While news of the PlayStation 3 price drop to $299 USD appeared to have been met with universal praise, it appears that one group isn't so thrilled with Sony. That would be the entire country of Nigeria, apparently.
According to reports citing a statement from Nigeria's Minister of Information and Communication, Prof. Dora Akunyili, the African republic is up in arms over Sony's latest PS3 ad campaign. Specifically, it appears one line from one of the commercials is an "unwarranted attack on the reputation and image of the country" according to Nigeria's federal government.
That would be "You can't believe everything you read on the internet. Otherwise, I'd be a Nigerian millionaire by now." Fictional director of rumor confirmation Kevin Butler says so in this ad, which is only amusing to me because I'm not Nigerian.
Nigeria "demands an unconditional apology from Sony Corporation for this deliberate negative campaign against the country's image and reputation" according to a cited press statement.
Update: Patrick Seybold, senior director of corporate communications at SCEA says that the company pulled the ad shortly after it first began airing in response to customer complaints. The official PlayStation web site features the following apology: "It has come to our attention that a recent TV advertisement for PlayStation may have offended some members of the Nigerian community. We never intended to create a situation that would upset anyone, and we have taken action to immediately remove the advertisement from the air. We apologize to anyone this may have offended."
Sony Corporation portrayed Nigeria as home of fraud – FG [Vanguard - thanks, Paul!]