As of last week McDonalds Australia had been planning on giving away a bunch of custom PS5 controllers, each plastered with a burgers + fries motif in celebration of the company’s 50th birthday (in Australia). Weirdly, the international dining behemoth forgot to ask Sony about this first.
You’d think that would be the first thing a company with an actual legal team would have thought to do if you were going to be mentioning “PlayStation 5″ and using a controller image as part of your own marketing, but nope! McDonalds just got straight to it, announcing plans to give the controllers away as part of a competition, along with sending some out to local streamers as well.
A disclaimer before we go any further: the thing is so garish that I absolutely love it.
As soon as Sony caught wind of the giveaway, though, they stepped in and blocked it, with McDonalds having to quickly send out a follow-up announcement that said:
Unfortunately, McDonald’s stream week has been postponed and won’t be going ahead this Sunday. We are unable to confirm a new date for the proposed event at this time. We will have some great prizing including Macca’s 50th Birthday Hoodies and 50 channel subscriptions for each streamer to give away. We will be in contact with the new timing as soon as we have it confirmed.”
Sony PlayStation has not authorised the use of its controller in promotional materials related to the proposed Stream Week event and we apologise for any inconvenience caused. McDonald’s stream week has been postponed and Sony PlayStation controllers will not be included in the giveaway.
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A shame, but we will all find ways to get on with our lives. If anyone at McDonalds Australia is reading this and knows what’s going to happen to the box of controllers now that they can’t be given away, I can be reached here.