Xbox's advert pulled after protest from TV watchdog

A games console advertisement that featured a screaming mother propelling her baby into its grave was banned by television watchdogs yesterday after it provoked a flood of complaints.

The hi-tech advert for Microsoft's Xbox machine prompted 136 complaints from viewers, including a woman who lost a baby during childbirth and 20 people who had suffered bereavements. The Independent Television Commission ordered Microsoft to withdraw the advert and make changes after viewers found it "offensive, shocking and in bad taste".

Starting with a woman giving birth in a hospital, the surreal sequence showed a baby boy flying from his mother out of a hospital window. The child then rapidly aged as he flew through the air naked and screaming before finally smashing into his grave as an old man. It ended with the line: "Life is short. Play more."

Microsoft insisted the advert, designed to spearhead its campaign in March for the Xbox on to the competitive console market, conveyed a "positive statement about life".

But the commission said it had received complaints from a pregnant woman and a new mother about the childbirth scene. Others felt the ending was "extremely disturbing". The woman who had lost her child, said it was an "upsetting reminder" of her experience.

The watchdog said: "The ITC did not agree that the advertisement conveyed a positive statement."

It thought that the man's screams throughout his life's journey suggested a traumatic experience which, with the reminder that life is short, made the final scene more shocking.

The commission ordered that the advert, made by the advertising giant Bartle Bogle Hegarty, could not be shown again without changes to the ending.

But Microsoft, which said it regretted any upset, decided instead to withdraw the advert from television while continuing to show it in cinemas and on the internet, which are not governed by the commission.

The ITC also criticised the Broadcast Advertising Clearance Centre, which vets television adverts before they are broadcast. The watchdog said it had reminded the clearance centre of the need to be sensitive about references to death.