I've seen exclusive PS3 Madden ads and CoD ads in the past. Just because MS markets third party games more than Sony doesn't imply "exclusive" advertising rights. 

Thats because those adverts are a consequence of a legal partnership. Ubisoft have a deal with Sony for AC and capcom have a deal with nintendo for MH and MS have legal deals with publishers for games like activision/COD, EA/titanfall.

They do not have one for Destiny though, because Sony has that.

Well they still could go and complain even if already removed... maybe they could even get a apology page on the place... even more because the page even though is off, the content is still circling, and it was effectively use no matter if already took out.

I'm ignoring nothing. What I'm saying is, when you have a basketball game of 5 on 2, the outcome is meaningless and irrelevant. The only way it's fair is if both consoles have the same amount of units in homes. If it's lopsided, and you want to attempt to compare sales, the only way it can be done is with attach rates.

In no way comparing attach ratio is apple to apple... it just a measure of SW sold per HW... and when we know that usually when a HW is lower the attach ratio uses to be higher because there are more hardcore users than for big HW numbers.

What the...I don't even...I can tell you with absolute certainty there is *no* agreement, written or otherwise, between Acti and MS preventing MS advertising Destiny. Under basic copyright and trademark law MS is prevented from using any copyright or trademark material in any of its promotional activities. Acti does not need to seek a written agreement from MS for MS to be subject to the rule of law. The only reason Acti is not forced into seeking damages is because MS removed the ad. MS either removed it because Acti asserted its rights directly, or MS lawyers (who were probably not consulted when the doofus UK marketing department had this "brainwave") told the marketing department they had violated the Destiny trademark and Acti was within its rights to take action. If the ad had stayed up then Sony was within its rights to seek compensation from Acti within the terms of their advertising contracts if Acti did not take action and assert its rights over the trademark. But Acti would never not assert its rights, because not asserting your rights over a trademark often invalidates the trademark which means it's open season on Destiny, and a future developer or publisher could make a different Destiny game and Acti would have no come back.  Copyright is different because it there is much stronger ownership rights when something is copyrighted. The thing about Sony getting its pound of flesh is there would be no publicity attached to it. If the ad stayed up, and Acti did nothing, then Sony would simply invoke some consequential clauses in the advertising contract about loss of exclusivity in advertising, and they could remain aloof to the whole thing in the public eye.

@italics. And that has achieved what exactly? A bunch of forum dwellers have argued the toss over the merits of the ad, all of whom already knew the game is on Xb one, and all of whom were already committed to the platform for which they were buying it (or not buying it in my case). Suggesting heated discussion on forums like this has raised the profile of Destiny on Xb one in the general public is overstating the influence of video game forums. You only have to look at Destiny Xb one pre-orders to know that there is already general awareness that Destiny is on Xb one...speaking of which where the hell are the pre-order charts for last week? Has everyone gone on holiday at VGC or something? Lets talk about the benefit to MS of this stunt if sales of Destiny on Xbone suddenly spike in a way that was not predictable from the pre-order numbers and out of proportion to the sales on PS4. Personally I don't think it's achieved anything good for anyone. What it did was create all sorts of potential legal and contractual dilemma's for future exclusive advertising deals if it was left to stay on the web and Acti did nothing. It means Sony would have a precedent defence for doing a similar thing with CoD, and we can be damned sure MS doesn't want their exclusive advertising arrangmeent with CoD to be encroached on. They might get some free advertising for this game, but the loss of value in all future exclusive advertising deals is bigger than the value of the free advertising of this one game. You're being far too narrow in your thinking if you think there aren't significant legal and contractual ramifications of this ad being left to its own devices. Acti might not have wanted to take action, but they would have had no choice. And possibly they did take action and they were the reason the ad came down. I don't know about you, but I reckon the fact the ad came down so quickly is an indication that there were serious ramifications to the existence of ad. I don't know how well you know the marketing departments of companies, but on my regulatory and legal side of the fence I know too many examples of marketing departments that go off half cocked thinking they know how the rules work but getting it quite wrong and having to be pulled back into line. This stunt reeks of such half-cockedness among the marketing folks at MS UK.

Playstation branded CoD liver oil, it's great for the constitution! Actually we're not selling CoD liver oil... and the rest of the ad writes itself.

Yes, that could potentially form the basis of a claim or complaint that because of the internet the violating content is still out there and it continues to damage the value of the advertising deal. However it would probably be a bit of a test case and I'm not sure a court would find that it's MS's fault. The court may tell Acti to go an assert its trademark rights with each and every website that is displaying the ad as "news". gaming media sites can talk about they ad, but showing the actual ad even in a news context could be violating the trademark.

Well MS could be found liable because they know the full consequence that could be involved in this stunt.

I prefer to live under a rock than to be labeled as casual, I am a hardcore gamer you know. I play lots of CoD and.. stuff

I'm sure Activision is just furious that Destiny is getting extra marketing completely free courtesy of Microsoft.