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[Str0ngStyle]

HBO has zero ads (other than for HBO shows) when you subscribe to it. Premium services are not supposed to have ads. Sony has it right. PSN is free, but if you're a PS+ member you aren't subjected to more ads for paying for the service. Why should the consumer be punished for paying?

HBO also has ads because they need to start stuff at a reasonable time. I mean could you imagine seeing the a commercial for the season premiere of True Blood Sunday June 24th starting sometime between 9:00p and 10:00p?

On topic, I have never found it hard to ignore the ad on the dashboard. But I am wondering, what would make this problem go away. I mean if there was a setting in the dash to turn off all ads from your home screen would that solve the problem?

 

[Uno Venova]

But according to this thread promoting content that is available on your service is also an ad. So all those spots for True Blood that I see between shows are ads.

are you trying to point out a contradiction.

 

[TheOddOne]

If you view Live as a premium service that is fine. So is HBO. But HBO doesn't bombard their subscribers with intrusive, annoying ads. To top things off, Microsoft had the nerve to raise prices. You say that the second Live isn't a paid service the service turns bad? I disagree. I think the moment Microsoft realized that they can charge whatever they want for Live the service is destined to get worse.

What do you mean by this? I am not forced to watch those ads.

 

[DangerousDave]

MS isn't the only company who pays publishers to delay content to other systems and players. Both Sony and MS are guilty. The same question should be asked of all companies that support this practice.

Agree, but if we put again this in the context of the thread, I don't see the revenues of PSN+ or of the few ads on PSN to go to to the DLC delay (that is how that should be named). Sony have much less benefits and still manages to keep more first party studios, keep online and apps free, making the subscription model to add value, keep advertising only for games and in an optional screen, etc.

MS get tons of money from their XBL model that don't go to their XBL consumers.

 

[railGUN]

HBO is also exclusively advertising content that does not cost anything extra for you to consume, assuming you continue to subscribe to their channel. While still being advertisements, they are informing you of what content is availabe, and when. They are not selling their advertising blocks to the highest bidder. Not all advertising, and advertisements are created equal - some are more obnoxious and encroaching than others.

 

[TheOddOne]

Agree, but if we put again this in the context of the thread, I don't see the revenues of PSN+ or of the few ads on PSN to go to to the DLC delay (that is how that should be named). Sony have much less benefits and still manages to keep more first party studios, keep online and apps free, making the subscription model to add value, keep advertising only for games and in an optional screen, etc.

MS get tons of money from their XBL model that don't go to their XBL consumers.

I have no real indication that the profits from XBL are going to this, but they have expanded their first party (but they are still not in the league as Sony or Nintendo).

At current Microsoft has opened up 16 new studios in the last 5 years. While not all are targeted at the "core" gamer, they have made significant headway in that space.

 

[nel e nel]

Yeah? And...

I'm not the one arguing that promotions for services that whatever provider provides are intrusive.

I'm seeing quite a few: "OMG!! I don't want advertisements for XBL services on my Xbox!!"

And while the HBO example is valid, it's moot since all the other stations that my cable service provides all have commercials.

 

[nel e nel]

HBO is also exclusively advertising content that does not cost anything extra for you to consume, assuming you continue to subscribe to their channel. While still being advertisements, they are informing you of what content is availabe, and when. They are not selling their advertising blocks to the highest bidder. Not all advertising, and advertisements are created equal - some are more obnoxious and encroaching than others.

How is this different that the XBL dashboard advertising services that are available on XBL?

 

[CoffeeJanitor]

Good for Microsoft. It's just insane how much money they are making from the Xbox brand, with Live fees, ads and Kinect and game sales, and yet they don't seem to be giving back to the core gamer. They're content making the biggest return on investment as possible, and that's the bottom line why I don't like them.

I don't even get this

Sony and Nintendo would do the same thing

they're businesses jesus

and the complaining gets annoying in these threads because if you have a complaint, if its that bad, then just vote with your wallet and don't buy it. That's all you have to do.

Too much outrage

edit: and for anyone who thinks I'm defending MS, I don't have live. I had a 3 month subscription like 4 years ago but after that I just haven't bought it

 

[railGUN]

How is this different that the XBL dashboard advertising services that are available on XBL?

Because they're not exclusive to that. They are steadily increasing the amount of advertising space, and much of that space is for advertising generic products etc. sold to the highest bidders. I wouldn't mind the odd in-house advertisement for (free) products that I receive through my subscription, but that's hardly what the Live dashboard has turned into.

 

[Nimajneb]

How is this different that the XBL dashboard advertising services that are available on XBL?

I don't think there's a problem with a couple of small ads showing what's available on the console, but they shouldn't cover 80 percent of the home screen, and there shouldn't be ads for unrelated products. And no, Doritos and Mountain Dew are not XBL related. The home screen should also be completely customizable with the option to turn off any unwanted features.

Here's my quick and dirty mockup of what the home screen should look like.

 

[Uno Venova]

I'm not the one arguing that promotions for services that whatever provider provides are intrusive.

I'm seeing quite a few: "OMG!! I don't want advertisements for XBL services on my Xbox!!"

And while the HBO example is valid, it's moot since all the other stations that my cable service provides all have commercials.

Where it is and the abundance is the problem, not that they have advertisements on the console in the first place, itunes, steam, psn all have advertisements, they aren't as prominent compared to XBL though.

 

[DangerousDave]

I have no real indication that the profits from XBL are going to this, but they have expanded their first party (but they are still not in the league as Sony or Nintendo).

At current Microsoft has opened up 16 new studios in the last 5 years. While not all are targeted at the "core" gamer, they have made significant headway in that space.

A very few are. Well, Kinect is where is going all the MS first party effort (don't know also if there is where the revenues of Gold and ads are), but this more offtopic.

 

[nel e nel]

I don't think there's a problem with a couple of small ads showing what's available on the console, but they shouldn't cover 80 percent of the home screen, and there shouldn't be ads for unrelated products. And no, Doritos and Mountain Dew are not XBL related. The home screen should also be completely customizable with the option to turn off any unwanted features.

Here's my quick and dirty mockup of what the home screen should look like.

I think we're getting into split-hair territory here. I don't see any unrelated ads on this original pic. The quickplay menu serves the same function as your Youtube/Contra/Netflix/Recently Played links.

I do think a customizable homescreen would be nice though.

 

[Freeza Under The Shower]

You may have been more familiar with the Blades interface, but it was really no better in amount of steps required. Games wasn't the default blade (Xbox Live was) and it takes at least 4-5 button presses to navigate there and scroll down the list.

On the Metro dash:
- 1 button press (A) to launch disc based game
- 2 button presses (down + A) to open Quickplay section which is all recent games + apps
- Games section is 3-4 button presses away (scrolling past Social, Video, TV section I think?)

I don't know why people are nostalgic for blades interface. That was littered with ads too, slower, displayed far less information on-screen, etc.

Yes, in sheer number of 'steps' it might seem more accurate. But the key point was simply knowing directly where 'my stuff' (which I really should not have to look for in the first place!) is, while not being pounded with information overload.

Compare the amount of information on 'marketing objects' parsed by those number of presses (and we talking XBLA for clarity here) with each interface, and I assure you the amount of "crap" (useless information, advertising) is a lot bigger on the last interface than it was on either the blades or NXE.

And the worst part is that it is well known by now that a lot of people born after 1970-80 are 'immune' to advertising. Knowing that entire young cohorts are dropping off the radar, the marketing branches happily report that the average consumer is getting older, but everyone paid for the advertising is now playing a fool's game: the people they want, are the people they don't reach.
And XBLA in particular, is rendered moot by indiscoverability. (we should make that a word. Really. Like a newspeak term for "YOUR INTERFACE SUCKS AND YOU KNOW IT". Those are happy caps, of course.)

 

[TheOddOne]

A very few are. Well, Kinect is where is going all the MS first party effort (don't know also if there is where the revenues of Gold and ads are), but this more offtopic.

Yeah, but my point was more about expanding their first party -- not the content itself, but the idea that they are backing off development.

 

[nel e nel]

And the worst part is that it is well known by now that a lot of people born after 1970-80 are 'immune' to advertising. Knowing that entire young cohorts are dropping off the radar, the marketing branches happily report that the average consumer is getting older, but everyone paid for the advertising is now playing a fool's game: the people they want, are the people they don't reach.

Mass Effect 3 ending says otherwise. ;P

 

[alr1ght]

Can you imagine if Windows 8 was strewn with advertisements and not customizable like the dash? Normal customers (not gamers) would have huge issues with it.

 

[Uno Venova]

Can you imagine if Windows 8 was strewn with advertisements and not customizable like the dash? Normal customers (not gamers) would have huge issues with it.

They aren't as bad as the dashboard but the MSN Messenger, videos app, music apps have ads.

 

[EatinOlives]

Can you imagine if Windows 8 was strewn with advertisements and not customizable like the dash? Normal customers (not gamers) would have huge issues with it.

Indeed.

Then again, we'd probably have a couple of loons defending that practice too.

 

[Mr.Wreckless]

HBO is also exclusively advertising content that does not cost anything extra for you to consume, assuming you continue to subscribe to their channel. While still being advertisements, they are informing you of what content is availabe, and when. They are not selling their advertising blocks to the highest bidder. Not all advertising, and advertisements are created equal - some are more obnoxious and encroaching than others.

Excuse me but i see advertisements for PPV boxing events all the time on HBO. Matter of fact their 24/7 series is nothing but 30 minute ads for PPV events.

 

[Ramblin]

I think this thread should be renamed adphobia

 

[Sean]

Yes, in sheer number of 'steps' it might seem more accurate. But the key point was simply knowing directly where 'my stuff' (which I really should not have to look for in the first place!) is, while not being pounded with information overload.

Compare the amount of information on 'marketing objects' parsed by those number of presses (and we talking XBLA for clarity here) with each interface, and I assure you the amount of "crap" (useless information, advertising) is a lot bigger on the last interface than it was on either the blades or NXE.

I don't really understand this complaint, your 'stuff' is listed under the "games" section in both dashboards and it takes the same amount of steps/button presses to reach. And in both the blades and metro interfaces 'your stuff' is on the left and the ads are on the right. Nothing has really changed in this case.

And you're forgetting that Microsoft had already removed/buried the dedicated Xbox Live Arcade link on the blades interface too (also removed: demos, trailers). Here's a comparison:

Now I'm not saying the new metro UI is perfect; there's quite a few things I would tweak and change. But I think it's a massive improvement from the old blades UI.

 

[railGUN]

Excuse me but i see advertisements for PPV boxing events all the time on HBO. Matter of fact their 24/7 series is nothing but 30 minute ads for PPV events.

That's a good point, I don't watch much HBO, and what I do is usually PVR'd, so I can skip that stuff. Still doesn't compare to the live dashboard. And the 24/7 I've watched was the hockey stuff, which i wouldn't consider an ad, at all.

 

[OldJadedGamer]

Agree, but if we put again this in the context of the thread, I don't see the revenues of PSN+ or of the few ads on PSN to go to to the DLC delay (that is how that should be named). Sony have much less benefits and still manages to keep more first party studios, keep online and apps free, making the subscription model to add value, keep advertising only for games and in an optional screen, etc.

MS get tons of money from their XBL model that don't go to their XBL consumers.

Sony still pays publishers to delay content from other platforms. Like you said, why don't they take the money they paid to the publishers and discount the DLC for their own users instead of playing keep away from PC and 360 owners?

That's a good point, I don't watch much HBO, and what I do is usually PVR'd, so I can skip that stuff. Still doesn't compare to the live dashboard. And the 24/7 I've watched was the hockey stuff, which i wouldn't consider an ad, at all.

So the example of using HBO as a service that you pay for and has no ads was totally wrong to use? Personally, I see it as advertising if it is unrelated to the system in any way.

 

[Margalis]

Batman AC for 360 is the first 360 game I've played where I had to input a code for DLC type stuff. (Catwoman)

The instructions tell you to press the Xbox button to open the old blades and navigate to marketplace to enter it!

To me that says there is a fundamental issue, when to accomplish basic tasks you have to bypass the new UI completely.

Every update of the Xbox dash makes it slower and more poorly organized. I assume at least part of this is because of the number of ads, ad placement, etc. It seems organized more to present ads than to do video game stuff, or at least that is a major consideration.

 

[railGUN]

Sony still pays publishers to delay content from other platforms. Like you said, why don't they take the money they paid to the publishers and discount the DLC for their own users instead of playing keep away from PC and 360 owners?



So the example of using HBO as a service that you pay for and has no ads was totally wrong to use? Personally, I see it as advertising if it is unrelated to the system in any way.

I never said it didn't have ads... I said the ads were, for the most part, for things (shows) that you get to enjoy with your subscription, and not 3rd party advertising sold to the highest bidder. I would tolerate that type of advertising on Live much more than what currently exists.

 

[TheOddOne]

Batman AC for 360 is the first 360 game I've played where I had to input a code for DLC type stuff. (Catwoman)

The instructions tell you to press the Xbox button to open the old blades and navigate to marketplace to enter it!

To me that says there is a fundamental issue, when to accomplish basic tasks you have to bypass the new UI completely.

It has always been that way.

 

[DangerousDave]

Sony still pays publishers to delay content from other platforms. Like you said, why don't they take the money they paid to the publishers and discount the DLC for their own users instead of playing keep away from PC and 360 owners

Don't know, but it should be better. But, still, you are trying very hard to take the blame away from MS about delaying DLC, like it was a common practice on all companies. And I don't remember too many cases where there was a timed exclusivity for payed DLC on PS3 (Medal of Honor, maybe?). In nearly all the cases, what Sony do is to with timed exclusivities is to offer the DLC for free. Still a bad practice, but you are offering something free to the users, instead of making them pay for the DLC and delaying the DLC in the other platforms, and obviously is not spending the same amount of money that MS is spending for keeping the CoD and Bethesda games DLC away from the competence.

 

[Bitmap Frogs]

Batman AC for 360 is the first 360 game I've played where I had to input a code for DLC type stuff. (Catwoman)

The instructions tell you to press the Xbox button to open the old blades and navigate to marketplace to enter it!

To me that says there is a fundamental issue, when to accomplish basic tasks you have to bypass the new UI completely.

Every update of the Xbox dash makes it slower and more poorly organized. I assume at least part of this is because of the number of ads, ad placement, etc. It seems organized more to present ads than to do video game stuff, or at least that is a major consideration.

Interestingly, in order to navigate to the "games" tab, you have to go through the social, tv and video tabs, exposing the customer to even more ads.

The Xbox UI is BLATANTLY designed to provide the maximum amount of ad impressions they can get away with, usability be damned.

Why would anyone defend this mockery, there are no words.

And while the old blades interface was clunky, botched and unusable as hell, the reason people look at it fondly is that the blades were mostly all about your own content.

 

[OldJadedGamer]

Don't know, but it should be better. But, still, you are trying very hard to take the blame from MS about delaying DLC, like it was a common practice for all. And I don't remember too many cases where there was a timed exclusivity for payed DLC on PS3 (Medal of Honor, maybe?). In nearly all the cases, what Sony do is to with timed exclusivities is to offer the DLC for free. Still a bad practice, but you are offering something free to the users, instead of making them pay for the DLC and delaying the DLC in the other platforms.

Sony pays to delay Battlefield 3 DLC from 360 and PC users. It is not free, you get to pay for the DLC eariler. Just to be clear... this is PAID DLC. My point is, don't point out one company for a practice that other comapnies do as well. Doing so shows a one sided and uninformed opinion.

 

[DangerousDave]

Sony pays to delay Battlefield 3 DLC from 360 and PC users. It is not free, you get to pay for the DLC eariler. Just to be clear...mthis is PAID DLC. My point is, don't point out one company for a practice that other comapnies do as well. Doing so shows a one sided and uninformed opinion.

Of course, is a bad practice. But, still, is not as common on the other companies than on MS, where this happen in a lot of games each year (basically anything from Capcom, Activision or Bethesda). MS is spending a lot of money delaying the DLC on the PS3-PC users, and I don't see how this benefit the 360 userbase. You really can't compare a practice that is done constantly by one company saying "Eh, Sony one time did the same thing with Battlefield, delaying the DLC one week for the other companies". I'm checking news of DLC of Sony, and in nearly all cases is exclusive free DLC. That it's not what I like (i don't like Sony to spend money in that instead of more game development), but their users are getting something free.

Comparing the DLC practices of both companies is like pretending Gold is the same as PS+ because only people with PS+ has cloud saving.

 

[Brad Grenz]

Sony pays to delay Battlefield 3 DLC from 360 and PC users. It is not free, you get to pay for the DLC eariler. Just to be clear... this is PAID DLC. My point is, don't point out one company for a practice that other comapnies do as well. Doing so shows a one sided and uninformed opinion.

Aren't the BF3 DLCs only a week behind the PS3 release on other platforms? Compared to months of "exclusivity" (or more accurately, paid exclusion) for most of these 360 DLC deals? In any case, Sony isn't charging people for multiplayer and using such deals to justify the price.

 

[Mr.Wreckless]

Interestingly, in order to navigate to the "games" tab, you have to go through the social, tv and video tabs, exposing the customer to even more ads.

The Xbox UI is BLATANTLY designed to provide the maximum amount of ad impressions they can get away with, usability be damned.

Why would anyone defend this mockery, there are no words.

And while the old blades interface was clunky, botched and unusable as hell, the reason people look at it fondly is that the blades were mostly all about your own content.

The last 10 games you played can be found in the quick play menu on the main screen. It doesnt get any easier than that. Also when most people navigate to the "games" tab they dont stop on the tabs they dont want to use. At this point you are just complaining about button presses and not time spent looking at anything.

 

[Margalis]

The number of button presses it takes to do what you want is one of the most fundamental concepts in UI design...

 

[Sean]

And while the old blades interface was clunky, botched and unusable as hell, the reason people look at it fondly is that the blades were mostly all about your own content.

That's arguable imo. "Your content" was these 3 tiny options. There was a huge ad tile on the right at all times and a mini-banner ad on the left. Ads take up more screen space than content:

That's not even counting all the other flaws with the blades interface. The blades themselves (although not ads) took up like 40% of the screen.

 

[RPGamer92]

The main problem with ads for me is how clustered everything on the dashboard becomes. Even though I use it a lot it's still confusing for me to find the game marketplace sometime. I shudder to think how bad it is for a casual gamer trying to figure out everything on their system.

 

[Bitmap Frogs]

The last 10 games you played can be found in the quick play menu on the main screen. It doesnt get any easier than that. Also when most people navigate to the "games" tab they dont stop on the tabs they dont want to use. At this point you are just complaining about button presses and not time spent looking at anything.

Oh my I forgot I can't have more than 10 games on the Xbox, silly me!

They don't stop but they see them and the ads in there which is the whole point of this.

 

[Phanatic8390]

I understand that the Quickplay menu is just one button press away but I would really prefer the last few played arcade games and apps listed directly on the start screen. I just turned on my Xbox to theoretically play or watch something, not be shown 5 ad blocks then have to navigate to a sub menu.

It's not a huge issue it just seems stupid to me from a usability standpoint

 

[eastmen]

Yes, in sheer number of 'steps' it might seem more accurate. But the key point was simply knowing directly where 'my stuff' (which I really should not have to look for in the first place!) is, while not being pounded with information overload.

Compare the amount of information on 'marketing objects' parsed by those number of presses (and we talking XBLA for clarity here) with each interface, and I assure you the amount of "crap" (useless information, advertising) is a lot bigger on the last interface than it was on either the blades or NXE.

And the worst part is that it is well known by now that a lot of people born after 1970-80 are 'immune' to advertising. Knowing that entire young cohorts are dropping off the radar, the marketing branches happily report that the average consumer is getting older, but everyone paid for the advertising is now playing a fool's game: the people they want, are the people they don't reach.
And XBLA in particular, is rendered moot by indiscoverability. (we should make that a word. Really. Like a newspeak term for "YOUR INTERFACE SUCKS AND YOU KNOW IT". Those are happy caps, of course.)

This is utterly false . Just look at everyone using iphones or how popular beats head phones are.

Advertising is still everything .

 

[8byte]

I don't even get this

Sony and Nintendo would do the same thing

they're businesses jesus

and the complaining gets annoying in these threads because if you have a complaint, if its that bad, then just vote with your wallet and don't buy it. That's all you have to do.

Too much outrage

edit: and for anyone who thinks I'm defending MS, I don't have live. I had a 3 month subscription like 4 years ago but after that I just haven't bought it

The outrage comes from competitors who provide similar services with similar revenue models (advertisements to generate revenue) and don't charge for said services.

I wouldn't even say it's "outrage" as much as disbelief. First because MS charges for XBL when they clearly generate enough revenue to make it "free", an second because people continue to pay for it despite the benefits being moderately worth the paying price.

In 2012, there is simply no reason for it to be a paid service, or hold free services behind a pay wall, particularly when you generate so much ad revenue.

 

[Vane_MagicCity]

No one should be defending ads on game consoles. Would anyone defend ads on a Blu-Ray player? No, and why not? The same reasoning applies to game consoles.

If Panasonic said "your BD player is only leased to you and as such we can stream ads to it as long as you connect it to the internet", you wouldn't accept that answer. Don't accept it with game consoles.

 

[CoffeeJanitor]

The outrage comes from competitors who provide similar services with similar revenue models (advertisements to generate revenue) and don't charge for said services.

I wouldn't even say it's "outrage" as much as disbelief. First because MS charges for XBL when they clearly generate enough revenue to make it "free", an second because people continue to pay for it despite the benefits being moderately worth the paying price.

In 2012, there is simply no reason for it to be a paid service, or hold free services behind a pay wall, particularly when you generate so much ad revenue.

Theyre a business

 

[davepoobond]

theyre making a killing just for having consoles out there. who needs first party studios

 

[8byte]

Theyre a business

Right, and we're consumers. We should not care about their business choices, nor should we excuse them simply because they are "a business". I couldn't care less if they are a business. To me all that matters is that they are profitable. At this point, they are profitable w/out my XBL subscription cost, so me having to pay for it becomes a problem to me, as a consumer.

It's pretty cut and dry. Consumer. Business. Two separate entities with two opposing goals. Clearly you can understand this extremely simple concept, no? I mean, it's elementary.

 

[CoffeeJanitor]

Right, and we're consumers. We should not care about their business choices, nor should we excuse them simply because they are "a business". I couldn't care less if they are a business. To me all that matters is that they are profitable. At this point, they are profitable w/out my XBL subscription cost, so me having to pay for it becomes a problem to me, as a consumer.

It's pretty cut and dry. Consumer. Business. Two separate entities with two opposing goals. Clearly you can understand this extremely simple concept, no? I mean, it's elementary.

There is a reason, its for them to make profit

Theyre not a charity

If you dont like it dont buy

I just dont see the point of complaining

 

[EatinOlives]

There is a reason, its for them to make profit

Theyre not a charity

If you dont like it dont buy

I just dont see the point of complaining

Did you just start playing a game with yourself to see how many corporate apologist cliche non-arguments you can fit into one post?

 

[Uno Venova]

There is a reason, its for them to make profit

Theyre not a charity

If you dont like it dont buy

I just dont see the point of complaining

Holy shit it's every single terrible argument used in these threads in one post. Bravo. Strawman, irrelevant, painfully obvious points and everything.

Edit:maybe sarcasm?

 

[shintoki]

We need more ads, there is still room!

 

[malfcn]

This is why the dashboard is littered. It is like free money to MS.