I get both sides of the argument here.
Actor
If it doesn't get settled out of court, then it will be very interesting litigation. The actors contract ended, and he got hired by Bridgestone. The exclusivity clause only prevented him from working for Nintendo or Microsoft (direct competitors). What if he had been hired into a movie with a named character and at some point in the movie he happens to be in the same room or even play Wii or XBox? Would Sony still be all over him about his appearance (not as Kevin Butler)?
Sony
Clearly people identified Kevin Butler in add playing Wii game and news articles went up all over internet on gaming sites giving Bridgestone lots and lots of free eyes. It makes sense that Sony is disappointed and wants to preserve the character affiliation with Sony Playstation brand. They definitely invested and continue to invest in it with games like LittleBigPlanet 2 getting Kevin Butler avatars and other such on-going promotions of the character.
Bridgestone
Somebody in their marketing department should get a raise out of this situation. They capitalized on all this free press. Then even took the actor out of their commercial so no more on going active use while still getting all this free press and people watching the original. Those were marketing dollars well spent. Bridgestone is the clear winner here. I don't know that any current law/interpretation would hold them at fault... I mean maybe they didn't even do this intentionally and just got lucky.
