Sony has reached a settlement agreement with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission involving false advertising of the PlayStation Vita's capabilities in 2012.

Hundreds of thousands of PS Vita customers might be entitled to a $25 partial refund or a $50 merchandize voucher for Sony products. Customers will be contacted via email if they are entitled to a refund.

Like Us on Facebook

The false advertising charges are aimed at 2012 advertisements for the U.S. launch of the PS Vita. Sony claimed the PS Vita was capable of remote-play - the ability to play PS3 games on the PS Vita on a WiFi connection. The FTC also challenged the cross-platform capabilities of the PS Vita, after ads said users could pick up where they left off on the PS3.

Neither of these claims was entirely true and two years later, Sony is paying the cost for these claims. Both features did not offer many playable games, remote-play was only available on a few Sony titles, same as cross-platform compatibility.

The refund will only be available to customers within a certain time period, most likely when the advertisement was airing on U.S. TV. Deutsch LA, the advertising agency for Sony, also settled with the FTC.

Deutsch LA is also in hot water with the FTC for pushing employees to tweet nice things about the PS Vita, without disclosing the relationship between the ad agency and Sony.

False advertising is starting to become less prominent on U.S. TV, due to strict regulations by the FTC on product definition, disclosure and false promises. It follows larger efforts in the U.K. and other European countries to tackle poor advertising.

Sony has been pushing the PS Vita to other countries for the past two years, to moderate success. The handheld gaming system is not as popular as the Nintendo 3DS, nor is it as popular as Sony's previous handheld device, the PSP, in terms of overall sales.

Several critics claim while the PS Vita offers potentially the best handheld experience, it comes at a hefty price. It is also a rather chunky handheld system compared to other competitor products.

Sony has been showing customers how the PS4 and PS Vita work well together, with remote-play and cross-platform tech, but the same issue plagues the company - as it did on the PS3 - lack of developer support.

Tagssony, PlayStation Vita, false advertizing, FTC, remote play, PS3, cross-platform play