One moaning git leads to Wii U TV ad ban

A single, solitary and most likely lonely person has led to the banning of a Nintendo Wii U TV ad.

The ASA bizarrely chose to uphold the complaint that drew issue with the depiction of how the console switches from TV gameplay to GamePad gameplay as the short did not explicitly state that the functionality is not available on all games.

Nintendo contested the claims, arguing that the ad showed the functional capabilities of the hardware including various examples of how the Wii U GamePad may be used in games to interact with the console”.

The company added that the ad included other features of the Wii U that would also vary from game to game” and that the ad featured uses of the GamePad that consumers would understand would not be included in all games, such as shooting objects at the screen and using the GamePad to input a code”.

Nintendo did not believe that the ad required qualification as they did not believe the average consumer viewing the ad would believe that the feature was available on all games”.

The ASA, however, was not convinced by Nintendo’s argument.

We considered that the option to switch gameplay to the GamePad controller could be available on all games, and as this was a new console consumers would not have an awareness of whether this was something specific to individual games or a general feature of the console,” it ruled.

We considered that, in this context, the ad should have made clear that this feature would not be available on all games. Because it did not, we concluded the ad was misleading.”

The ad will have to be changed before it is broadcast again. You can see the unedited version in full below: