Now, we all agree that the new 360 dashboard is just one huge advertisement where you can dig past them to get to your desired content. There are even talks within MS to further monetize subscription holders. Likely, further wallet high jacking would be in related media or content, based on recently played games, would show up in place of generic, broad audience targeted ads.

Honestly, I'm not all too concerned with MS's plans at the moment. Surprisingly, it is Sony's plans that worry me.

Behold the Future of in game advertisements:
Sony Patent US 2011/0274409 A1

You will see, within the above linked PDF, that there are plans set to suspend a game so that the gamer may be forced to watch an ad before continuing.

The way it is detailed in the patent file is as follows:

-Player playing game
-Show text on screen with countdown that the game will be suspended
-Play a commercial
-Show text and countdown that the game will resume
-Rewind gameplay to before the game was suspended
-Slowly bring the game from a paused state to normal speed
-Player resumes control at the moment normal speed is reach and where the game was originally suspended
-Rinse
-Repeat


Just a quick shout out to the people who thought this was a good idea.




Now, this may be just the most basic of plans and many plans never come to fruition. However, if a compromise is to be had, I suggest placing still image ads inside loading screens. Some ads ship on the disc, and if the player is connected to the internet, stream newer, relevant ads to be played in place of the shipped ones.

Alternatively, it could be acceptable with games that are free to play. Place ads during load times for single player games. In single player games, you don't want the player to be taken too far from the experience, so you could have a banner ad run at the bottom of the load screen while showing the game logo or some game relevant material on the majority of the screen.

In the case of multiplayer games, which the vast majority of free to play games are, you could have the ads be more intrusive. Say, a ten second clip in between rounds. The players would still be able to chat with their in game party without restriction so that they aren't furious with the interruption.

I find it quite a shame that the ads will never off set the cost of any retail game, but if it would bring forth numerous quality, lower budget, dare I say indie, games to the market at an affordable or even zero dollar price tag, then I could accept them with no reservation.

*facepalm through head*

I HATE THIS CRAP. Seriously. It's bad enough that there are ads on a paid service at all(Xbox Live Gold). I know Sony has this right now, but I guarantee it's going to get widespread.

And if Microsoft puts more garbage on their service, I'll just quit Live for good. Mine has been inactive for about a year anyhow, since we don't have a convenient 360 to play most of the day where we live in the house lol.

No worries guys. If this does eventually happens, I'm sure modders would eventually find a way around this. I don't mod my consoles, but if this followed through, I sure as hell will. Also, if this happens, they better lower the price for games since this would otherwise be forced free advertisement.