Brits ban 'old' Xbox 360 commercial
by Alexander Sliwinski 
{ Apr 4th 2007 at 1:00AM }
The same Xbox 360 commercial we posted last November improbably showing the release date for Halo 3 has been banned in England. The Advertising Standards Agency says the advertisement "could be seen to condone dangerous driving," despite the prominent text stating "Dramatisation. Professional stunt. Do not attempt." Apparently ad agency McCann Erickson worked closely with the ASA and were given clearance to run the ad after 9 PM. The ASA decided to ban the ad anyway stating it "reinforced the sense that the events were real, rather than fantasy, and were therefore capable of being copied." Sorry England, looks like you're just going to have to watch the ad over, and over, and over again here on Joystiq ... what a shame.
The Reuters story doesn't say how long the advertisement was in circulation, but like we said, it's been on our radar since last November. If it's been in rotation in England since that time, bless the ASA, they just gave that little commercial a second life through controversy. This isn't the first time we've seen this sort of odd behavior. Boston's transit authority banned ads for M rated games after a minor Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories controversy. The thing was that nobody raised a fuss a year prior when Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories ads were all over the same system.
Get a WordPress.com Blog
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Kevin @ Apr 4th 2007 1:03AM
The might as well start banning movie commercials too...
Paul @ Apr 4th 2007 1:13AM
I don't know if this has been brought up, maybe thats what this post is referring to, but at the end when they are playing hide and seek and the guy is counting, he says 11, 12, 7 at the very end. Novemeber 12th 2007 perhaps? That's a Monday though
John Doe @ Apr 4th 2007 1:34AM
Wow and I thought the US was king of retarded bannings and attempted bannings. (Thank god for appeal courts.) Congrats England. You win.
Personally I say let kids drive like this. Cordon off a 2 square miles of land and let em kill themselves. If a person is so stupid to attempt such stunts we should let nature take its course the remove them from the gene pool.
Otter @ Apr 4th 2007 1:44AM
Don't you love it when your government says "you are too stupid to understand this isn't real"?
NyaR @ Apr 4th 2007 1:59AM
That last guy was cheating!!
Steve @ Apr 4th 2007 2:18AM
Wow England, thats lame.
If you want to see it in HD just visit any US 360 Kiosk, this promo will pop up on it from time to time.
HenryJonesJr @ Apr 4th 2007 3:28AM
@Paul
Actually, in England, I believe they give the day before the month which would make it December 11, 2007. Which happens to be a Tuesday. Which just happens to be the day games are typically released. Hmmm...
Degeneratemoo @ Apr 4th 2007 4:42AM
Yep, in Britain we do the date the correct way... along with pretty much the entire world, except America.
steve @ Apr 4th 2007 4:41AM
One of my favourtie ads.
@HenryJonesJr: Games are released on Fridays in Europe. I think the guy was just saying "1, 2, 3, 11, 12, 17" but it cut away as he was saying seventeen.
admangreendog @ Apr 4th 2007 4:50AM
[/rant]Unbelievable, is this just because it's a videogame ad??
I don't see them banning car advertisements where someone is thrashing a Honda around a mountain road.
Or why not ban the latest Bond film or "The Italian Job" surely they could "condone" dangerous driving.
This is just the nanny state gone mad, when are people going to take responsibility for their own actions and stop blaming television and videogames for their own fucking stupidity. [/end rant]
Jon @ Apr 4th 2007 5:16AM
You do know that the ASA is a British agency and Britain is not only England, right?
Ashley @ Apr 4th 2007 6:09AM
errmmm.....we never have Xbox adverts anyway?!
In the WHOLE time I the 360 has been out in the UK, I have only seen 2 adverts....and they were for acctual games, not the console with cool adverts like this... lol
- We pay *double* the americans do for games...
- We pay 1/3 more than the americans for the console...
- We get games weeks (or sometimes months) after the US...
- We cannot get half the stuff the US can get on XBLM...
- If an american brought 1000 MSP, we would only get 800 for the same price
- And now we dont even get the cool adverts?!
Pretty much sucks to be british - cos EVERYTHING is like that!!! lmao
ssuk @ Apr 4th 2007 7:34AM
Uh, this advert has been shown in the UK MANY times before. Lord knows why they're suddenly banning it...
csc @ Apr 4th 2007 7:53AM
Ashely, Ive seen this and others loads of times. youre telling me you havent seen the 360 one where a giant console is formed out of all the game cases? Thats on practiclly 24/7.......
Besides its been at least a year the advert had a good run and was actually good ompared to a lot of other game ads (wii owener here). ah well.
and yeah we go day/month/year because that actually makes more sense than month/day/year.
chris @ Apr 4th 2007 8:01AM
Technically the ASA doesn't ban anything. It's a self-regulatory body set up by the advertisers and compliance with its rulings is voluntary.
Leigh @ Apr 4th 2007 8:16AM
More video game prejudice. Most car commercials these days show a car rampaging through the woods above the eensy subtitle "vehicle not for off-road use." Or, some sedan hydroplanes madly through a curved San Francisco street above the briefly flashed "Professional driver, closed course, do not attempt." And yet when it's a game-- something that isn't even REAL-- it's condoning unsafe behavior?
This is just like how the subways can post ads for The Sopranos and Saw III but not GTA.
MikeG @ Apr 4th 2007 8:17AM
csc, the date only makes sense to you because you've probably written your dates like that since birth. You've never done it any other way. When someone is raised to do something a particular way, it *usually* "makes sense" to them. If you wanna get horsey about it, you could say most every other language places adjectives after the noun and changes their words according to gender except for English.
John @ Apr 4th 2007 8:18AM
Is this just in England? As in will Northern Ireland still be able to view that awesome 360 ad? I hope so, my life depends on it...
Cyport @ Apr 4th 2007 8:52AM
It's just an advert, hardly a difference will be noticed in the public. Go out in your local town (UK) and ask people, "Have you seen an xbox 360 advert recently?" the answers will be random just like before.
If you worried this will affect sales then you are just stupid..
csc @ Apr 4th 2007 9:21AM
MikeG, i think you need to flip the reasoning round for the month/day/year approach, cultural relativism aside day/month/year actually DOES make more sense for obvious reasons not just due to normality, it is ascending order after all whereas month/day/year follows no particular method or ordering.
Jake @ Apr 4th 2007 9:41AM
csc,
month/day/year follows the order in which we typically announce the date verbally in the US.
Today is April 4th, 2007. That is where the order came from. It is not completely random. Of course you believe your way is better. But ours isn't completely random.
I like it the way it is because if I had to read a date outloud or even in my head I'd have to switch the first two numbers around.
In England, how would you verbally announce the date if somebody asked you? Would it be the 4th of April, 2007?
csc @ Apr 4th 2007 10:16AM
yep.
And are you sure thats a certainty or is this a chicken and egg scenario, you write it like that because you say it like that because you write it like that because you say it like that because you write it like that because you say it like that because you write it like that because you say it like that because you write it like that because you say it like that because you write it like that...
Lol.
anyway its just what came first, and im sure everyone can quote cultural relitivism for their way of doing things, but even if your reason is that you say/write (whichever came first) neither has a particular ordering like ascending ordering, so you can see why I say our way makes sense.
What I'm not saying is our way is BEST, because you can do it however you like, hell quote year first or quote in B.C. just that its makes more sense from an objective perspective, removed from cultural relalivism.