Xbox One Is Not Designed With Advertising In Mind, Microsoft Says

[Tireseas_v1legacy]

So it has ads? You mean like every other media platform out there? Shocking.

If the ads are as bad as they currently are, then they're almost as bad as television and internet ads (at least they don't get in the way of starting your game up) when you have your TV or PC muted (and don't get me started on those video ads that don't automute their sound).

And for those people who say "but we paid for this," no, hardware in this industry is almost always sold at a loss, and every dime they get through other means is money you don't have to pay both on the front end and higher subscription fees (if required at all). For all those ads, I can still boot up my XBox and start a game with my television off (unless it's attached via the HDMI cable) and autostart disabled. 99% of the time, my "cursor" doesn't even move to the right.

Now put your complaints in perspective and calm the fuck down.

 

[Rad Party God]

Who do you think you are fooling MS?, have you seriously turned on your freaking 360 lately?.

 

[SerBrittanicus]

And for those people who say "but we paid for this," no, hardware in this industry is almost always sold at a loss, and every dime they get through other means is money you don't have to pay both on the front end and higher subscription fees (if required at all). For all those ads, I can still boot up my XBox and start a game with my television off (unless it's attached via the HDMI cable) and autostart disabled. 99% of the time, my "cursor" doesn't even move to the right.

Now put your complaints in perspective and calm the fuck down.

Except Microsoft have already come out and said that they won't be selling the One at a loss and may even make a very small profit on each unit. We are getting much higher game prices next gen (in the UK) and many people will also be paying the super high subscription cost for Gold, but we will still also have to have the dashboard smothered in ads. Thanks, but no thanks - I think I will wait and see what the PS4 does on this front and then decide whether I want any of the consoles or not.

 

[Arnoxthe1]

Just like how you gave users control over the hundreds of Ad's plastered on the Home tab of the 360 dashboard? I'm sorry, Microsoft. I've stuck by you but this... I'll believe it when I see it.

 

[Atmos Duality]

It was an interview done speculatively

What utter balls.

The interview wasn't speculative. "With advertising in mind" isn't a summary or a suggestion, it's a direct quote from a Microsoft 'Xbox Live Advertising Developer' about what the Xbox Live UI would be.

It's not speculative if he's telling you the exact ethos behind the thing he is designing right at that point, and it cannot be retroactively changed because the Xbox Live UI has already been created and it was done so with that purpose.

At most you can claim to have backtracked once again on a previous policy, but you cannot claim that it somehow didn't happen that way when we have direct confirmation from an employee about what his focus was at the time he was designing it.

And ninja'd.
Microsoft are lying through their teeth.

Lying about an issue in a way that's pretty meaningless.
"Oh it's not designed with ads in mind." is not the same as "It won't have ads." or even "It won't have as many ads as the 360 UI."

There's nothing definitive about what they're saying so they can spin their "intentions" (or design) any way they want.
We already have strong evidence of (the 360's ad-clogged UI) what Microsoft intends to do in practice. Until they say something definitive, expect at least as many ads as the 360.

I have no idea what they hoped to accomplish with this interview.

There is a reason people are already calling it the AdBox.

First time I've ever heard the term. But if the shoe fits..

 

[rasputin0009]

It was an interview done speculatively

What utter balls.

The interview wasn't speculative. "With advertising in mind" isn't a summary or a suggestion, it's a direct quote from a Microsoft 'Xbox Live Advertising Developer' about what the Xbox Live UI would be.

It's not speculative if he's telling you the exact ethos behind the thing he is designing right at that point, and it cannot be retroactively changed because the Xbox Live UI has already been created and it was done so with that purpose.

At most you can claim to have backtracked once again on a previous policy, but you cannot claim that it somehow didn't happen that way when we have direct confirmation from an employee about what his focus was at the time he was designing it.

Ya, I'm pretty sure that interview was meant to get investors excited about the One. I highly doubt that they're going to backtrack on a massive form of revenue. So I'm not sure what this blatant lying is supposed to achieve. Quell the fears of potential customers? Any potential customers of the One who are paying attention to this already know what they're getting into since they most likely have an Xbox 360 with Xbox Live, a paid service that puts priority of advertising over accessibility.

 

[Tireseas_v1legacy]

And for those people who say "but we paid for this," no, hardware in this industry is almost always sold at a loss, and every dime they get through other means is money you don't have to pay both on the front end and higher subscription fees (if required at all). For all those ads, I can still boot up my XBox and start a game with my television off (unless it's attached via the HDMI cable) and autostart disabled. 99% of the time, my "cursor" doesn't even move to the right.

Now put your complaints in perspective and calm the fuck down.

Except Microsoft have already come out and said that they won't be selling the One at a loss and may even make a very small profit on each unit.

Unless that includes support costs (network maintenance, OS development, customer service, community services, etc.), I'm skeptical (alternatively, the ad platform may be what's pushing that into the black). MS has a duty to shareholders too (and they can get sued over fucking them over), so you're not going to come out right and say "hey, we're not making a dime in profit over this product we're selling."

We are getting much higher game prices next gen (in the UK) and many people will also be paying the super high subscription cost for Gold, but we will still also have to have the dashboard smothered in ads. Thanks, but no thanks - I think I will wait and see what the PS4 does on this front and then decide whether I want any of the consoles or not.

Until I actually see a product at retail 6 months in (or 1 month if it's a game), I'm going to hold back on judging the prices. Prices have the tendency to fluctuate on the first run (see: Apple products), so I always wait until about 1 year in to any hardware cycle before I start looking, so that they get the kinks out, and there's often a upgraded version available (I still use my original 360 elite and only recent had concerns about hitting its 120GB HD capacity). Unless XBox One is truly awful (and those dealbreaker features have since been removed), I will probably buy one sometime next November and a PS4 the year after.

 

[Tireseas_v1legacy]

Now put your complaints in perspective and calm the fuck down.

Good advice. I shall try to draw rational comparisons to past, personal events...

My local newspaper has a website. For years, it had free public access using an ad-based revenue model. Then suddenly, they said ads weren't making enough money so they switched to a subcription-based service. A few people signed up ($8 a month for a local newspaper) and discovered that, while the paper was now charging people for access, it was still showing the advertisements that "weren't making any money".

They weren't. Assuming you're in the US (where the ad/subscription model was the cornerstone of journalism since WWII), readership has collapsed as more consumers drifted to high-traffic sites like Buzzfeed or Politico, partisan sites like Red State or Think Progress, or supplemented sites like CNN or ESPN (i.e. the website is not the main moneymaker). Many newspaper sites, such as the Washington Post or NYTimes, were loosing readership even before the paywall models started as delivery subscriptions tumbled, particularly after the 2008 economic crash and people started jettisoning any costs that were unnecessary (I can get the same news from X or Y. X costs money, Y doesn't. Why should I pay X if I can get news for free from Y?).

In other words, journalism is in a very different situation than gaming. Gaming does not make its money on traffic like advertising. Instead, the majority of costs are recouped through sales and licencing (and the alternative to that is illegal; AKA piracy). Journalism's problem lied in that they could no longer recoup its costs (i.e. journalists) because its competitors were effectively offering the same content for free. Gaming does not have that problem.

Personally, I won't pay for a subscription-based service if it simultaneousl draws ad-based revenue. Mostly, this is because the market has accepted either free-service with ads, or paid-service without. A lot of people seemed to agree with me as the newpaper's online service is defunct.

Again, when your competition is offering the same (or substantially similar) content for free, then why would anyone prefer your product?

As a side note, I do pay for a subscription to a digital newspaper that also has ads, mainly for the content I can't get elsewhere. And that's how a good subscription system works: you sell content that you can't get elsewhere for cheaper/free. If you're just reposting Reuters/AP stories alongside a bit of local news, then your paper is going to fail in the long run because other sites will give that content away for free. The catch is that you have to balance your fee to insure the highest retention while covering your costs.

Now that I've calmed the fuck down and taken everything in perspective, I can definitively say I will not be buying an XB1 for the same reason I have not paid for X-Box Live Gold access.

So thanks! You've been helpful!

And I have a subscription. And I've enjoyed that extra content and being able to play games online. Plus, I've recouped the losses of the subscription through free/sale prices that are offered to subscribers. In the end, I walk away spending less and getting more. Call it the "Mileage Card" effect: you pay a little and maintain enough activity, you can walk away with a profit.

 

[mysecondlife]

"I'll say this - we take a lot of heat around stuff we've done and I can roll with it. Some of it is deserved," he wrote. "But preventing Kinect from being used inappropriately is something the team takes very seriously."

Well, that's a start. Its something I'd take with more sincerity if he didn't spew bullshit at the same time.

 

[UltimatheChosen]

Xbox One Is Not Designed With Advertising In Mind, Microsoft Says

That's okay, because it wasn't designed with consumers in mind, either.

 

[Shoggoth2588]

Several months ago Microsoft talked up how the Kinect could be used to specifically match people with advertisements they might give a crap about. Indeed, it was also said that if too many people were gathered around a Kinect it would stop whatever game the Xbone80 is playing to advertise the Hell out of people until somebody paid up.

Microsoft just needs to stick to their guns already. They've admitted that their long-term goals for the Xbone80 haven't changed a bit so it would be in their best interest to just say they're keeping all of the originally intended. It'll piss people off now but I guarantee less people will be pissed off if they go back to their original plan now as opposed to switching the console into an Orwellian nightmare machine in 1 to 3 years.

 

[Evonisia]

How does the kinect 2 spy on you? Whats it gonna do, scan your face then sends you adverts for spot cream. lol.

Everything with a camera spies on you, the Kinect 2 is worse because of reasons.

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

*insert pessimism, hate, lack of reading comprehension statements, blind anti-corporation rage, conspiracy theory about kinect spying, alternating love for sony/valve, top it off with more cynicism and hipster rant* I just wanted to fit in...

OT: Well, again I really don't care. The dashboard experience doesn't matter a hill of beans to me since I'm not playing the dashboard, I'll be playing the games if they're worth a damn. I don't care what system/platform/whatever, good games are good games and I'll end up having all the next-gen systems at some point. Why? Because I make decisions based on library not what may or may not be on the dashboard. I drive every day and see a lot of in my face marketing and ignore it, see it between shows on TV or in ad breaks on HuluPlus. I hardly ever look at the 360 dashboard anyway so unless they decide to interrupt my gameplay with ads, which would be VERY stupid and while Microsoft blunders every now and again they aren't dumb enough to do that, I will probably play on XB1 at some point in time.

 

[-Dragmire-]

Can anyone tell me how much control users currently have over ads on Xbox live now? I personally don't know. I imagine their next console will have just as much control over that aspect of the machine.

 

[SilverLion]

To all those people saying that "It's not that important that it has ads, they're out of the way and you don't have to look at them and it's not important and all that jazz," Yes. Yes it is important. A games console is there to just connect and play. That's the advantage they always had over P.C gaming. You could just put in the game and 10 seconds later be jumping over Goomba's or shooting aliens or whatever you want. Video games are a different medium than T.V or movies, and having endless adverts plastered everywhere may be acceptable for T.V, but not for video games. Different mediums have different rules. That's why the Shining mini-series sucks so hard even though it is a 100% faithful adaptation of one of the scariest novels ever written. It should NOT take me approximately 41 seconds to get to the main friggin' menu of the latest triple AAA game and another 3 minutes of cinematics before I can actually start playing and ANOTHER 15 minutes of being told how to friggin' walk before actually getting to the "game" part of the fucking game. Yes, it was made by Vicarious Visions and published by Activision and you spent lots of money on it, I don't care if I can't actually play the game quicker than I could on P.C. And yes, Microsoft does not care about if we actually enjoy the XB1. They just care that we bought it in the first place so whenever we turn it on we have at least five ads on the dashboard that continues giving them a steady flood of cash so they can continue to not care about us. That's why I actually believe the Wii U is the best eighth gen console. Does it have flaws, yes, some very big ones, but it is actually dedicated to video games, not earning as much money as possible before you realise that you've been fucked over.
So yes, it is a big deal that the XB1 is dedicated to advertising. There needs to be a middle ground between a console serving us and us serving the console. Unfortunately, people are dicks and only care about themselves.
Thank you and fuck you Microsoft, for forcing a steaming pile of shit on us like an unwilling actor in a schisse porn movie. When you finally decide to pull your head out of your ass and make decisions that make us WANT to buy your product, we will wlecome you with open arms.

 

[Lunar Templar]

uh huh ... sure its not MS *breaks out the Frebreeze to kill the smell of Bullshit*

 

[Genocidicles]

Can anyone tell me how much control users currently have over ads on Xbox live now? I personally don't know. I imagine their next console will have just as much control over that aspect of the machine.

If you have xbox live then there are usually at least 2 ads to every section of the dashboard, one of which is usually a video that suddenly adds sound at an incredibly loud volume if you hover over it.

If you aren't connected then the all of the ads are replaced with ads telling you to get xbox live.

There is no way to remove them on the xbox, but there was supposedly a way to get rid of them by filtering your network or something (I'm not very computer savvy), and it replaced the ads with empty black squares. Of course that was discovered way back when the ads were first introduced, so Microsoft has likely sorted out that little loophole by now.

 

[Aggieknight]

Xbox One Is Not Designed With Advertising In Mind, Microsoft Says

I'm sorry...I'm sorry...I'm sorry...

BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH
HAHAHAHAHAH
AHAHAHAHHA
HAHAHA
HA
HAA
heh

Seriously? As I look at all the crappy ads shoved down my throat on my 360, M$ expects me to believe that they didn't design their new console to figure out how to shove more at me?

Heh.

 

[runic knight]

Yeah, I think you sort of forgot that before you try to sell us all bullshit, you have to somehow reclaim people's trust in you in the first place. You know, the trust you squandered by coming up with crappy DRM ideas that you claimed were needed, but then backtracked on the second you realized that people were not the gullible.
So no, I don't believe you that the product that is sequel to horrible advertisement driven mentality that is 360/live somehow is not designed with advertising to the already paying audiences.

Every damn announcement seems to have me more and more happy I will never get an xbone. Even the ones where they give into what the customers want (no damn check ins daily and the like), they do it in such a resentful, blame the customer way that can't help but make one thing of some greasy used car salesman. No, I don't trust a damn thing you are trying to tell me anymore microsoft, you have not shown the integrity for me to trust you and the result of that will be at the very least one less customer.

Take a page from movie making 101. SHOW! don't tell.