What Are Your Thoughts On System Level Ads On Consoles?

Folks are losing their minds over the COD ads at startup on their Xbox consoles today. Xbox did the same thing for FC24, Forza and Starfield so I’m not sure why there’s all this noise now. Must just be the COD hate. But what are your thoughts SW?

Edit: Here’s the PS5 home screen

Nobody wants this.

Negative

I get that advertising is part of the business, but users should not be forced to view an ad and manually exit out before they can get to the basic OS/dashboard. That is intrusive and wrong. Shameful really.

Should gamers be subjected to ads for a product (Xbox system) they fully paid for?

I will really hate it, for example, if I bought a game for $70 only to learn that I have to watch ads before, during, and after playing it. Why the ads exist in the first place, unless the publisher felt that $70 is insufficient and need ad revenue to cover costs or be greedy?

Well that is awful. It would be like getting a new smart TV only to be slapped with ads on top of the ads that come with regular TV....which i think some have attempted but people have found workarounds (basically keep it off d'internet or block certain ports). Seems to maybe have calmed down a bit in the Smart tv space.

Of course putting on my marketing corporate exec hat on for a sec....In game ads. I don't mean the usual in game ads where the publisher has a deal with a marketing company. Oh no. An ad overlay independent of the game while you are in game. Think achievement pop ups...just with ads....AND BIGGER!

Ah the beauty of being a platform holder. That won't happen though. I think the big 3 know that would be properly pushing it....probably....maybe. ....Someone is going to try it aren't they?

I think Sony should be pissed as they're supposed to have marketing exclusivity.

BS. Especially when you pay for a monthly service, ads shouldn’t be going on.

Terrible.

I hate it. But no, this is nothing new to consoles. My PS4 regularly added ad folders that I manually had to delete. I turned off the Xbox live app years ago on my PC because it spammed ads across my PC when I booted up. Screw that jazz. The only advertisement I've allowed for gaming is Steam sending me notifications for sales on specific games I've added to my wishlist.

I switched on my console and went to take a piss when I came back I caught the end of the ad and wasn't sure what that was. Now I know.

Just a silly decision from Microsoft's marketing. Yet another one.

Eh, I get it…but it takes a millisecond to press a button. Didn’t think about it until I saw this. If it’s every time, then yes….its poo.

Welcome to modern gaming.

Ads on paid for hardware have been around for decades. I have an Amazon fire stick, Sammy TV, chromecast for displays, and there’s ads on all of them. I paid A fortune for Satelite tv and got ads on all those channels. Part of modern life I’m afraid.

I just booted up my Xbox and nothing. What is the trigger for these ads?

Advertising or marketing games and gaming related stuff on a gaming platform seems alright to me; but if they start soliciting Doritos and Taco Bell, I'll draw the line there.

If you're paying for a service, you should have the option to turn it off completely.

This is great, just MS trying to maximize their ROI. Nothing wrong with that.

Imagine complaining about such a minor thing...we're literally drowning in ads.

Yeah, I got annoyed when I put in FH5, and upon booting it up, there was a pic of the new Forza Motorsport game with a link to the store to buy it. **** that shit off MS.

I was wondering why that was on my screen when I came home tonight and turned on my XSX. 😅

First time I ever got something like that and I don’t particularly care for it.

In my opinion, the consumer already bought the product, and the exchange should more or less end there; consumer should not expect additional services without payment (if the provider so chooses to charge), while the provider shouldn't force ads on the consumer without compensating in some form (say, for example, with additional services or products).

It's a very one-sided exchange when a consumer is forced to endure an ad, receives nothing in exchange, while the company that placed the ad get's compensated.

The difference is the ads we are drowning in are with free things. Services such as Youtube where I can watch videos for free, but need to watch some ads. Free or inexpensive magazines that support themselves with ads. And so on and so forth.

Receiving ads on something you spent hundreds of dollars on, and then pay an additional fee (in most cases) for the service as well, is kind of alienating to me.

If I got an ad on my desktop I had to click away every time I booted up Windows, I'd switch to Linux.

Dogshit.

Would love to see Dominos Pizza ads in Halo Infinite. Shit pizza in a shit game would be so fitting.

I don't want to see any ads ever on anything. If you click into the store, that seems OK. In a browser viewing free access web sites seems OK. Showing the DLC for a selected game is a contextual ad and while I don't appreciate ads, this can be appropriate.

On a lock screen, or the main menu, having a feed or scroller, or having the default menu item be something that shows ads, I don't want that.

Auto installing stuff by default, I don't want that. Unable to disable it is a red line.

Having popups and nags is also a red line.

Some games have this in-game too, like Ubisoft games. If I want to play something like that, I will look for these used and for low prices on purpose.

All the platforms show ads, Steam, EGS, GoG, PS, Xbox, Nintendo, Android, iOS. TVs and streaming boxes and IoT devices too. There are some ways around it, if you don't connect your TV to the internet for example, and if you host your own IoT type services.

@mrbojangles25: gamepass isn't even profitable, it's being bankrolled by MS other divisions, and so far sunken close to 100 billion into it. I would be happy to watch some ads if it helps MS regain some $$$. In fact, i would like to watch more ads to support them.

Lol at youtube. Those scammers make billions, tens of billions in profit from ads. You call it free, they suck away our time with those shitty ads and make massive profits. It's not even close to MS being 100b in the hole.

What if they add an option to play online for free, but you gotta watch a 10sec ad every 2 hours of playtime?

I don't mind ads in game as long as they are background noise. Like billboards, signs, etc. Stopping gameplay for an ad though? Definitely not.

The ad even places the default button on "Buy now" so you actually have to think and back out, so this will catch many by surprise.

Also keep in mind that the people who buy COD are only a tiny fraction of the playerbase.

Who was this for? The five people that didn't know this game was still on Xbox?

It doesn't matter the platform, because this sucks. If I open up the store sure whatever, that's more acceptable to me to see an ad, but not when I boot up.

The xbox ad seems a little worse since it looks like "Buy Now" is highlighted lol

Ya, that's a load of crap. People paid full price for their consoles, we shouldn't be forced into this garbage.

Lame, I don't want them. Sony also needs to drop their default Explorer tab full page ad.

@ghostofgolden said:

Edit: Here’s the PS5 home screen

That's highlighting the PS Store section of PS. Thats not intrusive if you're actually making your way into the the store to scroll/buy stuff, just normal advertising

but yeah, greeted with advertising the soon as you turn up your console is pretty f*cked up may I say.

Trully, internet ruined gaming, no doubt

I think the adds should pay for your subscription to XBLive or PSwhatever service.

So who here got these adverts? I haven't seen any and I've turned my console on from cold boot multiple times a day. I can't remember if I did, but check that marketing is off or something in the options.

As for adverts, I mainly have a problem with in game adverts. Because if you want to advertise to me in my game, that's cool, but halve the price of the game then. I'll gladly have adverts in my game if it only cost me £35 instead of £70 or something.

@HalcyonScarlet: I haven't experienced these full-screen ads that some have. I am not sure what are the conditions for the ads.

@vatususreturns said:

@ghostofgolden said:

Edit: Here’s the PS5 home screen

That's highlighting the PS Store section of PS. Thats not intrusive if you're actually making your way into the the store to scroll/buy stuff, just normal advertising

but yeah, greeted with advertising the soon as you turn up your console is pretty f*cked up may I say.

Trully, internet ruined gaming, no doubt

The PS5 defaults to the EXPLORE tab when starting up the PS5, which is a full page ad. Has been since the console came out. You can't change the default tab and you can't remove the EXPLORE tab.

lol. Didn't know it was this bad on the console twins. Luckily there is no reason to own any of them if you have a gaming PC, so no need to deal with that crap.

Switch has the best UI between the consoles by far. If you want ads you have to go them yourself.