Xbox One built with “advertising in mind”

Next-generation video games console Xbox One has been designed with "advertising in mind", Microsoft has said.

The Xbox’s gesture and voice accessory, Kinect, is a versatile piece of kit. It can be used to play games, even mend broken bones, and of course, learn about the user to deliver advertising.

And Microsoft says Xbox One will be better suited to deliver advertising than the Xbox 360 currently does. 

“It’s going to be an exciting transition though because the 360 console wasn’t built with advertising in mind, it was more of an afterthought, so we’ve had to adapt to the technology and how we work to fit them in to the console,” a Technical Account Manager for Xbox LIVE Advertising told Sticktwiddlers. "Whereas this new one is going to have advertising in mind. So a lot of the limitations that we have now, hopefully the release of the boundaries will widened so the opportunities will be a lot greater.”

“With the new Xbox One, the technology and Kinect has improved a lot. So the voice recognition, the way you speak to your Xbox and the transition between gaming and watching TV is a lot smoother, and hopefully we can transpire that into advertising that we do.” 

The Xbox One will also feature native advertising – ads built into content rather than ones in specific sections like banners or MPUs.

Microsoft says that the ads on Xbox One will be "part of the actual experience", not entirely separate. It also promises that the ads will be "quite small and not disruptive".

The Xbox One launches with Kinect this November priced at £429.