Wednesday, June 27, 2007

Microsoft used PS3 font to advertise Xbox



Microsoft Germany used the PlayStation3 logo font in a 2002 booklet promoting the original Xbox. It is entitled ´Nur Zombies spielen nicht´ (Only zombies don´t play). Here is a scan from the 25-page booklet.



The font is famous for being the typeface used in the logo of the ´Spider-Man´ movie trilogy, which was produced by Sony Pictures.




I found this while cleaning up my desk. So is this just an amusing find or are there any possible consequences to this use? Apparently, fonts are often not subject to copyright.

However, according to CVG, Sony designer Teiyu Goto noted that Sony owned the rights to the font, speaking to the Official PlayStation Magazine.


Rather than creating a typography with all the risks that entails, it was wiser to use the one from Spider-Man, for which Sony has the rights.


The original Spider-Man movie was released in 2002, the same year the booklet was sent out to media outlets in Germany. I am interested to see whether this gets picked up on by some legal experts.

Thanks to: Wikipedia, CVG

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

So the advertisement is using The PS3 (2006) font which is using the Spider-Man (2002) font which is a variation of "1979" which the Xbox (2001) logo is based off of? http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/66/Xbox_logo.png

Interesting logic.

Falafelkid said...

Hi Knuckles Dawson.

Thanks for pointing out that the old Xbox logo is based on a similar font. It is not the same font, though. Compare the letters ´o´ and ´b´.

The question here is whether Sony owns the rights to the Spider-Man font. If they do, they probably own it since 2002 and Microsoft may have committed a copyright violation. That´s all.

deleteme said...

I'm not quite sure, but the letter 'L' looks different in the two fonts. It looks more curved up in the Xbox ad and looks less so in the Playstation 3 font. Could be wrong though...can't exactly tell at that angle of the PS3.

Anonymous said...

are you serious? who cares about that??

just change the name of your blog, kid. this has nothing to do with wii. for a long time now

IALS dude was annoying at first, but now, i have to agree wit him.

wii is just crappy toy and there is nothig interesting about it anymore, save for ssb brawl. close this blog, there is nothing interesting about wii

the fact that people are buyin it doesn't meant ist's great or something... people are buying dacia cars and quadro tvs and all other cheap crap.

nintendo says that wii will make grandmothers and grandfathers and other non-gamers play games. great. and what's with us, usual gamers? i don't want to play tennis, mini games or new PS2 ported games with poor controls.

and the most AMAZING thing of all - wii has worse graphics than gamecube! at least, for now. i dont care about some mind-bčowing graphics, but this is just ridicilous. or sad. sure, galaxy and brawl will have some nice visuals, but still, let us remember RE4, Rogue Leader, Starfox Adventures, F zero GX, Prime... oh yes, Prime 3 looks and will look the same as Prime 1/2

this was off topic, but wii related at least

Anonymous said...

Wii Ware.

-Nintendo won't screen content as long as it gets an ESRB rating
-Nintendo just checks for bugs
-third parties and indies are all welcome
-original downloadable titles to hit next year

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/newsArt.cfm?artid=13715

~Carmine "Cai" M. Red
Kairon@aol.com

Anonymous said...

great, more mini-games. that's all I ever wanted

Blizz419 said...

um ok perodetlic like Falafel should close down the blog just because you said so, yeah that makes lots of sense lol.

Anonymous said...

dude, youre a god

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