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The REAL reason the Xbox One is Kinect Mandatory


DarkReign2021
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Most likely by having you agree to their ToS, that most will never read. I imagine they'll accomplish this by offering you (general public) something in return, such as some avatar gear, or a xbla game.

 

I know, I've said it before. I didn't actually think my tinfoil idea would spring to life, and if that article holds any truth, then it would appear I'm not so crazy after all.

 

I would imagine SOMEBODY will read through the TOS and rest assured if there's anything that sounds iffy or questionable, it will be posted on the interwebs. Unfortunately disputing a ToS is like telling you're high school teacher you only attend class because it's required by law. Doesn't matter how much you fight it because you're ass will be handed in your in the long run anyway. Life lesson: Being right doesn't always make you right. Kind of reminds me of an old lesson learned from Jet Set Radio Future.The overall message of that game is to always question authority if it does not function in the people's best interests.

 

Unfortunately no matter how much we question, we're left powerless to do anything about it.

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I understand where hunterrr is coming from. Ultimately, just like any other device with online connectivity, Ads are in place to help keep a console afloat financially. Just like Television subscribers still have commercials (although DVR pretty much eliminates that issue) online consoles have no specific reason to be exempted from that same situation.

 

That said, I'm with you on the belief that they have no business here. Game consoles have been around since 1966, but to date the only consoles to ever have online ads are the Xbox 360, Xbox One, and PS3 to a very small degree. So again this raises the question of why should we alone be subjected to dashboard advertisements, especially since we, the Xbox community, have been the only brand, not including PC MMOs, that have actually paid a subscription fee to maintain an online service. We're paying money out the ass to keep the servers going, but Microsoft is going ahead and making a ton more money off of a cluttered dashboard that makes navigating through the content we want a nightmare (and I don't know if it's anybody else, but personally my console's have been running slower than hell with every passing dashboard update.)

 

While on the subject, not every device is plagued with ads. Last I checked, Netflix has no ads. On top of that, Computers themselves don't utilize any sort of ads. When I'm on the desktop and going through programs directly on my computer, there's NEVER an ad in sight. When I get online, sure, I get bugged with ads everywhere I turn (and given how fucking weak my computer is, it really pisses me off because my computer slows to a crawl everytime an interactive ad pops up. I've actually uninstalled most plugins and flash programs on my computer so all of the ads just fail to load when I get online (Suck on them apples corporate America.)

 

The point I'm making is if they're going to be charging us so much to have an online account, Microsoft should be working on decreasing the number of ads, not increasing them. Again, I don't care about silver users. Hell, if they wanted to they could even introduce a third level of subscribers. Call it Platinum or something.

Silver- $0: Allows users to maintain friends list, use messaging and party system, use apps like Netflix and Hulu (It's completely bullshit that you have to be gold to use Netflix)

 

Gold- $40: All the same features as gold now, but a lot more ads. Could even add mandatory commercials to watch when booting up games and apps.

 

Platinum- $60: Same features as gold, but Ad-free and more customizable dashboards.

 

Let us fill those eliminated ad spots with customizable buttons. If I could set the main page with quick-access to Minecraft (or any other arcade game), Hulu, Netflix, Play Disc, My Games, Browse Marketplace, and Achievements, than I would never have to leave that page again. I don't understand why the Xbox needs 8 panels. Seriously, eliminate Bing because nobody gives a fuck about it, add the social and game features to the home page, combine TV/Movies and music to a single page, keep apps, and make settings a guide button function. Congrats. I just whittled the dashboard down 3 pages. Less then the original fucking Xbox had.

 

There are 67 selectable slots on the Xbox 360 dashboard. Out of those, 36 of them are advertisements and 29 of them are unnecessary repeats of buttons that already exist elsewhere on the dashboard or the guide button menu. That leaves 12 whole buttons on the dashboard that are actually of any use to ANYBODY (not just gamers.) The only buttons people use are:

 

Home-> Play Disc, My Pins, Recent

Social-> Friends, Username

Games-> My games, Browse Games

TV/Movies-> Xbox Video, Browse Movies

Music-> Xbox Music

Apps-> My Apps, Browse Apps

 

Some of the current ads, such as preordering Xbox One and announcing the free games/ summer sale, are fine. Game recommendations are tolerable. But I don't need Bing, I don't need Evil Dead, Free UFC Fight, whatever the hell Rocket-Powered Racing is even though it's only almost every page I scroll to, the old-as-fuck Fruit Ninja Ad, Movie Recommendations, music recommendations, whatever the fuck Blip and Epix are, Internet Explorer, Last.Fm, so on and so on. If they want to advertise new products, that's fine. Do it in their respective programs. What's the point of having to boot up a separate program with Xbox Music or Xbox Video if all of the Ads are outside of it.

 

Just tuck that shit away. Take the dashboard back down to 3 or 4 pages like the original Xbox and original 360 dashboard were. Anything extra they want to do can be tucked away with the rest of the crap they've shoved on the console.

 

Oh, my fucking, GAWD. QUOTED FOR TRUTH!

 

Every word, every LETTER.

 

Retire from gaming and be a gamers' advocate professionally. Every goddamn punctuation mark in your post. I agree with ALL of what you said.

 

Fuck if you didn't just save me from typing up my own wall of text! I fucking love you man.

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Oh, my fucking, GAWD. QUOTED FOR TRUTH!

 

Every word, every LETTER.

 

Retire from gaming and be a gamers' advocate professionally. Every goddamn punctuation mark in your post. I agree with ALL of what you said.

 

Fuck if you didn't just save me from typing up my own wall of text! I fucking love you man.

 

http://cdn.meme.li/instances/300x300/39456336.jpg

 

Nevertheless, I feel as though having numbers to work with always paints a better picture. I was actually sitting there counting tiles on the dashboard as I typed that. That's when it really hit me that I only use maybe 4 buttons on the whole dashboard.

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http://cdn.meme.li/instances/300x300/39456336.jpg

 

Nevertheless, I feel as though having numbers to work with always paints a better picture. I was actually sitting there counting tiles on the dashboard as I typed that. That's when it really hit me that I only use maybe 4 buttons on the whole dashboard.

 

There is only one actual "advertisement" tile on each page where the ad isn't related to 360 content. All the rest of the ads "ads" are just for quick access to new and notable content. And that is why the "ads" don't bug me.

 

I are more annoying and more invasive ads just on this website than I do on my 360.

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I personally just find all of them inconvenient to navigate through. With the Xbox One, I imagine this won't be such an issue since I can use Kinect to jump to whatever I want without having to browse through pages. On 360 I have to say

Xbox, Games -> My Games -> Next -> Next -> Next -> play [insert title]" but with the Xbox One it seems from the Home page all you have to say is "Xbox, play Minecraft" or "Xbox, watch Netflix" and it will skip everything.

 

My biggest issue with ads isn't that they exist. It's that everything we want is divided up and buried amongst these ads. Play Disc is on one page, My Games is on another, Netflix and Hulu is on a third, friends list is on a fourth. Like I said before, compress these things down. Instead of having a ton of ads on the Music page, simply situate all of the ads to appear when the user opens Xbox Music. Same with TV/Movies and Apps. You have your home page with your information that is important to you as a gamer, the game page can contain the marketplace and recommendations based on what you own, and the third page can give you access to Xbox Music, Movies, TV, and Apps with all of the Ads being contained within each appropriate program itself and not on the actual dash.

 

I think it would be fun to work up a dashboard design in photoshop. I'll probably do something like that tomorrow. I'll stick with the basic box design that Microsoft has decided is somehow better than the original blade system, but I'll compress everything and make it look more functional and less "Hi, we're Microsoft and we want all of your money, but that's not enough so we're going to take advertiser's money as well. We want ALL THE MONEY! @_@"

 

 

While I think about it, has it been confirmed or not if Avatars will be making a comeback? I can't imagine Microsoft letting that little cash cow go the wayside and I honestly don't want it to. As much of a ripoff as it is, it's our own decision alone to pay for avatar gear and I've personally grown attached to little me.

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I agree that ads are annoying, but on the Xbox, they're easily avoidable, just don't click on them! It's not like you're being forced to watch an ad just to play a game or something.

I don't see the point in the Kinect gathering information for ads though. What's the point in telling me to buy something that I'm obviously already buying?

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I agree that ads are annoying, but on the Xbox, they're easily avoidable, just don't click on them! It's not like you're being forced to watch an ad just to play a game or something.

I don't see the point in the Kinect gathering information for ads though. What's the point in telling me to buy something that I'm obviously already buying?

 

It could be used to suggest things similar to things you've already bought.

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It could be used to suggest things similar to things you've already bought.

 

I have no idea what the range is of Kinect, but all it'll probably be able to see in our current living room (which we'll probably constantly be told is too small for it) is us, our settee, our DVD's and what pop we're drinking, lol. I doubt it'd be able to make out DVD titles, so unless it's gonna tell us to buy a new settee or a matching footstool or something...

I dunno, I just don't get it. I suppose it could pick up on certain things we're talking about, but that could be pointless unless it picks up the entire conversation as we could be discussing something we hate, lol.

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That's the flaw in personalized advertising. Like I remember one time. ONE FREAKIN' TIME my mom had me look up pricing information on tickets to Disney World on my laptop. Now I constantly get ads for Disney vacations even though I can't stand Disney >_< Plus I've never seen ads for Xbox games, sushi restaurants, or adult toy shops, which are really the only 3 things I have any interest in at all.

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That's the flaw in personalized advertising. Like I remember one time. ONE FREAKIN' TIME my mom had me look up pricing information on tickets to Disney World on my laptop. Now I constantly get ads for Disney vacations even though I can't stand Disney >_< Plus I've never seen ads for Xbox games, sushi restaurants, or adult toy shops, which are really the only 3 things I have any interest in at all.

 

You should check out http://www.google.com/ads/preferences/

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Charging their customers a premium so adverisers can target them better. MS have really outdone themselves this time. Explains why they have made a peripheral with such limited gaming application a centrepiece of their console strategy though.

 

Trollololol. Seriously? Not even close.

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One Kinect Mandatory ?

 

Why Microsoft because everyone lost intrest in Kinect on 360 after year 1 and your precious sales went downhill. SO to recoup revinue you are making ONE mandatory for the lil Wii gimick that sucked.

 

If Kinect is mandatory for ONE I'm not ever buying a ONE

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One Kinect Mandatory ?

 

Why Microsoft because everyone lost intrest in Kinect on 360 after year 1 and your precious sales went downhill. SO to recoup revinue you are making ONE mandatory for the lil Wii gimick that sucked.

 

If Kinect is mandatory for ONE I'm not ever buying a ONE

 

It's mandatory. But vastly improved over the original. You don't HAVE to use it...but it's a part of the hardware now...the console doesn't function without it.

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It's mandatory. But vastly improved over the original. You don't HAVE to use it...but it's a part of the hardware now...the console doesn't function without it.

 

 

Oh ok thats good news. As long as its included with the console then Im ok with it. Glad I can stiick with my trusty controller.

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Exactly.

 

I do the same thing with TV ads, billboards, magazine ads, radio ads, etc.

 

Ads on TV and radio are different, as they can't be avoided. The main problem people seem to be having is that they find it hard to ignore a small box amongst 10 other small boxes. I get that the space could be used for something else, and unavoidable ads are annoying, but I don't see how it can be this annoying to see a small box that you can just ignore.

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For me, it's not the presence of ads that is the issue. It's the idea that the Kinect is possibly designed with the idea of selling outside companies personal information, i.e. whatever the hell I'm enjoying in the comfort in my living room, in order to cater towards a personalized ad scheme directed at me and my own.

 

"MS will not use any information gathered from the Kinect without your knowing so."

 

Yeah, I get it. Steps in a dangerous direction, no matter how much anyone wishes otherwise. No matter how much one can downplay the idea. No matter how many other devices that can be compared as playing similar cards. The fact of the matter is, if it holds any bearing, then it's, again, a step in a dangerous direction. Mark thy words.

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Ads on TV and radio are different, as they can't be avoided. The main problem people seem to be having is that they find it hard to ignore a small box amongst 10 other small boxes. I get that the space could be used for something else, and unavoidable ads are annoying, but I don't see how it can be this annoying to see a small box that you can just ignore.

 

I know. Radio ads are pointless. I just ignore the ads they don't bother me I don't bother them.

 

When I turn on my 360 I'm immediatly excited to look through my vast collection to see what game gets the honor to be played by my magic fingers. :p :woop:

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1. Change the station/channel.

2. Listen to CDs.

3. Watch DVDs.

4. Netflix.

 

Most ads are mid show, so changing the channel is only effective for like 2 minutes and serves no purpose. Besides, this still makes them unavoidable.

Listening to a CD means you're not listening to the radio, it's like saying if you want to avoid ads on the Xbox's dashboard, go play a different console.

Same goes for watching DVD's and the use of Netflix or any other streaming service.

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