
Wow you people are retarded

The image is exactly the same because its THE SAME IMAGE!
the only difference that some one photohopped either the L2 or LB in..

What sounds more logical.. Lets razor this.. “occam’s razor google it”

Running the game on 2 different engines With 2 different Graphic cards EACH processing data Differently with 2 exactly the same timings “fps has to be an EXACT match to do this”.
Capturing Exactly the same frame in wich the game has progressed exactly the same With all the statistical probable outcomes!.

OR B
some guy FIXED the l1/LB Icon with photoshop..

The simpelest solution is usualy the correct one
Donald

why dont you stop complaining and let them advertise?

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