71424 Federal Register / Vol. 79, No. 231 / Tuesday, December 2, 2014 / Notices 

1 In particular, the written request for confidential 

treatment that accompanies the comment must 

include the factual and legal basis for the request, 

and must identify the specific portions of the 

comment to be withheld from the public record. See 

FTC Rule 4.9(c), 16 CFR § 4.9(c). 

FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION 

[File No. 122 3252] 

Sony Computer Entertainment America 

LLC; Analysis of Proposed Consent 

Order To Aid Public Comment 

AGENCY: Federal Trade Commission. 

ACTION: Proposed Consent Agreement. 

SUMMARY: The consent agreement in this 

matter settles alleged violations of 

federal law prohibiting deceptive acts or 

practices. The attached Analysis of 

Proposed Consent Order to Aid Public 

Comment describes both the allegations 

in the draft complaint and the terms of 

the consent order—embodied in the 

consent agreement—that would settle 

these allegations. 

DATES: Comments must be received on 

or before December 29, 2014. 

ADDRESSES: Interested parties may file a 

comment at https://

ftcpublic.commentworks.com/ftc/

sonyceaconsent online or on paper, by 

following the instructions in the 

Request for Comment part of the 

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION section 

below. Write ‘‘Sony Computer 

Entertainment America LLC—Consent 

Agreement; File No. 122 3252’’ on your 

comment and file your comment online 

at https://ftcpublic.commentworks.com/

ftc/sonyceaconsent by following the 

instructions on the web-based form. If 

you prefer to file your comment on 

paper, write ‘‘Sony Computer 

Entertainment America LLC—Consent 

Agreement; File No. 122 3252’’ on your 

comment and on the envelope, and mail 

your comment to the following address: 

Federal Trade Commission, Office of the 

Secretary, 600 Pennsylvania Avenue 

NW., Suite CC–5610 (Annex D), 

Washington, DC 20580, or deliver your 

comment to the following address: 

Federal Trade Commission, Office of the 

Secretary, Constitution Center, 400 7th 

Street SW., 5th Floor, Suite 5610 

(Annex D), Washington, DC 20024. 

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: 

Linda Badger, Western Region-San 

Francisco, (415–848–5151), 901 Market 

Street, Suite 570, San Francisco, CA 

94103. 

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Pursuant 

to Section 6(f) of the Federal Trade 

Commission Act, 15 U.S.C. 46(f), and 

FTC Rule 2.34, 16 CFR 2.34, notice is 

hereby given that the above-captioned 

consent agreement containing consent 

order to cease and desist, having been 

filed with and accepted, subject to final 

approval, by the Commission, has been 

placed on the public record for a period 

of thirty (30) days. The following 

Analysis to Aid Public Comment 

describes the terms of the consent 

agreement, and the allegations in the 

complaint. An electronic copy of the 

full text of the consent agreement 

package can be obtained from the FTC 

Home Page (for November 25, 2014), on 

the World Wide Web, at http://

www.ftc.gov/os/actions.shtm. 

You can file a comment online or on 

paper. For the Commission to consider 

your comment, we must receive it on or 

before December 29, 2014. Write ‘‘Sony 

Computer Entertainment America 

LLC—Consent Agreement; File No. 122 

3252’’ on your comment. Your 

comment—including your name and 

your state—will be placed on the public 

record of this proceeding, including, to 

the extent practicable, on the public 

Commission Web site, at http://

www.ftc.gov/os/publiccomments.shtm. 

As a matter of discretion, the 

Commission tries to remove individuals’ 

home contact information from 

comments before placing them on the 

Commission Web site. 

Because your comment will be made 

public, you are solely responsible for 

making sure that your comment does 

not include any sensitive personal 

information, like anyone’s Social 

Security number, date of birth, driver’s 

license number or other state 

identification number or foreign country 

equivalent, passport number, financial 

account number, or credit or debit card 

number. You are also solely responsible 

for making sure that your comment does 

not include any sensitive health 

information, like medical records or 

other individually identifiable health 

information. In addition, do not include 

any ‘‘[t]rade secret or any commercial or 

financial information which . . . is 

privileged or confidential,’’ as discussed 

in Section 6(f) of the FTC Act, 15 U.S.C. 

46(f), and FTC Rule 4.10(a)(2), 16 CFR 

4.10(a)(2). In particular, do not include 

competitively sensitive information 

such as costs, sales statistics, 

inventories, formulas, patterns, devices, 

manufacturing processes, or customer 

names. 

If you want the Commission to give 

your comment confidential treatment, 

you must file it in paper form, with a 

request for confidential treatment, and 

you have to follow the procedure 

explained in FTC Rule 4.9(c), 16 CFR 

4.9(c).1 Your comment will be kept 

confidential only if the FTC General 

Counsel, in his or her sole discretion, 

grants your request in accordance with 

the law and the public interest. 

Postal mail addressed to the 

Commission is subject to delay due to 

heightened security screening. As a 

result, we encourage you to submit your 

comments online. To make sure that the 

Commission considers your online 

comment, you must file it at https://

ftcpublic.commentworks.com/ftc/

sonyceaconsent by following the 

instructions on the web-based form. If 

this Notice appears at http://

www.regulations.gov/#!home, you also 

may file a comment through that Web 

site. 

If you file your comment on paper, 

write ‘‘Sony Computer Entertainment 

America LLC—Consent Agreement; File 

No. 122 3252’’ on your comment and on 

the envelope, and mail your comment to 

the following address: Federal Trade 

Commission, Office of the Secretary, 

600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW., Suite 

CC–5610 (Annex D), Washington, DC 

20580, or deliver your comment to the 

following address: Federal Trade 

Commission, Office of the Secretary, 

Constitution Center, 400 7th Street SW., 

5th Floor, Suite 5610 (Annex D), 

Washington, DC 20024. If possible, 

submit your paper comment to the 

Commission by courier or overnight 

service. 

Visit the Commission Web site at 

http://www.ftc.gov to read this Notice 

and the news release describing it. The 

FTC Act and other laws that the 

Commission administers permit the 

collection of public comments to 

consider and use in this proceeding as 

appropriate. The Commission will 

consider all timely and responsive 

public comments that it receives on or 

before December 29, 2014. You can find 

more information, including routine 

uses permitted by the Privacy Act, in 

the Commission’s privacy policy, at 

http://www.ftc.gov/ftc/privacy.htm. 

Analysis of Proposed Consent Order To 

Aid Public Comment 

The Federal Trade Commission 

(‘‘FTC’’ or ‘‘Commission’’) has accepted, 

subject to final approval, an agreement 

containing consent order from Sony 

Computer Entertainment America LLC 

(‘‘SCEA’’ or ‘‘respondent’’). The 

proposed consent order has been placed 

on the public record for thirty (30) days 

for receipt of comments by interested 

persons. Comments received during this 

period will become part of the public 

record. After thirty (30) days, the 

Commission will again review the 

agreement and the comments received, 

and will decide whether it should 

withdraw from the agreement and take 


rljohnson on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with NOTICES
Federal Register / Vol. 79, No. 231 / Tuesday, December 2, 2014 / Notices 71425 

appropriate action or make final the 

agreement’s proposed order. 

This matter involves respondent’s 

advertising of the PlayStation Vita (‘‘PS 

Vita’’), a gaming console. Respondent 

first offered the PS Vita for sale in the 

United States on February 22, 2012, for 

approximately $250. The PS Vita is part 

of respondent’s line of game consoles, 

including the PlayStation 3 video game 

console (‘‘PS3’’), which allows 

consumers to play video games on their 

television sets. Unlike the PS3, the PS 

Vita is a handheld, portable game 

console that allows consumers to play 

games away from their television sets. In 

addition to selling game consoles, 

respondent is one of the many game 

developers writing game titles for use on 

its PS3 and PS Vita game consoles. At 

the time the PS Vita was launched, 

‘‘MLB 12: The Show,’’ and ‘‘Killzone 3,’’ 

were popular SCEA game titles for the 

PS3. 

According to the complaint, 

respondent advertised several notable 

features of the PS Vita. First, respondent 

promoted the ‘‘remote play’’ feature of 

the PS Vita as a way that consumers 

could access games already residing on 

their PS3 consoles and play them 

remotely on the PS Vita anywhere with 

a Wi-Fi connection. Second, 

advertisements represented that, with 

the ‘‘cross platform gaming’’ or ‘‘cross 

save’’ feature, consumers could begin 

playing a game on a PS3 console, save 

their progress at any point in the game, 

and then continue that game where they 

left off on the PS Vita. Third, with the 

‘‘3G version’’ the PS Vita, available for 

an extra $50 and monthly fees, 

advertisements represented that 

consumers could access a 3G network to 

play games live with others 

(‘‘multiplayer gaming’’). The complaint 

alleges that respondent’s advertising of 

these features was false or misleading 

and thus violates the FTC Act. 

With respect to the remote play 

feature, the FTC’s complaint alleges that 

respondent misrepresented that, with 

this feature, PS Vita users can easily 

access their PS3 games on the PS Vita. 

According to the complaint, PS Vita 

users could not easily access their PS3 

games on the PS Vita. Indeed, most PS3 

games are not remote playable on the PS 

Vita, and respondent did not 

specifically design the PS3 system to 

support remote play functionality. In 

addition, the complaint alleges as false 

or misleading respondent’s claim that 

PS Vita users can, with remote play, 

easily access Killzone 3 and other 

similar, data-rich PS3 games. 

Respondent never enabled remote play 

on its Killzone 3 title, and very few, if 

any, data-rich PS3 games of similar size 

and complexity to Killzone 3 were 

remote play compatible on the PS Vita. 

The complaint also alleges that the 

respondent made false or misleading 

claims about the cross save feature of 

the PS Vita. Contrary to respondent’s 

advertisements, PS Vita users are not 

able to pause any PS3 game they are 

playing on their PS3 consoles at any 

point in the game, and continue to play 

that game where they left off on the PS 

Vita. The complaint states that this 

feature is available only for a limited 

number of PS3 game titles, and that the 

pause and save feature varies 

significantly by game. For example, 

with respect to ‘‘MLB 12: The Show,’’ 

consumers are able to pause and save 

the game to the PS Vita only after they 

have finished the entire baseball game 

(all nine innings) on the PS3. The 

complaint also alleges that with respect 

to this feature, respondent failed to 

disclose that, with games such as MLB 

12: The Show, consumers would have to 

own two versions of the same game, one 

for the PS3 and one for the PS Vita, to 

use this feature. 

Finally, the complaint addresses 

advertising claims made for features 

relating to the 3G version of the PS Vita. 

Specifically, the complaint alleges as 

false or misleading the representation 

that PS Vita users who own the 3G 

version are able to engage in live, 

multiplayer gaming through a 3G 

network. According to the complaint, 

PS Vita users are restricted to 

asynchronous or ‘‘turn-based’’ 

multiplayer gaming with the 3G version 

of the PS Vita. 

The proposed consent order contains 

provisions designed to prevent 

respondent from engaging in similar 

acts or practices in the future, as well as 

a provision to redress certain 

consumers. Part I of the order prohibits 

respondent from misrepresenting any 

material gaming feature or capability of 

any Handheld Game Console Product, 

when used as a standalone device to 

play video games. 

Part II of the proposed order prohibits 

respondent from making any 

representation about the material 

capability of any Handheld or Home 

Game Console Product to interact with, 

or connect to, any other Handheld Game 

Console Product during gaming, unless 

at the time it is made, respondent 

possesses and relies upon competent 

and reliable evidence that substantiates 

the representation. 

Part III of the proposed order 

prohibits respondent from making any 

representation about the material 

capability of any Handheld or Home 

Game Console Product to interact with, 

or connect to, any other Handheld or 

Home Game Console Product during 

gaming, unless it discloses, clearly and 

prominently, and in close proximity to 

the representation, that consumers must 

purchase two versions of the same video 

game, one for each console, if such is 

the case. 

Part IV of the proposed order provides 

for consumer redress to ‘‘eligible 

purchasers’’ of the PS Vita. The 

proposed order defines ‘‘eligible 

purchasers’’ as consumers who 

purchased the PS Vita before June 1, 

2012, and did not return it for a full 

refund. SCEA will offer these consumers 

$25 dollars in cash or credit or the 

alternative of a voucher (or other 

entitlement) for merchandise, video 

games, and/or services with a retail 

value of $50 or more. 

Part V of the proposed order contains 

recordkeeping requirements for 

advertisements and substantiation 

relevant to representations covered by 

Parts I through III of the order. 

Parts VI through VIII of the proposed 

order require the company to: Deliver a 

copy of the order to certain personnel 

having managerial responsibilities with 

respect to the subject matter of the 

order; notify the Commission of changes 

in corporate structure that might affect 

compliance obligations under the order; 

and file compliance reports with the 

Commission. 

Part IX of the proposed order provides 

that the order will terminate after 

twenty (20) years, with certain 

exceptions. 

The purpose of this analysis is to 

facilitate public comment on the 

proposed order, and it is not intended 

to constitute an official interpretation of 

the complaint or proposed order, or to 

modify the proposed order’s terms in 

any way. 

By direction of the Commission. 

Donald S. Clark, 

Secretary. 

[FR Doc. 2014–28346 Filed 12–1–14; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 6750–01–P 

DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND 

HUMAN SERVICES 

National Institutes of Health 

Statement of Delegation of Authority 

Notice is hereby given that I have 

delegated to the Director, National 

Institutes of Health (NIH), or his or her 

successor, the authorities vested in the 

Secretary of Health and Human Services 

under Section 377E (a) of the HIV Organ 

Policy Equity Act, (Pub. L. 113–51), 

which amends the Public Health Service 

Act to require development and 


rljohnson on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with NOTICES