Silverlight Ads on Xbox 360

[Evil Avatar]

Xbox Live's Major Nelson has made a post (http://majornelson.com/archive/2009/07/01/advertising-on-xbox-live.aspx) about the recent revelation that Microsoft will be bringing paid advertising to your Xbox Live dashboard.

I’ve seen quite a bit of discussion today about how we’re bringing Silverlight ads to LIVE (http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=108853) in the future.

I need to let you know that you don’t need to worry about a huge influx of ads across the dashboard. One of our core principles is to enhance, not interfere with the gaming experience, and we work directly with our partners to only deliver experiences that are relevant to the LIVE community. Silverlight will help make those ads a more organic part of the dashboard, like we’ve done with some of the NXE slots in the past. No one on the team wants to turn the dashboard into something that looks like (http://wallpapers.3yen.com/wp-content/images/wallpapers.3yen.com_6327.jpg) like Shibuya Crossing (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shibuya%2C_Tokyo). That’s just not good for anyone.

Facebook, Twitter, last.FM, Netflix and advertising. I wonder if there will be any room left for GAMES on Xbox Live.

[iVeY]

WHY THE HELL do I pay for my xbox live service if I have to see advertisements? Put that crap on the silver users. There is no reason at all I have to pay 50 bucks a year and still see ads!

[Azriel77]

Enjoy paying for ads gold users.

[RMan]

There is no reason at all I have to pay 50 bucks a year and still see ads!
Except that customers paying $50 a year are more attractive to advertisers.

[HALO 32]

Since I live out in the sticks I have a slow connection so there is only so much I can do on XBL. So if Microsoft is gong to pull this crap I guess this means I won’t log in to XBL as much.

It’s because of stupid crap like this it makes me thankful for my PS3 and VGA cable. This means I don’t need Xbox Live for Twitter, Facebook, Last.FM, and I have plenty of movies so I don’t need Netflix.

[Pluvious]

OUTRAGEOUS ~! I bought the 360 as a gaming console, not a new way for me to get bombarded with ads!! I told you all, give them an inch and they will take a mile. I predict a day when we have ads between levels and you can quote me on it.

[ashikenshin]

actually I see ads on my prototype game. While it doesn't bother me too much, it just doesn't look right. A giant poster of gamestop on top of a sky scraper doesn't look well.

I blame Activision!

[FreezaSama]

actually I see ads on my prototype game. While it doesn't bother me too much, it just doesn't look right. A giant poster of gamestop on top of a sky scraper doesn't look well.

I blame Activision!

Corproate whores! *raises fist angrily* :mad:

[brandonjclark]

Corproate whores! *raises fist angrily* :mad:


.."and all these corporations.... well, they act all corporationy!"

teamamerica

[Earth Djinn]

I agree that it should be for Silver users only.

[Wyrm]

Consider my xbox live subscription canceled when it runs out. I'm not paying a monthly fee for advertising.

If you want to make an ad supported game or service, I'm fine with that. But don't shove it down your paying customers' collective throats. It already costs sixty bucks a year to stay 'hooked in' to the service. What are we paying for if they put ads in there? What are we getting in return for having to look at ads that are being forced on us? If it isn't some sort of massive feature update, then I'm done with this crap. MS has pushed me this whole generation, first with the crappy hardware (I'm on my fourth 360), then with the lack of a coherent direction for their future, and finally, they capped it off with games for windows live, forcing me to swallow that bullshit so that I can suffer while I try to play games on my PC. My PC, having previously been a safe haven from anti-fun services like GFWL, is now forced to run this crap, clunky, designed-for-consoles software.

[iVeY]

Yes. Just like everything else on the internet. Pandora has a free service with ads and commercials or you can pay the subscription and get commercial free radio. Much like XBL should be silver people should get the ads while the people actually paying should get ad free gaming. I will leave XBL if this gets carried away.

[BlueBomber]

None of you guys are going to leave. And Microsoft knows it.

[mooseknuckles]

This combined with my buddy being billed wrong and their refusal to fix it has made me a Sony customer next time around.

[ashikenshin]

None of you guys are going to leave. And Microsoft knows it.

Even though its depressing, its the truth.

me being the sony fanboy that I am :D won't buy a 360 just like i didn't buy the first xbox.

[ElfShotTheFood]

I'd rather put up with ads than put up with Home.

[BlueBomber]

I'd rather put up with ads than put up with Home.What? Nobody HAS to put up with Home. It's entirely optional.

[ashikenshin]

I'd rather put up with ads than put up with Home.

since its an optional download even I with 3 ps3s don't have to put up with Home since I haven't even downloaded it yet.

keep being awesome :rolleyes:

[BlueBomber]

Speaking of Home -

Holy (http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=270418437415&viewitem=&sspagename=STRK%3AMEWAX%3AIT&salenotsupported). Shit (http://cgi.ebay.com/Killzone-2-HOME-Costume-Code-PS3-Playstation-3_W0QQcmdZViewItemQQitemZ120435183036QQsalenotsupp orted).

I am now happy as fuck I held on to this thing.

[Wyrm]

I'd rather put up with ads than put up with Home.

I wish this was reddit or digg, so that your post could be down voted until it disappeared from material existence.

[Roman]

Well, this depends where the ads are. Are they just going to be integrated into Spotlight?

I remember it was annoying with the old dash. You would spend points on some theme and then the banner ad would cover up the background pic anyway.

[Sasori the Medic]

It's these types of decisions that make the PS3 more attractive for gamers. I hardly ever use any of the Gold features on my account anyway and will certainly be canceling it when my payment comes up in November. I'm one of those people who goes out of their way to avoid advertisements and have no qualms about ditching a service that places profitability over user-satisfaction.

[DCJoeDog]

This is bullshit, we are paying them to serve ads to us. Seems silver si the new gold, at least they don't have to pay to see this shit.

My gold subscription is already set to not auto renew, you can thank yourself MS.

[Evil Avatar]

Speaking of Home -

Holy (http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=270418437415&viewitem=&sspagename=STRK%3AMEWAX%3AIT&salenotsupported). Shit (http://cgi.ebay.com/Killzone-2-HOME-Costume-Code-PS3-Playstation-3_W0QQcmdZViewItemQQitemZ120435183036QQsalenotsupp orted).

I am now happy as fuck I held on to this thing.

I've got bad news for you. Those codes expired months ago. I had one and I went to put it in about a week ago and it doesn't take the code since the costume isn't available in their store.

[Mr.Green]

You freakin outraged drama queens better all be working for non-profit organizations. ;)

[bean19]

You freakin outraged drama queens better all be working for non-profit organizations. ;)
I know you weren't addressing me, but I get where they are coming from.

I would LIKE this if they announced a plan to make it so that Gold-membership entitled you to no-ads and silver still had access to play games (but had to see ads on the dashboard). I like that television is not expensive because of ads, and I'd like to play online games on my 360 but I honestly don't play enough online games on the 360 to make Gold worth the cost.

[Scramble]

Why put the ads on silver users? if there's ad revenue, everyone should be on the same tier and no one should pay to play online. Hell, I only plug my 360 in once in a blue moon to see what's new. If I want to game online, I use my PC or PS3. Paying for Live is pants.

[Meusli]

I am just waiting for someone from Microsoft to come wandering into the thread and explain that we are all wrong, they better hurry up. I feel the same as you guys, if I pay for a service I do not expect adds just like I do with the BBC.

[Evil Avatar]

You freakin outraged drama queens better all be working for non-profit organizations. ;)

Those outraged drama queens are PAYING for Xbox Live and it is their revenue that keeps the service alive and free for game developers. You cut out the Gold users and MS will have to start charging developers for bandwidth like Sony does.

Considering the massive amount of flat out cash that Live generates for Microsoft with little or no effort on their part (the developers/publishers do all the work and MS makes all the profit) it is astoundingly tacky for them to even consider putting advertising on the service.

It all seems to be part of their master plan to turn gamers away from the product just when it is starting to be a success.

[HarverdGrad]

Considering the massive amount of flat out cash that Live generates for Microsoft with little or no effort on their part..


..It all seems to be part of their master plan to turn gamers away from the product just when it is starting to be a success.

I question this.
How would you know?

[walstib]

Xbox Live's Major Nelson has made a post (http://majornelson.com/archive/2009/07/01/advertising-on-xbox-live.aspx) about the recent revelation that Microsoft will be bringing paid advertising to your Xbox Live dashboard.



Facebook, Twitter, last.FM, Netflix and advertising. I wonder if there will be any room left for GAMES on Xbox Live.

bullshit. just utter bullshit.

this is just the tip of the iceberg. how about keeping your fucking ads off of my tv?

[DCJoeDog]

LET ME SET "MY XBOX" AS THE DEFAULT LOCATION, AND NOT "SPOTLIGHT", WHEN I TURN ON MY XBOX!!

Sorry, but this is starting to piss me off.

[Ozymandias]

Well, this depends where the ads are. Are they just going to be integrated into Spotlight?

I remember it was annoying with the old dash. You would spend points on some theme and then the banner ad would cover up the background pic anyway.

I might suggest folks wait and see how Silverlight is used... and then decide. Silverlight is a technology, similar to Flash, and the announcement basically says that it'll be available to use in ads... which, by the way, are already there. So this announcement doesn't actually change anything material.

Whether or not you can "stand" ads in your experience is a personal decision - but the announcement shouldn't affect your stance, especially without seeing it in action.

Here's another way to put it - LIVE's delivered sufficient value to have over 20M users (and growing). It's become an ecosystem of value to gamers, developers, publishers, and Microsoft - it's a platform. Do you really think decisions are going to be made that drive away the core of the service - the users - and break that ecosystem for everyone involved?

Right - back to painting the house. ;)

[Ozymandias]

I am just waiting for someone from Microsoft to come wandering into the thread and explain that we are all wrong, they better hurry up. I feel the same as you guys, if I pay for a service I do not expect adds just like I do with the BBC.

Done. ;)

And done again, since my answer wasn't long enough apparently ;)

[Ozymandias]

Those outraged drama queens are PAYING for Xbox Live and it is their revenue that keeps the service alive and free for game developers. You cut out the Gold users and MS will have to start charging developers for bandwidth like Sony does.

Considering the massive amount of flat out cash that Live generates for Microsoft with little or no effort on their part (the developers/publishers do all the work and MS makes all the profit) it is astoundingly tacky for them to even consider putting advertising on the service.

It all seems to be part of their master plan to turn gamers away from the product just when it is starting to be a success.

I'll politely point out that you seem to very easily minimize the hundreds of developers working year around on new LIVE features and technologies, some of which come straight to you (Netflix, Live Party Chat, Music, Movies, etc.) and some of which are exposed via games (Marketplace content, avatars, new peripheral support, etc.) You may not like all the features, but it's astoundingly expensive to build, test, and maintain all of this - not to mention run a worldwide service, customer support, blah, blah, blah.

Not quite as simple a gusher of cash for no investment... look at all the complaints people have with Sony's service/feature consistency. You get what you pay for IMO. And frankly, I believe that whether or not I worked at MS - and I think the value of a LIVE membership is only going to grow exponentially over the next couple of years.

[Grumsh]

Done. ;)

And done again, since my answer wasn't long enough apparently ;)

Since I have a Costco card I get live for a year as cheap as $30. Thats less than $3 a month/$0.08 cents a day, and honestly yes I am not a fan of adds, but I trained my brain to readily ignore adds. Add to that I set my Xbox to auto load games, and I honestly don't think I could tell you any adds I have seen besides that Fugly Cube POS disposable suv/sedan whatever the frick it is.

[Evil Avatar]

I'll politely point out that you seem to very easily minimize the hundreds of developers working year around on new LIVE features and technologies, some of which come straight to you (Netflix, Live Party Chat, Music, Movies, etc.) and some of which are exposed via games (Marketplace content, avatars, new peripheral support, etc.) You may not like all the features, but it's astoundingly expensive to build, test, and maintain all of this - not to mention run a worldwide service, customer support, blah, blah, blah.

Not quite as simple a gusher of cash for no investment... look at all the complaints people have with Sony's service/feature consistency. You get what you pay for IMO. And frankly, I believe that whether or not I worked at MS - and I think the value of a LIVE membership is only going to grow exponentially over the next couple of years.

I think it is a great service. That is why I continue to PAY for the service every year.

What you seem to minimize is that MS is already getting something in the range of $476,000,000 per year from paying Gold subscribers and that is in addition to the revenue generated from DLC. For example, the last Call of Duty 5 map pack alone sold over a million copies at $10 a copy. Even if MS only put half that in their pocket you can see where very quickly the revenue generated from the service would far exceed a BILLION dollars a year.

So, I do understand that the service costs money to build, maintain and expand, but it also has a minimum of two sources of revenue. DLC and paid Subscriptions.

With all that money coming in, I think the least that MS could do is make it so that advertising doesn't display for Gold members.

[DCJoeDog]

When you are on the side that depends on any said money, all your principles are on hold until said situation changes. Not saying anyone here is int his situation, just throwing that out there.

[Verruckt]

Not defending it here, just feel like pointing out that many TV channels have commercials and you have to pay to get them.

[Seiryu]

I'll politely point out that you seem to very easily minimize the hundreds of developers working year around on new LIVE features and technologies, some of which come straight to you (Netflix, Live Party Chat, Music, Movies, etc.) and some of which are exposed via games (Marketplace content, avatars, new peripheral support, etc.) You may not like all the features, but it's astoundingly expensive to build, test, and maintain all of this - not to mention run a worldwide service, customer support, blah, blah, blah.

Not quite as simple a gusher of cash for no investment... look at all the complaints people have with Sony's service/feature consistency. You get what you pay for IMO. And frankly, I believe that whether or not I worked at MS - and I think the value of a LIVE membership is only going to grow exponentially over the next couple of years.

You are absolutely right, you get what you pay for. Guess what, I don't want to pay for ads. You put advertising into something as an alternate form of revenue rather than charging for whatever it is that the advertising is on. Take for example, a website. Many websites have ads on them but are free to the user, hence the presence of the ads. What Microsoft is doing is making it so that the users who already pay a premium will be forced to see advertisements anyway, so if I have to see the ads, what is the point of paying for it?

Let's take a look at the points you mentioned:
Netflix: While it is true that this service requires gold to access, you also have to pay for the Netflix service. My question on this point is, why does it require gold? The movies you are streaming to your Xbox are stored on Netflix's servers, not Microsofts, and it is basically the same as when you use Netflixs streaming movie service from a PC. The MMO game Final Fantasy XI can be played online by silver users because of the fact that it is on Square Enixs servers and you have to pay a monthly fee to access it, so since Netflix basically works the same way, why require gold? Either way, I don't use Netflix and I know there are many other Xbox users that don't use it either. The "privilege" to pay an additional fee on top of gold in order to use netflix is something I can do without.

Live Party Chat: It's a nice feature and all, but I rarely find myself having more than one person other than myself in a party, so I could just as easily use the private chat feature that is open to silver members. The only real benefit of the party system is the ability to have more than two people in a group chat, all the other features can be done without using a party. If I want to talk with more than one other person at once I will just do a conference call on my cell phone, since I have the phone numbers of everyone on my friends list. This is another gold feature that I could live without, and I'm sure many other users feel the same.

Music, Movies, Ect.: All of this content can be accessed by both gold and silver users, and costs an additional fee on top of the gold service to access. Since gold isn't required to use this stuff, it's a moot point.

Marketplace Content: Yes, a small portion of this is exclusive to gold members, but most of it can be accessed by silver as well, and most of it costs an additional fee on top of the gold service. I'm not sure I have ever downloaded something that was gold exclusive, so this "feature" would still be about the same regardless of whether I am gold or not.

Avatars, New Peripheral Support, Ect.: This is another moot point, all of this is accessible regardless of whether you are gold or silver. Also, I know a majority of people I have talked to hate the avatar feature and wish it wasn't added at all, so that is an even bigger reason why this doesn't matter.

The big pull for a gold membership is the ability to play games online, but I don't even find myself enjoying that as the online community of Xbox is terrible. I'm sure most people will agree that it is not fun to play online with people that are extremely poor sports (regardless of if they are winning or losing) and people who cheat or hack their games.

Long story short, I don't think I will be renewing my gold when it runs out. There's not really any good reasons to be paying for the service anymore, I can play my games single player with silver just as well as I can play them with gold. I had pretty much already decided this, but this news about ads is putting me over the edge. It just so happens that I purchased a PS3 about a week ago, and haven't even turned on my 360 since I got it. If Microsoft keeps disappointing their consumers like this it's likely that Sony will find their way back to the top of the console war, maybe not this generation, but almost certainly when the next gen consoles start coming out.

[TDiddy]

What is the big deal? I see people posting saying they won't renew their gold membership because of the news regarding ads. The news was that a different program would be used to present the ads, not that there would be more.
And a key reason for this is that there has to be some positive nature for the consumer, to which my best guess would be it uses less system resources to produce the ad versus making it a selectable option that brings up more info on the dashboard, as it is now.

[shadow763]

I wont be renewing mine even though I got mine for 25. I will only renew if its 10 a year. I dont see much purpose for Live as I cant stand those I do play with online and there isnt much on there I want to play online.