Instructions on how to block Xbox Dashboard ads pop up online

I haven’t checked the new dashboard out yet, but I keep hearing about these new ads. Why does it have ads if it’s a paid service (gold membership)? PSN doesn’t have ads, and that’s free.

LOL! Still think Xbox is the best now fanboys?

Ads? I can’t believe how far they go to get more revenue..
I hope Xbox users complaint at MS about this.

I preferred the old dashboard. Can I go back to the last one please Microsoft?

I really don’t see people’s issue with these ads. There’s maybe one box per page, and they’re always the smallest ones in the corner.

Seems like more hassle than its worth just to make a square box with an picture turn into a square box that’s grey.

If you have a decent router you can simply block ‘rad.msn.com’ in there instead of all that hassle described above. Much easier and takes all of two seconds work.

I think if you’re already the one paying for the service, then you shouldn’t really be used as a commodity to make even more. If it’s a free service, then anything goes, but this is just mindless greed.

@7 I thought the same thing when I signed up for HULU Plus. I’m PAYING to see the same commercials everyone else who isn’t paying sees. Man I am stupid!

Hold on, the ad that is just sitting there on the first screen on the dashboard, nobody forces you to watch it…and people complain about that? Wow.

I need to check back in on my 360. I haven’t even noticed yet. I’m pretty sure it seems innocent, but so did Facebook’s ad campaigns at first. Facebook may need them, but Microsoft clearly doesn’t. Do not allow small beginnings to go by unnoticed. Thanks for making all aware.

Here’s your new 360 experience, fully customisable to your individuality! Oh that? That’s an advert for tampons… No you can’t remove it… What you pay for Gold subscription? Why thanks!! You need any tampons? Click the ad

I think Americans are seeing more intrusive ads then Europe is, this happened too with older dashboards only the new dash makes it even worse.

I did the fix blocking MS site and verified it was blocked but the Xbox 360 dash was exactly the same before and after.

@7: totally agree.
@9: it doesn´t really matter how small the ads are. what counts is that they are there. it´s just not acceptable to let customers pay for a service and then force them to watch ads. i know many do (like the hulu example). but that doesn´t make it right.
i hate this. especially in gaming. gaming is a form of escapism. you want to relax and forget your every day life for a while and have some fun in fictional gaming worlds. ms should know that and care. i wouldn´t complain if they would use gaming related ads. that would be ok for me. but no cars, make up, mc donalds shit please!! i don´t want to be forced to watch some fucked up ads of companies i deeply hate. i have to stand those retarded faces on the music section already, which is nothing but music ads to me. all the artists represented there are utter shit and i would never buy any track from them, yet i´m forced to watch it….these new ads is a bit to much. i love my xbox. it´s the console of my choice, but this really pisses me off and i will really think about it if i want to support that trash. now that bungie go multiplat and are coming out with their mmofps “destiny” i´m more than ready to leave ms´s console if they will try to rip me off.

@13 It’s not like you can see the ads in-game.

(Actually, better not give them any ideas…)

Shouldn’t Live be free with these ads in place? It stinks to be honest.

WOW!

Talk about hypocritical!!

Sorry Steph, but why is it ok for VG247 to shove ads down my throat, but somehow MS doing it is wrong??

Why don’t you give instructions on how to block the ads on VG247 as well??

This story is shockingly offensive, given the amount of data stealing, browser crashing, nauseating ads I’ve had to put up with on this site for the past few years!

@16

There are way to block ads on websites. ANd this article is just showing the same thing for Microsoft which is more complex than the blocking ads on the net.

I understand that, Pb.

All I’m saying it that people in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.

How much do you pay to look at VG247 every month G1GA?

I remember a few arguments where the logic was “You get what you pay for!”. Most people expect to be free of ads when they’re the ones paying for a system. Essentially they’re paying for another ad platform for Microsoft.

I don’t mind ads on MSN messenger. I don’t pay for that, and Microsoft has to sustain it. This is all kinds of different.

I’m not defending MS.

I find the ads on the 360 as offensive as anyone else would.

The fact is that vg247 makes it’s money from ad revenue. It’s an industry that this site is knee deep in, so how in the world can it then turn around and, with such self rightousness, attempt to have a dig at others for doing the same thing?

The Live dashboard and marketplace is a free service as well, you don’t have to pay for it.

Microsoft has muddied the waters, though, with tacking on more random things onto the Gold subscription, where it used to be just for multiplayer features. I do agree it would make more sense to hide the ads for Gold members instead of locking off things like Lovefilm access from Silver. Surely those content providers can’t be very happy about a large amount of potential customers being turned away?

@20 The crucial difference is whether you charge for it or not.

It upsets everything involved with a fair trade. Ideally that should consist of seller, commodity and customer, in that order.

In this case, you are in fact the customer, but you’re also the commodity, who is then bought by a fourth party.

That’s not a fair trade in my opinion.

If I use a service like Facebook, then I accept being a commodity. My needs won’t be the main priority because I’m not a customer, the third party businesses are.

It’s the same with VG247. I know I’m a commodity for the site, not a customer. They don’t charge me, and in return I provide them with the opportunity to make money on my presence.

What Microsoft wants is a chain called seller, commodity, customer, and then a fourth party buying their customers. It’s just an ethically dubious attempt to boost profits.

For VG247 it’s really just making a living.

It’s made worse by the fact that they hold a monopoly on their own console. It’s not like they’re going to be challenged by someone offering a better service with no ads, unlike VG247.

@16 You’re an idiot (as always).

This is a single site, owned by a single person, that is used by the guy to earn a living. The ad revenue does just that.

Pat is offering a completely free service to you, at the expense of hundreds of stressfull man hours on his and and the staff’s behalf every single month. He has every right to earn something out of that that, you ungrateful little snot.

Then again, you enjoy the Call of Duty franchise, so I don’t really expect you to appreciate the concept of hard work.

Microsoft is a multi billion dollar organisation with footholds in almost every major consumer electronic market in the industry. On top of that, they offer a premium subscription service to their 35 milling strong online userbase. The only people these profits really matter to are the shareholders.

Don’t get me wrong, the ads are so small that I find myself barely even noticing them, but still, adding ads on top of a paid subscription is a little shitty, if you ask me.

I can’t believe you’re actually comparing a giant corporation like Microsoft to a single person making a living on a website. That requires a pretty extraordinary amount of ignorance and stupidity right there.

as far as i recall its only gaming related ads on vg247…this site is free anyway so you cannot compare it to what ms is doing right now. i could really accept gaming related ads on my xbl gold dashboard….wouldn´t scream hooray but would swallow that frog. everything else is truely shit….again, i love my 360 but this one is fucked up too:

http://www.destructoid.com/xbox-360-dashboard-update-tries-to-stop-you-suing-ms-217385.phtml

it´s totally beyond me that companies can even do this stuff. a joke it is. a really really bad one.

@DSB:

Like I said, I’m nowhere near defending MS here. I know that they have their proverbial cake and eat it.

However, I’m someone who finds all ads offensive.

They are nothing less than low level brainwashing in order to get the masses to make the rich, richer.

If I’m watching a program, whenever the ads come on, I change the channel.

Having said that, I’ve also paid a whole lot of money for things like Sky and Virgin TV, who not only charge me, but also expect me to watch their quarter-hourly ad breaks. I buy newspapers and magazines that contain ads on every other page, and I pay to go to events like football matches, where just about every surface of the stadium is encouraging me to spend more money.

So to me, and this is my personal opinion, there’s no difference between an ad that I didn’t ‘pay to see’ and one that I did. The things are everywhere, and whether I pay for the media that they’re shown on or not, it’s the salaes and advertising industry, who are making the big bucks.

Don’t forget that VG247 is under pressure (whether they succumb to it or not) to avoid writing negative comments about the products that it advertises. It’s helping to support the advertising industry by giving us “OH WOW, THIS BRAND NEW GAME LOOKS SO AMAZING, PHWWWWOOOAAAAARRRR!!!1″ articles.

Which is the reason that I see nothing but double standards here.

If you want to harm an industry (by trying to lower your paying customers’ ad revenue!), you shouldn’t support it yourself.

@25

Says the guy that plays the most overrated and most marketed game to date. Your game wouldn’t be anywhere without those advertisements, remember that.

@25 Normally I would not jump into a pool of sharks like this willingly, but in this case I have to say something here since my “character” and that of the site’s is being called into question by you.

First off – If I did editorials and/or game reviews, which I do not, I would personally not have any problem lambasting a particular game and/or asinine move pulled by a company regardless of whether we post ads for them on the site or not. If you have ever read an editorial from Brenna, you would see this as well. She pulls no punches when she has an opinion on some matter.

Secondly – MS make $bank on Gold subs every year. Why these “members” should have to be forced fed ads is beyond me. Silver (a.k.a. Free) I could understand. I pay $50 a year or so for the service like millions of others. But, I am not aware of the cost of running such a service as Live so, maybe they do need the funds? I doubt it though. It’s not like network or cable stations or magazines and newspapers which rely on ad revenue in order to pay employees or stay on the air/in circulation.

Which leads me to point three – If you can find another way for Pat to pay his newshounds/freelance folks a salary, pay his own bills, and feed his children – please, by all mean, suggest something. Short of winning the lottery I don’t see another way around it.

That is all I have to say on the matter and I will not be participating in this discussion any further.

@26:

That’s got absolutely zero to do with what I just wrote.

I play it because I enjoy the game. Not because of the ads. I don’t spend my time watching CoD ads.

They get missed when I change channel, just like everything else.

If no-one else in the entire world played CoD, I’d still enjoy the gameplay, regardless.

@25 Fair enough, and I’m certainly not blind to the questions it raises when a magazine covers it’s own business partners. I was just speaking purely in terms of the business model itself.

To be a double standard they’d have to be doing the same thing, however. They aren’t.

Personally, while the timing of some VG247 articles seem a little too convenient at times, I don’t think they go nearly as far as other sites when it comes to raising the roof for certain games (or indeed publishers).

@26 And the same unfounded accusation could be levelled at any game out there today.

“I don’t like this game, neither does anyone else, it’s purely sold on advertising”. Uhuh, yeah.

@27 BUT STEPH! ADS ARE BRAINWASHING! THEY’RE EVIL!

WHO CARES ABOUT THE FACT THAT PEOPLE HAVE TO FEED THEIR CHILDREN AND PAY THEIR BILLS?! WE NEED TO FIGHT BACK AGAINST CORPORATE!

Sorry you have to put up with these idiots Steph. Trust me, I understand perfectly just how stressful and under-appreciative this profession can be at times.

“I don’t like this game, neither does anyone else, it’s purely sold on advertising”. Uhuh, yeah.”

You like putting words in other people’s mouth, did I say that at all? I just found it funny.

Pool of sharks Steph? More like ill-tempered mutated Sea Bass

@31 Funny thing is, he completely missed the point.

It’s not about whether people like them or not, it’s the sheer laziness that goes into their development.

“Your game wouldn’t be anywhere without those advertisements, remember that.”

So advertising obviously made the game. It wasn’t a case of the game steadily winning more and more players as time passed, and the marketing budgets steadily rising as the games revenue did the same.

I just think it’s funny how you can sell more and more of a crap product year after year, without anyone enjoying it, and no one noticing.

@33 Define laziness. If you look purely at the care that’s been put into the build, then it looks to me like DICE are a lot lazier. I think they have the better game this time around, in terms of fundamentals, but there’s no mistaking which build is the most solid.

@34

You would be surprised in the development cost of the COD than its marketing cost. Getting big name players like Eminem, Jonah Hill, famous actors that don’t do anything unless they get a Million dollars out of it. COD is at the same dev cost as it was 7 years ago while the marketing cost is 3-4 times that amount. Activision actually outsources most of the games assets and 30% of it is done in house in order to save cost. But Activision has no qualms about putting 50-100 million into marketing when the game dev cost maybe 25 million. They could easily put that money into somewhere like actual innovation.

@ Steph:

I’m in no way attacking your character. I apologise if it comes across that way, but I just think that you made the wrong call on this particular article. No human being is free from mistakes, and it’s only my opinion that I’m expressing when I say that I believe that what you did here was a mistake.

Secondly, I clearly said that the site was under pressure not to write negative comments about products that it advertises, “whether they succumb to it or not“. I did not say that the site does actually succumb to the pressure.

Thirdly, even though I’m not even close to being concerned with the issue of the difference in amounts of money being made by yourselves and MS, you said it yourself: “But, I am not aware of the cost of running such a service as Live so, maybe they do need the funds?”

It’s entirely possible that the xbox division is heavily reliant on advertising to pay for it’s servers, or help subsidise what has to charge for gold subs.

Fourth, I don’t have a problem with how the site is run. Which is why I’m one of the few commenters left who’ve been visiting it from pretty much day 1. So I was here before you, basically.

My issue is simply that I don’t complain about or encourage anyone to block your ads, even though I find them offensive, so I thinks it’s wrong for you to encourage people to try and block the ads of other companies’ while you’re getting away with it.

Again, I apologise if I caused you any personal offence, but I’m just speaking my mind and saying my opinion.

Anyone is more than welcome to disagree.

@36 “It’s entirely possible that the xbox division is heavily reliant on advertising to pay for it’s servers, or help subsidise what has to charge for gold subs.”

It isn’t.

Contrary to popular belief, servers are not that expensive to maintain. And Microsoft is not lacking money by any stretch of the imagination.

Your argument is still completely idiotic.

@35 And that still says absolutely nothing about the game itself. Activision has chosen to back themselves into a corner where they’re essentially forced to put all their money on a handful of titles. That being said, the marketing budget for a similar title like Battlefield 3 was rumored to be the same.

As for the actual game, CoD wasn’t getting less popular before they started that strategy. It was wiping the floor with the competition before that strategy as well. The only real difference is that now you have a lot more people whining about it’s success, and clinging to these far fetched “explanations” for it, even if they were probably among the people extolling it’s virtues back when it was the cool kid in town.

@37 Indeed. And that’s arguably the biggest inconvenient truth for the publishing industry these days. As long as people remain clueless they can get away with selling them hot air, labeled as bandwidth.

“marketing budget for a similar title like Battlefield 3 was rumored to be the same.”

Rumored. There are no ad placements with huge actors or rappers. ALl they have had is ads centered on the game play with a few hit songs.

“The only real difference is that now you have a lot more people whining about it’s success, and clinging to these far fetched “explanations” for it, even if they were probably among the people extolling it’s virtues back when it was the cool kid in town.”

I don’t care about the franchise one way or another and I am not sure if this is even aimed at me. I never said that the game was doing its numbers purely on advertisement. Wouldn’t that be the perfect gig? Just make a game that sales based on its awesome advertisement. But to put 50 million to 100 million for just advertisement when you are stating it has no effect is silly. Obviously they disagree.

@39 http://www.industrygamers.com/news/battlefield-3-to-take-down-call-of-duty-with-over-100-million-in-marketing/

Well yeah, rumored or essentially confirmed. It’s a pretty well known fact that Ricitiello and Kotick have huge boners for eachother, and that it shows in the way they run their businesses.

Of course advertising has an effect, and the better the performance of your product, the more you might stand to gain from advertising it to get absolutely everybody. I’m simply saying that that mechanic is common sense, as opposed to vile witchery, and it doesn’t make the game itself.

Like you point out, if all you needed to sell a product was a big advertising budget, then everybody would be selling 20 millions of their games.