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The Ugly, Profitable Details About Xbox Live Advertising
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.'"
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.
Lots of people pay for cable, and there's a ton of ads on it. Just saying.
"Give someone a program, frustrate them for a day... Teach someone to program, frustrate them for a lifetime."
Not to point out the rotting dead fish in the middle of the room, but this is exactly what happened with cable TV, and yet there is no real outrage on that front any more. I'm not saying it's the right thing...or even "acceptable" but customers seem to never balk at ads, and content streamers never turn down a revenue stream. It feels almost inevitable.
There are ads that load in when you connect to PSN. However, most of those ads are for games/videos you can download from PSN.
Same thing goes for Xbox Live. I'm an XBL user and I didn't really notice the change that much, because it's no different than what Google is doing with Android Market and what Apple does with its iOS and Mac App Stores.
It's completely different.
Apple and Google relegate their advertising to their app stores - you know, a special place specifically designed for you to go and buy stuff? It would be the same thing, if every time you turned on your Android or iDevice, you were smacked upside the head with ad after ad, but that's not the case.
Also worth noting, Apple and Google don't charge you for the privilege.
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