http://www.break.com/articles/xbox360banned.html

I wept for humanity after seeing that commercial.

I guess it could be a bit touchy subject over there. Well, in the US anyway.

damn you beat me to it

well this is the best damn XBox 360 commercial, way better than the stupid jump in rope skipping and the water balloons.

That commercial isn't THAT bad. They'd just have to be picky about where and when they showed it. Ex: CN's Adult Swim = Good / Nick Jr. = Bad

But I can understand why they'd have reservations about showing it in America.

:rolling: :rolling: :rolling: X 10000000000000000000000000000

THAT WAS SO FUCKING STUPID IT WAS FUCKING HILARIOUS! :rolling: :rolling: :rolling:

I weep with you :buncry:

There is something, er, revealing, maybe liberating about it. But then I remember that it's a Microsoft product... wow >_<

hate those streamed vids, takes too long to download...and I doubt that it would be so shocking for me (reading El Reg a lot...)

I can't see it.... :confused:

I dont see whats so bad about it? Probably because it looks exactly like some high school film I saw where kids shot each other with "guns"......

I liked the guy in the cab tho haha "One sec.....AGH!"

actually, remember that david bowie video featuring trent reznor from nine inch nails? "I'm afraid of americans"

They're adults... shooting each other like retarded ass monkeys. The cab part was pretty funny tho. =/

*sob* vid won't load >;<

Yes! It was an awesome song/video. When Trent punches the front window..... that's so baaaaaaad. :bowdown:

@inu: i'm with you.... won't load for me either. :mad:

finally seen it !!! :bigthumb: (i bet lots of ppl wanna see it ..)







OMG, so good !!! :rolling: Not for kids audience allright, but really really funny a commercial ! Reminds me of Tarantino style somehow.....

:rolling: It loaded. I can understand why it was banned now. Interesting.

I lol'ed.

._. good for you

Pretty awkward. :rolling:

It's not that terrible. Ok i'm lying. :rolling:

what the hell was that....is this promoting xbox or joining some random terrorist force :dunno:

Message of CM: "Everyone got a terrorist inside"

thats how i saw it...its quite disturbing :dunno:

:rolling: Somehow I was amused by that -- but I can certainly see why it was banned. I loved the schoolgirl who "shot" the other woman and then went "Whee!" and merrily somersaulted away. :rolling:

Yeah I guess it is pretty lame....I think its just a little touchy considering all the terrorism and the fact that its set in a subway station. I guess Im just desensitized to this stuff....that and it looks like they totally ripped off that student film I saw.

Meh :dunno:

hmmm i don't know...

I must admit i did laugh when i saw the commercial.

the cab passage is the very one which shows that the whole "shooting 'em all is a joke ... :dunno: (but had all the people actually carried guns and ammos, instead of yelling "bang" when pointing a finger, I would have felt disturbed though...)

somehow the message is: "ok, let's ban that commercial, but we know that a lot f people will have fun playing "shooting games" (or whatever it is called) or "let's ban the commercial, so that it gets a LOT of fame thru the internet...obviously this one is working, considering how long it takes to view that file....


Would someone ban MMORPG games? Or famous shooting games (ok help me with names here, i am no expert) there is no commercial about those games, though a lot of people do play them right?
:dunno:

Feel free to react, I'd be happy to know what you think :bigthumb:

yea...if that is how they picture ppl...imagine if everyone has a gun... :S

its kinda odd, and the reasons why it was banned are obvious...its so creepy i wont watch it again. It is a scary CM if u give it a deep thought

This commercial is holy. :rolling:

Pretty good commercial, much better than the water balloons. If they wanted to do it without being banned though, lazer tag would have worked.

Hmm well this was essentially a short film not a game. Commercials I would say speak far more directly to people's sense of the normal.

People play video games for as an escape, to be inspired maybe, to socialize, or even to assert their superiority (still a form of socializing) as in a deathmatch. Games are about personal action and choice and--however fantastical--consequence. Commercials are just designed to tell people what to do (explicitly and through implied norms).

Everything about the look of this video, down to its humor (cellphone jokes are older than cellphones), is calibrated to look like real life. This commercial isn't an instrument toward any object as in a game, though; it's putting forward a state of things in which, given the choice between standing down or senselessly provoking carnage, the regular-guy-main-character of this commercial elects the former.

who's the "the regular-guy-main-character? " And I didn't see anyone standing down.

Isn't it the same guy in the beginning (who pulls the gun) and the end (who pulls the trigger)? He essentially becomes the center of the little narrative I thought.

And... I think there is a misunderstanding. No one standing down was my point. The commercial made an ideologically significant subtraction from actual reality, where it's possible to choose nonviolence. It's like making a Vietnam or Iraq war movie that's just about American soldiers. It's doomed to distortion, because the greater importance of the war is less what happens the 100,000s who perpetrate it and more what happens to the many millions against/amid whom it transpires. That's a topic in itself though.

EDIT @Inu: I commented more at length on your blog. Anyway I wasn't advocating for the ban on this commercial. I just think it is bad.

replied ! ^^ thank you!! :bigthumb:

I think it was a misunderstanding cause you said "given the choice between standing down or senselessly provoking carnage, the regular-guy-main-character of this commercial elects the former" and shouldn't the former be standing down?

MS is trying to lure in casual or old school gamers with the 360's and trying to show that the console is not just aimed at hardcore gamers from ages 10 - 30 but for everyone. There's going to be old school games like Pac Man, Tetris and some others that could be played on Xbox Live Arcade.

I'm not sure if you've watched the other 360 commerical with the jump rope but after knowing what MS is trying to do and then comparing to that commercial, it made perfect sense. The jump rope game is like a really old school yard game. It's simple and it has a long history, even most people within the ages 40-60 had probably played or at least heard of/seen this game. And then, we can look at it from another perspective and see it as a game so simple that anyone can "jump in" and play. From this commerical, it's got 3 underlying messages. The 360 has simple-to-play games and you don't have to play PD0 or Halo, it has old school games so old school gamers wouldn't think they are outcasts and then of course "JUMP IN and buy me!" :rolling:

Now, from this banned commercial, I see it as the same thing. There are a bunch of middle age people, probably around ages 40 - 60, playing a game that is similar to cops and robbers. The game started as a 2 player game and then it grew larger as more people "jumped in." Again, this game is so simple that everyone can join in and MS is again telling people that 360 games are so simple that everyone can play.

Basically, what I'm saying is, it has a very simple mesage and I don't see the message saying "don't talk, start shooting." :rolling:

i like it.

the janitor walks in and is like O_o WTF shit! and then dives back through the door. that was pressy funny.


:eyesroll:

maybe im just immature but that commercial didnt seen wrong in any way to me. just a bunch of people playing around like they had guns and stuff. little kids do that all the time. and regualr tv shows/cartoon shows show stuff worse than that all time. i dont understand at all why that would be banned. it was freakin hillarious though

omg the grenade part was the funniest though! :rolling: :rolling:

lmao this so far has to be the best 360 commercial out there, sucks it got banned XD dont know why cause there are even more retarted commercials out there that make it on the air...

Yes. Oops >_< :rolling:

As for the rest, I don't think either of us "knows" what MS is doing or what the buried messages are. And we're looking at it from different contexts. There isn't really any association between the two commercials apart from their being in the same marketing campaign for the same product. As a short movie each stands on its own. But more importantly, if you can say that one short is related to another, I can say that both are related to the world today. In that case, my descriptions stand of what's being represented. These are images, not sentences like 'You must buy 360,' so identifying "meaning" is tricky; let alone "underlying" meaning--because we only see expressed images. Never mind that this is an advertisement to certain groups: Having all agreed on that, we can still look further at its specific content.

You seem to be taking the authors' word for what this commercial means much more than I, so we probably won't reach agreement. Anyway, it is designed to sell 360s to people, sure--just as Memoirs of a Geisha commercials are to sell tickets etc. They still DO different things in the process. The Memoirs ad shows late Imperial Japan as altogether splendid and romantic, which is askew to say the least. The 360 commercial shows a ubiquitous setting (the commute) as a setting to have fun with senseless violence--and little else.