Xbox is now testing ad-breaks for cloud-streaming games you already own.

Basically, you will get ads before you start every game and ad-breaks every hour into gaming sessions, basically what Prime Video does, literally interrupting movies and shows with ads. And this is for non-Pass subscribers, although to be fair, it’s a free ads version for cloud streaming.

So, it looks like my worst fear is coming true then for Sony going digital-only? They will literally charge you subscription tiers to remove ads in games you already pay a subscription to rent. Remember when they said online play was no longer gonna be free starting with the PS4? What do you think caused that?

I said this a few days ago this would happen ahhahaha funny! Glorious digital/streaming only era.

For me, it started to go downhill back when online and DLCs became a thing.on consoles.

So 20 years ago? Thats quite the downfall.

In some sense, yes. I was never a fan of online gaming and downloadable stuff. I always thought that when internet became a thing on consoles with downloadable games and stuff, it was just a matter of time until discs and physical media meet their end.

I honestly miss the days when I would purchase a SNES cartridge, and all I had to do was put it at the console and enjoy everything the game had to offer. Darn, I purchased Street Fighter 6 on Steam full price, and now I only have like 35% of the game.

Xbox making a ad tier version of xCloud that is free Isn’t in anyway indicative that Sony will do that too digital purchases. That’s not a controversy they could survive. Cloud streaming is incredibly expensive, supporting a free tier with ads is completely acceptable.. coz again it’s free so what’s the issue. Don’t wanna see ads? Subscribe like every other sub service out there. Cmon now. 

Enshittification marches on.

At one point, Youtube had no ads. Then just a short skippable ad at the start of the video. Now multiple ads that they try to make you pay to avoid.

These things start small, like the horse armour in Oblivion 20 years ago, then over time they boil the frog and gradually force their intrusive, predatory bullshit into everything.

No I actually think this is real depending on how the market responds to high prices... but we've already seen it tank PS5 & Switch 2 hardware sales.

Sony (& Nintendo) in particular need to sell new hardware at some point, they can't just survive on old hardware & users for 20 years and they have to reach new users as some % of current users fall off/disengage etc.

None of them want their base machine to be $900 because it simply won't sell long term. Higher software allows them to subsidise hardware at a much higher rate whilst being confident they can increase overall revenue for shareholders (sigh)...

But there is genuine interest in being able to offer a cheaper machine for the future of their userbases. As Daniel Ahmad said, none of the platform holders are happy about the RAM situation. It's a net loss & a genuine threat to the future health of the industry.

This is true but again, these are for profit business. YouTube made no revenue before Ads. People also shouldn't expect things for free. Ads are there to subsidise experiences that are either free or very low cost.

There's other ways to make money besides shoving ads down people's throats. In the gaming space for instance we already pay for games, consoles, and services, yet they'd still love to shove ads in our faces on top of all that just to squeeze that extra bit of cash to feed the endless greed of shareholders.