Sony Pushing Ads to the Dashboard Isn't a Bad Thing, It Could Actually Be a Really Good Tool

The Games Cabin takes a look at what good could come from pushing adverts for games to the homescreens of all consoles. There's a fair arguement that it doesn't need to be seen as evil, but could actually benefit everyone.

[SteamPowered]

Personally I dont see the problem with adverts on the homepage. Steam does this and I love them for it. There may be a sale or new release that squeaks by unnoticed. Especially indy gems.
As long as its tasteful and doesnt prod the gamer too often, I think this will definitely be beneficial.

[reallyNow]

I don't like it. Today's ad is a slim jim. This is exactly why i hated the 360's dashboard, and now will be the reason i hate the PS4's.

[SteamPowered]

Steam only advertises games. That would be a big factor. I never thought of advertising for anything other than games on the dashboard. But that would suck.

[Gazondaily]

People made a massive deal about a tiny little box on the bottom right. It was never intrusive and I've not noticed any intrusive ads for the PS4?

[n4rc]

Never heard the end of it when 360 got them.. Kind of annoying to see everyone suddenly OK with it..

Personally I'm fine with it.. They aren't intrusive and are sometimes useful..

[SniperControl]

Just turn of "Featured Content" and you will get no more ads.

[GribbleGrunger]

Damn it, I'm going to have to turn this feature on to find out what all the fuss is about. Back in a second ...

Fake edit: No, I don't like this feature one little bit, so I've disabled it again. Please continue with the uproar.

[deadpoolio316]

Or ya know you just turn off the featured content. I mean unless your just that nosy that you have to know what your friends were doing or how many trophies they earned....

Its a simple FACT you CAN make them go away on PS4 you COULDN'T make them go away on the 360

[Oner]

Love that I can disable them on the PS4. Now if the adverts actually lowered the price of say PS+ a bit then I would probably utilize it but since there is no benefit to me for their adverts, then they get a resounding OFF position from me.

[reallyNow]

I've now seen several of you say you can disable it..how?

[AHall88]

More ads are never a good thing, in my opinion.
You pay for the console and pay for PS+, you shouldn't have to put up with ads on top of that on the dashboard, keep it in the store.

[deafdani]

Exactly my sentiment as well.

[SourtreeDing]

i pay for Cable i get ads.. i buy a soccer jersey theirs ads or sponsors on them.. they are everywhere who cares

[AHall88]

@SourtreeDing
That's a great attitude to have.

At least I see no ads online anymore.
AdBlock Plus is one of the best things ever.

Edit: Soccer jerseys are sold with ads on them? That's so weird. Maybe I'm just used to that not being in sports over here, or at least in the sport I watch.(NHL, lol)

[Minato-Namikaze]

Except you opt into these "ads"

[Sparta07]

I don't see any ads on my ps4 dash, are you talking about the " What's new " section?

[reallyNow]

its called "Welcome" on the left menu.

[JoeReno]

No that isn't what this is about @Sparta nor the Ad for Slim Jim's PSN promotion of spend 100 and get 15 credit for the month of October. This is about the featured content setting being ON and having it look like you have Destiny downloaded on your PS4 when it is just a redirect to the store to purchase the game.

[Sly-Lupin]

Dashboard=/=Homepage.

Yes, there are ads in the Steam Store. That's fine. There are ads in the PSN store. Having ads on the Dashboard would be like if Microsoft put banner adds in the toolbars of every window.

[user9950279]

so many downvotes. lol. are ads that bad? as long as they dont pop up while im playing Halo I dont give a frack. Just more of the usual melodrama here.

[cfc83]

No big deal. Some folk would have you believe xb1 is full of ads. It isn't. You get a few, but they're fine. On my xb1 right now there's one very small honda add, which is optional. The rest is games, twitch and suggested friends, and the weekly major nelson video.

[meche334]

Yeah agreed. Xbox has a game ad, games with gold, and a movie and other things. So ps4s dash shouldn't have many ads. especially not as much as 360

[cfc83]

360 did have more. That's true. I used to be against ads, until i thought "who gives a sh*t really ? If the ads weren't there, something else not worth clicking on would take their place anyway.

[Masterchief_thegoat]

Gaming console with ad nooooo that the main reason I didn't get Hulu can't stand ads

[AstroCyborg]

ms has had this for years got crucified when sony does it they get applauded

[chrish1990]

Um, actually, the article doesn't applaud anyone. It's relevant to all consoles.

[OtakuDJK1NG-Rory]

What is the Wii U, PS4 and Xbox One.

Game Console
should be and should stay.

[ABizzel1]

That's because you yourself are not mature enough to ignore fanboys.

Anyone with a 360 didn't care about ads, because they weren't intrusive or blocking you from doing anything, and sometimes they actually netted you MS points for watching them.

The same deal applies here, the only people who complain are those who will be complaining about everything until they die.

It's an ad bringing in more revenue to Sony / MS, and hopefully to the online infrastructure as well.

I nor should anyone else care until an ad pops up in the middle of a gaming session and it's mandatory to watch. By all means it's then time to wreck them.

[TwoForce]

Right there. I like you what you saying. Ads have been there in every movies, video games and so on. They do upset a lot of people, but we better get use to it.

[maniacmayhem]

Funny how the level headed comments come once ads start appearing on a Sony console.

Pretty sure a lot of people were saying the same thing about ads not being intrusive or blocking gaming last gen.

[JMaine518]

Just turn if off if you don't like it. Is it that hard?

[JoeReno]

Seriously. +1 intelligent

[OtakuDJK1NG-Rory]

it shouldn't be there in the first place.

[Minato-Namikaze]

You have to opt into it. So if its there, you told them you wanted it, lol.

[rjason12]

I don't own a PS4 but Can't you just turn them off?

[DragonDDark]

You can.

[Sly-Lupin]

You can turn some off, but not all.

Sony seems to be strongly against any form of user-customization of the UI simply because they want to keep advertising their crap.

[DragonDDark]

Not all? What's left?

[Chaosdreams]

If we can turn it off, then I don't see a problem.

Nobody likes advertisements.

Nobody (unless it's really cool, then it's okay).

[Ristul]

I see no ads on the dashboard, is this in the store or something?

[littlezizu]

You might have turned it off like 95% User with or without knowing it. It's optional which can be turned on or off. So i don't see the problem here expect for people who doesn't seem to understand on and off.

[StormLegend]

What ads? I don't see the problem here.

[2pacalypsenow]

Game ads on a game console is fine by me

[wonderfulmonkeyman]

Not fine by me.
Sure, it won't affect my gameplay experience, but it's still an unneeded annoyance.
I just pray that they never start allowing pop-up ads for online-only games.

Can you imagine what Destiny would be like, if you got a pop-up ad for Mountain Dew after every major fight?

Ugh...let's pray, fellow gamers, that we never get to that point...

[Eidolon]

I'll be turning it off unless it offers exclusive deals you can't find anywhere else, otherwise slickdeals.com

[GranTurismoFan]

I only saw an Airforce ad but it wasn't intrusive. I barely even noticed it. As long as they keep it non-intrusive im okay with it

[JoeReno]

What everyone is talking about us Destiny TK. If turned on you would have an icon on your XMB like if you or some one in your house downloaded D.T.K on to your PS4. It wasn't not turn on for my launch PS4 but on my Arkham LE it was set to default (on) and while it did take me by suprise and I did investigate why it was there it took me all of 10 seconds to delete it, and turn the setting to off. Really not a big deal at all.

Now if you had it set to off and you were still getting these showing up like some kind of telemarketing that won't respect the Do Not Call registry, then it would be an issue. #mountainsouttamolehills

[muzikjunkie80]

people will complain about the silliest things, i for one could care less about the ads on xbox and ps4 as i use my consoles for games. i would be pissed however if they started putting adds into games like how some games on android have, that's just annoying tbh

[browngamer41]

Nintendo does this with the WiiU by pushing game ads to the Gamepad while it's in sleep mode- you can then choose to go to the Eshop right from the ad to see more info about the game and or make a purchase-otherwise you can just boot up your console and ignore it, you can even turn it completely off- it's non intrusive and I don't see a problem with it-it actually reminded me of some dlc I had been waiting for..

[OtakuDJK1NG-Rory]

That only on the quick start menu.
Whenever you turn it on from the gamepad.
It not on home menu.

And it mostly reminder of games releases and updates.

Nothing about movies, food or other crap that unrelated to games.

[SilentGuard]

I don't post often but when I saw this I couldn't resist. For years on this site all I ever read and saw was disdain for MS putting ads on Xbox Live. Now that Sony is doing it I see arguents that its no big deal and can be a good thing. Where were the articles and opinons years ago that ads on Xbox Live could be a good idea and no big deal?

[gangsta_red]

Complaining about ads does seem ridiculous, petty and silly when you think about it. Good to see a lot of people agree. As long as the ads don't hinder gaming and it's not plastered all over the dash plus they actually advertise game content it shouldn't be a problem.

[marloc_x]

..but, Slim Jims? Really?

[JoeReno]

That's on the home page of the playstation store, and it is because Slim Jim's sponsored the spend 100 get 15 credit. Of course they would want an ad for the sponcership of the promotion. This is not what the article is talking about at all. The article is talking about Destiny looking like it had been downloaded to your PS4 when in reality it is a redirect to the store to purchase the game/expansion.

[Picnic]

I knew it- Sony see PS4 as their Xbox 360 moment of making money from adverts and on online gaming charges and not spending quite so much as in the past on exclusives or on new kinds of tech.

Nintendo will best capitalise on Sony's casualisation in terms of dashboard content as Nintendo will come across more and more as the 'purely about the gaming' choice. I'm not saying that there will be a greatly vocal disagreement about dashboard ads or that the NX will sell close to as much as the PS4 but I expect the NX to be a critical success, particularly with Japan, and to sell pretty well (between Gamecube and N64 levels really wouldn't be bad in this climate).

With Playstation Now as well, Sony's money chasing , money saving, has not gone unnoticed. It's almost what Xbox One was once accused of.

I know that Sony play a careful game not to offend but, when their games library is so fairly predictable compared to what they've done in the past, they give plenty of opportunity to make out that they're coasting to some extent.

[TwoForce]

Wait what, are you saying that Sony do the same thing like MS did ? This things happened before on PS3, not just X360. Do i find ads bothersome ? Yes. Do i find this surprising ? No. For example, when i try to watch youtube, ads pop up out of nowhere. Nobody like ads to be honest, buy it can't go away. These companies using ads to promote their products.

[Segata]

If you think ads are ok then you truly are a fanboy. I got sick of my 360 for the ads and thankful to Sony and Nintendo keeping that crap away

[benji101]

Wait till PS gets as good as Nintendo at this. Nintendo selling advertising space in their games.
Every Splatoon event in Japan is an advertisement. MK8 has Mercedes cars in it because of advertising.

[Segata]

Product placement been around in gaming as long as gaming been a thing. From Atari games and even beloved games like Crazi Taxi and Shenmue on Dreamcast. Heck SEGA was big about it like SOAP shoes on Sonic Adventure 2. To get to my games and go through menus and ads is annoying tho. So annoying on 360 the my games and play game square is tiny compared to the glaring ads.

[MultiConsoleGamer]

"It's okay when our side does it."

That was my first thought upon reading this headline. As if the author was absent for the drama surrounding this issue for the past 10 years.

[slappy508]

I dont have a problem with it, provided it doesnt affect my multiplayer experience at all (causing lag and what have you).
Regardless, I dont see ads on my dashboard , like I didnt see any on my Xbox 360 when people were complaining so perhaps for my area ads are not applicable

[stragomccloud]

There's only ads if you don't have ps+, right?

[swice]

As long as the ads are for a video game, I don't see the problem.

Anything other than that should not be allowed