Ads Are Now On Xbox Live :-/
- Thread starter Hardknock
- Start date
I dont mind 'passive' ads such as these for gold members, and i thought they always had ads before, albeit for games only? What i would mind, however, is any sort of 'click-through' advertising for gold members. That said, if MS is going to start putting non-game ads on XBL, i expect more from them for it (dedicated servers anyone?) Now theyve got one less excuse for not including features Sony is thus far providing for free.
Guess you dont watch cable TV
Or go to the movies. Or buy magazines. Or the paper. Or any of millions of other services I cant think of offhand right now..
But, this is pretty crazy that MS is doing ads AND charging and AFAIK Sony isn't doing ads (yet, at least) OR charging .
But shit, MS seems to be getting away with all this stuff and people still buying more 360's than PS3's, so, if they can make there hardware losses back faster that way who's to say it's wrong.
Also have to wonder if this is a forerunner to the fabled free XBL in the future? Who knows.
Guess you dont watch cable TV
Not even remotely comparable. I don't pay anything for the TV-program on cable, just for the cable connection as such. Movies, mags etc. would be much more expensive without the ads, that's how they finance their work. XB Live is a specific service you pay for and therefore any sort of ads is just wrong there, or they should make it cost-free or much cheaper at least if they use ads.
Well, market performance isn't really an excuse (and I doubt they're really losing money on hardware..at least not nearly as much relative to a competitor). It doesn't immunise anyone from criticism.
But I'll borrow your line and rephrase it slightly...if people are still buying up more 360s, and if people are still signing up to Live Gold knowing this, there's no incentive for MS to stop. The only language MS knows with stuff like this is the language of money, so if you're not happy with something like this, there's only one way to really send them a message. Unfortunately that's just not practical for most people.
In the meantime, it just costs MS goodwill..and that kind of cost usually only becomes more or less apparent in the longer run depending on other factors aswell.
Ahh it doesn't matter. You said you wouldn't pay for anything with ads. BTW you are not paying just for the cable because the networks charge the Cable co. money (in some cases, like ESPN, quite a lot!) to carry them so that is what you are paying for just as much as the physical cable laid to your house.
I dont have a problem with the ads really anyway I guess. Hell I'm occasionally clicking on their billboards hoping for some interactivity often in vain. Just tonight I was clicking on their "Elite" ad/graphic hoping for something, but you cannot. I'd just rather it's not this trashy lurid "axe bodyspray" and B-movie crap..
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Agreed. Xbox Live is a service you directly pay for, I'd be mighty pissed if I was putting out money and still had to view ads. Frankly Microsoft should offer a system to where Silver gets most of the benefits of Gold but with ads and then Gold is completely ad free with a few more, there is no reason the Gold service should have ads.
So you don't have cable or satellite?
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People complain about advertising all the time.
It may not be the case with everything you pay for, but a lot of people may have come to expect from their internet services that they can turn off advertising if they're paying for the service. People have different expectations in different contexts, I don't think they need be apologetic about that.
I think that the ads are right there on the dashboard perhaps irks people more. It's not like Live has a completely separate store, for example, where those ads could be confined. They're there in a blade which is a persistent part of the UI, and they're arguably just not very pretty.
It may not be the case with everything you pay for, but a lot of people may have come to expect from their internet services that they can turn off advertising if they're paying for the service. People have different expectations in different contexts, I don't think they need be apologetic about that.
I think that the ads are right there on the dashboard perhaps irks people more. It's not like Live has a completely separate store, for example, where those ads could be confined. They're there in a blade which is a persistent part of the UI, and they're arguably just not very pretty.
Answered in post #6. I'm paying for the cable connection, not the program. With sat, you pay nothing here.
then by that logic why do you have to pay more for HBO and the like, those channels have ads aswell
IIRC the box with the adds has always been there, most of the time it's a movie or TV show ad but it has always been an ad there
I don't mind the one ad box, as long as the don't start flooding the dash with them, but I agree that maybe it should be in the market place section instead of the main live page
If there is a way, it'd be great to hear about it. They don't bother me too much, but it would be nice to have the option.
Ads in the marketplace are OK (in particular those advertising content on marketplace), although MS probably feels that general ads for non-marketplace stuff wouldn't make as much sense there.
Ads aren't surprising. The demoralizing thing here is the nature of the ad! If gaming's truly mainstream, why the 'you're a social-skills-less geek without a life. Here's spray on girl-attraction' advert?! If it were movie ads, or sports ads, or game guide ads, or something 'cool' it wouldn't be so bad, but this ad makes me feel like Live! users are viewed as icky sad-o's!
The situation is different for Germany. So that comparison doesn't really apply here. But let's not concentrate on the cable angle and stay on topic.
scooby_dooby
Legend
Not that I really care on this issue, but ads are a valid complaint. Would you like to have an embedded ad in your webbrowser at all times? Probably not as it would get annoying, ads are just annoying period.
In this case, I hardly ever sit on my dashboard, least of all that blade, so as long as they don't start integrating it in the music player, visualizer, media centre etc I'm fine.
Agree 100% with expletive btw, when will MS step up and give the dedicated hosting that XBLive obviously needs? It's a big reason I don't play on it alot, whenever I do it's usually a sub-par experience.
