Debate over a recent Sony billboard in the Netherlands advertising the release of the Ceramic White PlayStation Portable in the region was fittingly white-hot last week. That' s when an ad featuring a Caucasian woman holding a black woman by the jaw in a threatening manner was decried as racially insensitive.

Today, one of those who criticized the ad and condemned Sony for running it, California Assemblyman Leland Yee, instead commended the publisher. According to a statement from Yee, Sony has pulled the advertising campaign and apologized to anyone offended by it.

" I am pleased to see Sony taking responsibility for their racially charged ad and appropriately pulling it from the marketplace," Yee said. " Sony did the right thing by recognizing their insensitive mistake and apologizing for offending many of their customers."

Yee was backed in his condemnation of Sony by representatives from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the civil rights education group Sojourn to the Past. Sony originally defended the ad, saying its only intent was to contrast the colors of its two models of PSP. It still didn' t sit well with Rick Callender, president of the San Jose/Silicon Valley NAACP.

" Their attempt to contrast colors clearly created controversy and sparked painful feelings in the global community," Callender said. " Hopefully in the future, Sony will employ a better litmus test to their ad campaigns to determine if they will be sour to the taste of worldwide consumers."

What´s wrong with them? they keep on doing stupid things

here´s the link for more infohttp://www.gamespot.com/news/6153816.aspx

Hidemoto, I think you should re-name this thread:

" All things Sony and Stupid."

Because there are just too many things that Sony keep doing wrong, that making
a new thread each time is just tiresome.

But they just love standing in their own sh!t.

Sony? Screwing the pooch again? ORLY?

I' m getting tired of them. I like their consoles, but they' re just so stupid!!! It' s like hanging out with that one dumb friend, who' s got alot of money, but is a few frenchfries short of a happy-meal.

Y' know what, i actually both LIKE the ads AND i don' t think they' re racist at all!

Sony? Screwing the pooch again? ORLY?

Ya RLY

HA ha thats funny. I wouldn' t call the billboard racist but its inappropriate.

I never thought the ads was offensive either,it was a black model against a white one.

get it?

Psp model white is coming.

And they then had a white model with white hair pushing away the black model.

seriously that was not racist.

I didn' t think it was racist but what I didn' t get is playing their product off each other which is a bit silly. They could have just had a lonely psp sitting on a bench swinging on it' s own then show the white one packing it' s bag to join it....

HA ha thats funny. I wouldn' t call the billboard racist but its inappropriate.

Yeah I agree there

Its not even inappropriate, had it been a white female painted black in the shoot instead, no one would have bothered. People should get their heads out of their asses and stop being so pissy!

I disagree. I think the ad campaign was inappropriate, insensitive and naive in its conception at best. My position, and that of the people and organizations that decried the ad campaign, is not " pissy" but simply socially conscious and respectful of efforts to move beyond a long history of racism. And moving beyond that does not mean " let' s just pretend it never happened." Look, obviously the advertisement was making a direct reference to race -- equating the " black" race and the " white" race (socialized semantic generalizations) to their literally black and white PSP models. The bizarre psychosexual imagery of two women in physical conflict alludes to god only knows what kind of weird baggage and hang-ups are in the minds of the advertising agency.

Now I' ll readily admit that in a lot of cases, politicians have taken a stance against videogames simply as an easy hot-button issue to gain publicity... but in this case I think Yee and the NAACP were right on. Props to people with critical thinking skills.

had it been a white female painted black in the shoot instead, no one would have bothered.

You' ve got to be kidding. What you' ve described is an antiquated form of racist entertainment in the United States called " blackface." Look it up. That would have created an even more furious uproar.

Meh! Some people are black and some people are white. Just like the PSPs. Don' t bother so much, have some fun instead.

......and buy a 360?!

So this...



...is racist?!

If so, what' s this...





What about this...





The fact that some have deemed them " racist" is pathetic. They' re not racially charged whatsoever. It' s simply showing the contrast between the black and white PSP models and portraying the consumers internal struggle over which colour to buy.

Bear in mind that the ad campaign was launched in Europe and faced no critism there, the critism came from US sites. It' s retarded!

I' d call it being oversensitive... but that' d be insensitive of me now wouldn' t it?

While some people could be offended by it, I' m not. If you were to look at it in a half-second glance, the way most billboard ads are supposed to be viewed, you would see an ad explaining that the ceramic white psp is here. It' s only when you look deeper into it that you can see racist subtext. People dig so hard to find hidden meanings and subtle social contexts, in everything, that they' ll find anything if they looked hard enough.
Granted, Sony should have though about this, because everyone' s entitled to their opinion, and obviously, they wouldn' t all interpret it the same. Some people would look at it as a racist attack, but i personally think they' re looking too deep. If they had done the ad with little Pac-Man characters instead of caucasian and african-american people, I don' t think you' d have any of this

They are all racially charged simply because they' re utilizing the race of the models to represent the different products.

And it' s no wonder that criticism of the advertisements emanated from the U.S. Having built the country on race-specific slavery, with unequal pay and other forms of institutionalized racism still in effect to this day, I guess you could say that people are sensitive about the way race is portrayed in the media.

Not everyone has the luxury of this escapist entertainment medium, i.e. videogames. Why is it so difficult to respect the people who say they are offended or at least uncomfortable with this type of imagery?

Eddie: What you' re describing, " looking deeper into it" is simply critical thinking. Although you claim that this can go to a hypersensitive or paranoid extreme, you don' t have to look very deeply to see that the race of the models was used to represent the colors of the product options. That is not some paranoid, roundabout conspiracy theory; it' s plainly obvious at first glance.

Bottom line, the advertisements are in poor taste and were rightly retracted.

it' s no wonder that criticism of the advertisements emanated from the U.S. Having built the country on race-specific slavery

I dissagree that the US was built on slavery. Slavery took a large part in forming the U.S. I can' t deny that, and I won' t bring up the " north outlawed slavery" argument either, because I know they were supported economically by the south, but i think your statement generalises The States as a country with an immoral foundation.

Eddie: What you' re describing, " looking deeper into it" is simply critical thinking. Although you claim that this can go to a hypersensitive or paranoid extreme, you don' t have to look very deeply to see that the race of the models was used to represent the colors of the product options. That is not some paranoid, roundabout conspiracy theory; it' s plainly obvious at first glance.

Agreed wholeheartedly,

What I' m trying to convey, is that, judging by the pictures Majikdra6on posted, it doesn' t appear that either race is dominating, or defining themselves as better. Therefore, I don' t consider it racist? Yes, there are people of two different races on the billboard, but does that make it racist? The african-american woman in the picture isn' t portrayed as any less than the caucasian woman. Its just displaying the differences between the two. There' s nothing wrong with displaying our differences, just so long as we don' t consider our " differences" to be better than others.

(see, now you' ve really got me going )

Not everyone has the luxury of this escapist entertainment medium, i.e. videogames. Why is it so difficult to respect the people who say they are offended or at least uncomfortable with this type of imagery?

I' m not saying i don' t respect you or your opinion, but i don' t think you have the right to condemn advertisements that were created to appeal to a European market.

You' ll see naked women on billboards in Europe, ...would you find that offensive or inappropriate?

Zoy man, if you dig that deep you' ll find racism in every ad in the world. What a world we live in. So what if they are using the different races to show the difference between the PSP' s? Black people are black and white people are white. Are you trying to deny that people doesn' t look the same?
Every single ad in the world probably upsets someone. But you can' t forbid everthing that upsets people just because they can' t get the point of the ad.
There' s a difference between being overly sensitive and critical thinking.
We had the same debate here in Sweden over an ice cream called Nogger Black. It was a big black licorice ice cream and people reacted over the name Nogger (nigger) but here in Sweden Nogger is an old classic ice cream.
Now, long after the debates, we all laugh at it because it was so silly.
And do you think the guys who made the commersial or the ice cream company were sad? No they weren' t because you can' t pay to get that much attention to an ad. The ice cream sold like crazy.
Btw. Zoy, are you black?