The Ugly, Profitable Details About Xbox Live Advertising 204
An anonymous reader writes "In an editorial at Penny Arcade, Ben Kuchera writes about how Microsoft's subscription-based Xbox Live platform has become an advertising cash cow — to the detriment of users who already pay for the service. Quoting: 'People who don't play video games would be forgiven if they turned on an Xbox 360 and didn't realize it was a device used to primarily play games. The first screen you see on the Xbox 360 Dashboard is often a mixture of ads for all sorts of goods and services, and many times games are in the minority of ad slots. The latest redesign increased the ad space that can be sold to advertisers, and that in turn increased this problem. Let's be clear, it is a problem. Game discovery is terrible in the current design of Xbox Live, and the usability of a system that used to be about games is suffering in order for Microsoft to make money on ads. Sadly, this issue isn't going away: Ad sales simply bring in too much money to ignore, and revenue is growing. ... I contacted Microsoft and asked how much advertising revenue impacted the profitability of the Xbox 360. "We don't share this information publicly but we can tell you that, since 2010, the advertising business has grown 142%," I was told.'"
Filter it. (Score:5, Informative)
I was really annoyed with this when they first updated the console so the home screen was overrun with ads. I simply blocked their ad sub domain on my router. Problem solved.
For Xbox 360 users ... (Score:5, Informative)
Here's a method you can use to block some of those ads:
http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/n5831/how_to_block_xbox_dashboard_ads/ [reddit.com]
It doesn't block all of them, but it does block most of the animated, generic ads that aren't related to gaming.
Re:What exactly is suffering? (Score:1, Informative)
It's just seems harder to get access to games and look and explore the XBLA for possible purchases if you're bombarded with ads for TV shows, EA sports game and mountain dew ads.
Re:Filter it. (Score:5, Informative)
rad.msn.com
msnvidweb.vo.msecnd.net
Re:Not new, not special (Score:4, Informative)
The thing is, the default setting if you have a disc (XBL gold or not) is for that disc to play.
I have a disc in my 360 now and I never changed the default settings for game discs.
Lets see what happens when I turn it on.
Xbox 360 logo... Choose a profile screen... signing into Xbox Live...
OK, I was deposited at the Main Menu's "home" tab with 7 boxes. They are:
1. Upper-left corner: Small box, Alan Wake (the disc currently in the console)
2. Lower-left corner: Small box, Quickplay (for accessing my XBLA games)
3. Left-center: Large box the switches ads every 2 seconds between "Comic Con is On", "Crackle's The Unknown" (tv series?), "Call of Duty: Black Ops II", "Quantum Conundrum", and "Xbox Live Good, Better, Gold"
4. Right-center-upper: Small box, ad for MLB & More
5. Right-center-lower: Small box, ad for Arcade Sale
6. Upper-right corner: Small box, ad for Kinect
7. Lower-right corner: Small box, ad for Netflix
My empirical evidence says you're wrong.
Oh, and if you're referring to what happens when you put a disc in, the main menu has likely already loaded and you've already seen the ads.