PS3 product placement pole-axed by Halo reference. Faces likely palmed

Remember when Resistance 3 was outed last year? Remember how it turned up on a billboard being used as set dressing for an as-yet unreleased movie? Well the reasons for that situation have just become clear. And they're a bit suspicious and a lot funny. It seems the whole thing is part of a PS3 product placement job, but the problem is, no-one seems to have told the director. Or the cast. Who seem to be Xbox fans.

The film in question is Battle: LA, an alien invasion flick due out next year. March next year, to be exact, which gives us a pretty probable guess at when Resistance 3 will be hitting. The reason for the shameless bit of cinematic pluggery is simple. Battle: LA is being released by Columbia Pictures, and Columbia Pictures is owned by Sony. The joys of being a cross-media giant with a promotional pie for every finger.

Above: Star Aaron Eckhart gets up to speed on his lines

Of course, a sci-fi movie pitching human marines against marauding aliens on the streets of contemporary LA (which B: LA conveniently is) is always going to pull in a gamer crowd. There's a certain demographic cross-over you can just rely on. But it seems no-one's taking any chances. At a recent Comic Con panel, director Jonathon Liebesman made a point of communicating that the film is very much inspired by first-person shooters. Apparently because there are first-person bits in it. And shooting.

To be fair, cinema was using the first-person perspective long before video games were, so we're hardly talking about a radical cinematic evolution here. But hey, if it gives the studio another bulletpoint with which to entice its desired moviegoers, and isn't another cavalcade of cinematic atrocity like the first-person bit in the Doom movie was, then good times all round. Though whether there was any pre-Comic-Con pressure from Sony to bring in more shooter fans so that they could gaze upon the glory of its giant Resistance 3 billboard (and the probable load of game trailers before the movie starts), we couldn't possibly speculate.

Above: The cheeky chappy in question

If so, someone's getting a memo on Monday morning. The games Liebesman referenced? Sony properties were they? Or perhaps a safe, console-neutral sci-fi shooter series, like Half-Life or Crysis? No. He mentioned the very-much-in-bed-with Microsoft Call of Duty. And then Halo.

And when further reiterating the important FPS message, star Michelle Rodriguez said that when watching footage from the film, she had 'literally grabbed my hands like an Xbox'.

Palms. Faces. Good friends they are.