Xbox Live Ads Irritate My Medulla

In what is something to rejoice over -- if you're an advertising exec -- the first full on ad has been seen on the Xbox 360 Dashboard, outside of free games.

Validating fears by Xbox 360 users over NXE (New Xbox Experience) being nothing more than an ad platform, a Telus ad appeared over the weekend, showing a cute little meerkat pimping mobile phones, complete with music that made the consumer in me believe Telus was the way to go. Kidding, of course. Check out the video, and sound off if you dislike ads on a console you paid out the nose for, possibly coming in games you paid for, and via a service (Xbox Live) that you pay for monthly. Where's the benefit to me here? Have Microsoft negotiated some sweet B2B megadeal for Xbox Live users signing up with Telus? I doubt that very much.

I'd go on for another five hundred words if I thought it would make a difference. Where am I going to go if I give up my 360 and Xbox Live and Netflix? PlayStation Home? Microsoft is like Ma Bell for gamers -- where else are we gonna go?

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