4949

There are no ads on the Xbox One home level. There’s one ad in each of the “Game/Movies&TV/Music/Apps” sections.

Specifically, if you click into the individual sections, you’ll see one small ad tile in each section. In Games, for instance, there’s one ad, among a total of 32 tiles. (Six editorial tiles, two system tiles, one ad, and then a variety of queries based on which games are being played the most right at this moment (“Top Games Right Now”), new games, new demos, popular games with your friends, etc.

(I know some of you argue that stuff like “New Games” and home promos are ads, but they’re not paid content. They’re decided upon by the editorial team that I’m a member of, based on user interest as the driving priority. The four ads (oops, five, there’s one on the Add-ons page too) are all labeled “Advertisement.”)

4950

I really do strongly feel that internal promos count as advertisements. Internal promos tend to be less intrusive, but that’s just a matter of degree.

4951

Yeah, you can’t excuse them as editorial promotion like promoting an article on a website when the link is just going to take you to a purchase page. MS may care about the distinction, but users don’t.

4952

I’m a user, and I care about the distinction. If I’m in the games page, I’m looking at either my games or shopping for new ones. There’s a big distinction between the editorial team at MS putting a selected game front and center, and an ad for a new car or something. Huge difference in relevance and attention given for me.

The external ads are annoying, but as mentioned, not intrusive. The others are usually relevant enough to either be ignorable from not standing out, or actually worth clicking on.

4953

Yeah, I’m not so upset about internal ads for other stuff on the system, but I’m just a shill

4954

So you’d prefer to just have a searchable catalog and no “what’s new” features?

Serious question.

4955

There should be a store tile on the homescreen. Inside the store you have sections for what’s new, features, events, sales, bundles, coupons, etc. Since it’s metro, perhaps it could be a live tile for promos and whatnot, that would be fine. I could even see separate store tiles for games and media. But just the one tile for each. That’s what I would consider to be completely acceptable.

4956

On the Xbox One, it’s three small tiles from what you want. On Home, there are three small 16x9 editorial “What’s New” tiles in a row on the far right that take up about 1/5 of the screen real-estate. (And zero paid ads.) The rest of the main Home screen is focused on current and recent apps, and access to your game/app collection. Scroll to the left and you see games and apps you’ve pinned, which you have 100% control of. Scroll to the right and you see… Four store tiles, one each for Games, TV/Movies, Music, and Apps. (These store tiles are not visible on the Home screen, except for a tiny edge that serves as a visual indicator that there’s something to the right, and you have to consciously scroll to get to them.)

So really, it’s not far at all from what you want.

4957

That does sound much better than the 360, which was so inundated by ads it looked like the last three pages of Screw magazine from 1987. I don’t have an xbone and haven’t tried one, so I can’t really comment further.

4958

SuperPacs are not controlled by the candidate and do basically whatever they want. It’s the same way the Swift Boat people fire-bombed John Kerry’s campaign while Bush Jr. claimed he would never do that kind of nasty stuff himself. The Mitt Romney ads were either Heritage Foundation or whatever other SuperPacs were controlled by the Koch Brothers or Karl Rove. Since I can’t stand Mitt Romney it made me mad I had to look at him every time I booted my Xbox to play a game or watch a movie. I kept hoping Microsoft would do an MTV “get out the vote” style campaign as opposed to advertising for one side or the other. When you think about it, is there a single person in this entire country, Republican or Democrat, who doesn’t despise campaign season because of the ad campaigns? And who wants to see that when you’re gaming and trying to escape from it?

Sorry for the rant.

4959

This seems to fit in here

4960

I too have no problem with the ads for internal content on the 360. I find it very useful, especially as someone who makes regular use of HD movie rentals through Xbox Video.

4961

Phil Spencer talked about the XBONE pre-launch PR debacle while giving a speech at the SXSW Gaming Expo.

"I look at last summer and that wasn’t a highpoint for me, coming out of the announcement of Xbox One and E3, where I thought our messaging around what we believed in was confused.

One of the reasons I wanted to be a little more active socially was because I knew the core of why we were in this industry was not an evil reason. It was to really delight consumers and build a great product that millions and millions of people would love.

I learned a ton last summer as leader of our groups about being true to your core vision about what a product is, not being confusing, and frankly, when you’re going to say something to a consumer that might put them off, it’s better to just be direct and honest, rather than trying to sugar-coat something that might be controversial.

I’d rather deal with the controversy of what we’re doing, and have an above-table conversation about that topic, rather than trying to sugar-coat it with some other news. And again, my interactions over the last six months, and I really think the interactions of Yusuf, Marc, and other members of the leadership team - we’re meaning to build on what we learned last summer, and just build on who we are as people."

4962

Can someone help me out? I am having a heck of a time with support – xbox support and ms store support keep telling me they can’t do anything and bounce me back and forth

–

  • bought 2 MS Store Xbox music passes on sale
  • entered the codes in my x1… no issues, service activated - threw out card so I no longer have it
  • turns out I start getting charged the monthly rate (despite activating the 1 year membership)
  • beyond 30 day window so i can’t get a refund
  • neither support center can tell me whether or not the code was activated on my console

I am getting double charged for xbox music… neither department can do anything to help me… so basically I just have to suck it.

thanks MS

any advice?

4963

Legal action.

4964

Most of these gaming companies seem ban people for life if they exercise that kind of right.

4965

Sadly, there’s probably a clause in some agreement Del checked that limits his remedy to binding arbitration.

My advice is to escalate on the support side, and if that doesn’t work then start complaining about them bitterly on Twitter and other social media. Companies are far more worried about appearances on social media than they are about providing quality customer service.

4966

I am officially an Xbox Ping Pong ball. I have been bounced back and forth 5 times today after 5 separate phone calls between the two arms of Microsoft.

My problem still isn’t resolved.

I should have bought a PS4

4967

Correction: I should have bought a high end PC and went Steam all the way.

4968

DrDel, PM me your contact info and a summary of the details and I’ll see if I can escalate. If you have a case number or anything else that will help ID it with your calls, bonus. I’m surprised and sorry to hear about the hassle, and I’ll see if I can help.