Ads come to Xbox 360 via your Dashboard

[Hylian]

http://kotaku.com/5318124/new-dashboard ... o-your-360

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzQAsRPJH5c:3n5mkyh0][/youtube:3n5mkyh0]

As many of you have no doubt probably seen by now if you've been connected to Xbox Live, Microsoft's new dashboard advertisements have begun appearing for Xbox 360 owners.

Rather than the standard, static advertisements you're used to seeing, these bring running commercials to your 360, in some cases complete with video and, more annoyingly, sound. You can see an example of one running in this video here.

Josh Lovison, of digital media experts the Emerging Media Lab, tells us that these new Silverlight ads won't as intrusive as you may have first feared, as they've been designed to \"fit with the rest of the interface\". So you won't be seeing pop-up ads, or replacement banners, or watermarks, or news tickers, or anything like that. You'll just be seeing ads running in the same NXE \"windows\" as you find everything else on the console's user interface.

Interestingly, Lovison also says that Microsoft's entire move to the New Xbox Experience may have been partly influenced by the desire/need for advertising, as the \"windows\" that all NXE content is displayed in, from videos to demos to Xbox Live Arcade titles, \"just so happen to be IAB (Interactive Advertising Bureau) standard sizes\". Meaning a Flash/Silverlight ad from a website can be dropped directly onto the 360 dashboard.

I haven't seen one of these myself yet; I'm presuming you can just navigate away from them, and aren't forced to watch them?

Now I haven't logged on to Xbox live to see the ads for myself yet but I am still annoyed at the idea of it. We already are paying to use Xbox live and they go and throw ads at us. Now ads in themselves wouldn't be to bad except they got the idea to add sound and video to them. Now I know you can try and ignore them and not click on them but I find the whole idea quite annoying.

 

[Cat]

 

Having done ads here I can tell you that had they been as unobtrusive as the one on that video I would have kept them.

The ad in that video you can simply click away from easily. No muss, no fuss. The sound is only on when the screen is on that ad so the sound is not an issue.

Now, the ads on web pages that appear after a couple of seconds and obscure everything and there's nothing you can do about it? Yeah. THOSE you can bitch about. But this doesn't bother me in the least.

 

[Singularity.EXE]

I'm with the Dave-sir here, I don't mind ads at all. In fact I would prefer ads over paying more for something. Also, some ads (not the one in the video per-say) are actually interesting nowadays.

 

I'm a little peeved by this. We already pay for the use of Gold and now they toss ads at us? If they were to reduce the amount I had to pay, then I'd welcome it with open arms, but we all know that's not going to happen.

 

[elph]

I'm with the Dave-sir here, I don't mind ads at all. In fact I would prefer ads over paying more for something. Also, some ads (not the one in the video per-say) are actually interesting nowadays.

Here's another one for Ads.

In some ways I would even enjoy ads. Say a racing game, sports game that when you watch these events, normally have some kind of sponsor / advertisement along the course / field. It makes it more immersive. I would love a SimCity type game that instead of having generic versions of known stores, just had the stores in some iconic recognizable way.

 

[Shegokigo]

Yeah, I don't mind ads for free services, but ads during something I already paid for? I already put up with this bullshit before movies, now in my games/console?

 

[Bowielee]

So, you're getting advertisements on a service that you already pay for?

Isn't the whole point of selling ad space so that you can offer the product cheaper, or even free?

FYI, the PSN is completely free and has no adds.

 

Yeah, I don't mind ads for free services, but ads during something I already paid for? I already put up with this bullshit before movies, now in my games/console?

The difference here is that you can't get away from the ones in the movie, but in the console if you don't want to see it you just go right past it and don't stop.

 

[General Fuzzy McBitty]

This makes me not want to buy the 360 I've been considering.
If I'm going to pay a monthly fee for a service, I should not be subjected to advertisements. If it's free, fine, if not... no sale.

 

[Bowielee]

Remember the good old days when upgrading from free to "premium" services meant you got AWAY from any advertisements?

 

[quandofloo]

I think people are grossly overestimating what these ads are. They don't pop up during game play or while watching a movie. They don't intrude into your normal browsing of XBox Live services. They are another box to pop by or choose to watch. I don't see the problem.

Also, ads are not there to make the service free. They are an additional revenue stream for a company. If the company chooses to adjust their prices because they have ads then that is their decision but it is not what ads are for.

 

[Singularity.EXE]

Wow people are really anti-advertisments. I mean holy shit people its a small-little video in this case that you can just scroll over. And I can totally sympathize with Microsoft wanting to try and make more money, its just the way it is.

Also, I would love it if we saw more real companies in video games, as long as they served purely cosmetic roles. A modern game taking place in a city *should* have real businesses everywhere.

 

[Bowielee]

I do have to admit that I'm already biased. I think its stupid that you have to pay for online play with the xbox to begin with.

 

[Hylian]

I am not mad at the ads I am mad at there being ads in a service on which I already payed for. I don't mind ads if they make the item cheaper/free but when I pay to use a service and than they start throwing ads at us than I get mad. I see this as just the beginning I can see this getting totally out of hand.

 

[General Fuzzy McBitty]

Wow people are really anti-advertisments. I mean holy shit people its a small-little video in this case that you can just scroll over. And I can totally sympathize with Microsoft wanting to try and make more money, its just the way it is.

Also, I would love it if we saw more real companies in video games, as long as they served purely cosmetic roles. A modern game taking place in a city *should* have real businesses everywhere.

It's not that I'm anti-advertisement; I'm anti advertisement when it comes to something that I've paid good money to use already. Were it a free service, a revenue stream is logical. I understand looking for another revenue stream, but if you don't speak out when things like this bother you, you wind up with having to put up with even more crap.

Also, I disagree with the real businesses. I like my game worlds to be different from real life, and storefront signs are a great place for amusing snippets.

 

Yeah, that $59 a year is a deal breaker. :toocool:

 

[quandofloo]

Do your cable television channels run advertisement free?

 

[Bowielee]

Do your cable television channels run advertisement free?

No, but my TV antenna is free :tongue:

 

Do your cable television channels run advertisement free?

No, but they didn't start out showing no commercials and then decided to add them in later either. When you purchase cable tv, you know what you are getting ahead of time. It's more like HBO deciding to start showing commercials in the middle of movies.

 

[quandofloo]

Do your cable television channels run advertisement free?

No, but they didn't start out showing no commercials and then decided to add them in later either. When you purchase cable tv, you know what you are getting ahead of time. It's more like HBO deciding to start showing commercials in the middle of movies.

It would be more like HBO deciding to start showing commercials on a separate channel if you wanted to watch them. Also, HBO already runs commercials for their other products between their normal showings in addition to the 15 minute behind the scenes features they run for current box office movies which are no more than thinly disguised commercials.

 

Do your cable television channels run advertisement free?

No, but they didn't start out showing no commercials and then decided to add them in later either. When you purchase cable tv, you know what you are getting ahead of time. It's more like HBO deciding to start showing commercials in the middle of movies.

It would be more like HBO deciding to start showing commercials on a separate channel if you wanted to watch them.

Well, yes, that does work better. The channel is in the middle of all the others, so you'd have to click past it, but don't have to stop and watch.

 

Do your cable television channels run advertisement free?

No, but they didn't start out showing no commercials and then decided to add them in later either. When you purchase cable tv, you know what you are getting ahead of time. It's more like HBO deciding to start showing commercials in the middle of movies.

It would be more like HBO deciding to start showing commercials on a separate channel if you wanted to watch them. Also, HBO already runs commercials for their other products between their normal showings in addition to the 15 minute behind the scenes features they run for current box office movies which are no more than thinly disguised commercials.

DING! I'm watching Dexter for the first time On Demand and before each episode is a commercial for Nurse Jackie. And you have to fast forward to get past it.

This is nothing new, nor is it invasive. You can go right past it with almost no effort.

 

[tegid]

Yeah, that $59 a year is a deal breaker.

For some people I know yeah, it is. They can barely afford one or two games per year without counting Gold so... they have to choose: do they play the same game for years and play it online or would they rather have a new game? They end up paying for a single month when they can so it's not that bad but I dunno. Well okay, maybe it's not that bad, don't mind me.

 

DING! I'm watching Dexter for the first time On Demand and before each episode is a commercial for Nurse Jackie. And you have to fast forward to get past it.

This is nothing new, nor is it invasive. You can go right past it with almost no effort.

See, again, I'd be a little bit ticked at that. If I pay for any kind of premium service, I expect that service and nothing else. I hate the ads on DVDs as much as I do the ads on the Xbox. I wish they weren't there, but there's nothing I can do about it. I don't like the ads, but as long as I can just flip past them, then I don't get too upset.

 

[figmentPez]

There are billboards alone the side of toll roads.
The back of my frozen pizza box advertises other products.
A lot of paperback books have an excerpt from another novel at the end.
My MP3 player came a tie-in with an audio book service. (and the pre-loaded music is an advertisement as well)

Advertisements are everywhere. Personally, I think it's a bad thing, on the whole. However, it doesn't surprise me in the least that it's being added to the Xbox.

 

[JCM]

As long as it doesnt start banner ads, its a great way to keep things cheap-

 

[Ravenpoe]

*this post for rent*

 

[Shegokigo]

http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,4109057,00.html

 

[Roxxoredizorz]

NOW, if the ads were localized, I would be way cool with it. Like say it had an advertisement for stuff in my town/city, I would totally not even care. And still now, I don't care about ads, because I haven't had any.

 

[Bowielee]

I wish I would have been around when Golden Palace gave away 1,000,000.00 to get a tattoo on your forhead. I would have done it in a second.

I can wear baseball caps.

 

[Chazwozel]

I wonder what life was like pre-modernization and shoving consumer ads up our asses 24/7?

 

[quandofloo]

You mean when the only communication was by smoke signal and the only history available was the oral history passed down by the tribal elders?

 

[Fun Size]

You mean when the only communication was by smoke signal and the only history available was the oral history passed down by the tribal elders?

No, that still included ads.

Indian 1: What smoke signal say?
Indian 2: White men come...They each have gun...If you smart...You gonna run...Burma Shave.

 

[SpecialKO]

I don't think those ads are remotely intrusive, but I'm concerned about Microsoft's ability to sell the ad-space. If this doesn't work, they may scrap it and replace it with something a lot less palatable, like a fixed ad window in the lower left corner.

The in-house ads that they had before were click-to-play game trailers and direct response ads of the "buy now on XBLA and get 50% off game ABC" type. These are ads that require very little time to grab a response from a consumer. Even if a user was just flipping past the tabs, there's a good chance that they'll see the entire ad, and they may stop to look more closely or respond to it.

A 15 to 30 sec video/audio ad, however, actually requires users to stop and look at the ad for an extended period of time for the pay-off. If I'm an advertiser, and I know that the vast majority of users won't see more than a second of my ad, Microsoft is going to really have to lowball it to sell me the ad space.

It all comes down to the numbers of course, and maybe Microsoft has already sold the ad space to movie and TV studios to show trailers that people might actually want to see, so they believe that their actuals will match their predicted numbers.

But I'm skeptical it will work, and if it doesn't, I think there's no way MS won't try for something that's less easily dismissed.