There Will Be Ads - Microsoft plans commercial breaks on XBox Live! entertainment

It’s not really surprising that Microsoft wants to make money. It’s also not surprising that the people feeding content to Microsoft want to make money. After all, those are all big companies that haven’t become what they are by handing out things for free. However, this could become at least a medium sized controversy, as the actual outlines and implications of this development aren’t clear yet.

What’s going on? Microsoft just unveiled plans (Source: Eurogamer.net) to include commercials in it’s streaming video services offered on Xbox Live. My speculation - and I stress speculation! - is that this is part of the restructuring of the Gold membership. Regular Xbox Live Gold members will get what they get now. But they will also get commercials in the entertainment parts. The soon to be unveiled higher tier service, let’s call it “Xbox Live Platinum” will get the same without commercials, and probably some other, extra features.

Given the wealth of content on offer that surely wasn’t cheap to acquire for Microsoft, this isn’t a surprising move. Xbox Live Gold is not a cable subscription after all. However I can see people getting very, very angry about this. At least for a brief amount of time. It will be interesting to see how this turns out.