Sony opens PS3 to advertisers

If they are going to have adverts then they should make the games cheaper or free (not likely) for the customers.

and "home" will be full of ads....

Aslong as the ads are relavant and unobtrusive then people should have no problem with them (just look at the sucess of google), I've spent many hours in burnout paradise and because the adverts aren't bright green viagra adds they dont detract from the gameplay at all...
For some reason gamers still feel that companies can run hundreds of servers now the income stream of dialin ppm connections and such have gone (RIP Wireplay).

selling ad space will hopefully allow them to improve the awesome PSN network, but i'm sure as usually sony wont bother and leave it up to the games developer/publishers as usually to provide online gaming services.

so what will likely happen third party games will still be as expensive if the third developer/publishers wants to have online play, or they wont support online and make the game offline only to reduce cost. great job sony!

My worry is that the ads will start to become more and more obvious and eventually end up with full in game avderts you cannot avoid.

I recall an eppie of Heroes S02 I downloaded some time ago. It was an HD rip off NBC. At the bottom of the screen you'd get this green bar that had endless adverts for upcoming tv shows, but also for recycling your PC, etc. If I were a US cable service customer, paying for that, I'd be *furious* that a portion of my television viewing screen was obscured by useless adverts.

I can see it now.. You're playing SW: Force Unleashed. You start the game up and along with 20 mins of "Lucasarts" logos and promos, you get adverts for "Coke -- may the Force be with you" or "Cannisten Thrush Cream" or "Cheaper Sofas at MFI", etc... And when you save the game, it won't just be you saving the game - there'll be adverts playing as it saves or loads, etc.

like p3n says -- if the adverts can be included into the game in a fashion that makes them part of the context and are genre specific then I have no problem with that. But it's when it takes away game play for advertising that I object to.

Same old. I hope games dont go the way off hundreds of video ads at the start of a game when you load it up which are unskipable like some DVD trailers and ads at the begining of a film. That will be annoying

You guys do realize the Playstation Network (and Home) was designed on the priniciple of ad space to fund the bandwidth and keep it free right? They said that before the PS3 even released and shortly after announcing Home.

I don't mind adds as long as they are not obtrusive. In game adds can add a lot of realism if done correctly. Only time will tell if Sony goes overboard or not.

> just look at the sucess of google

But Google is FREE.

if I start seeing viagra ads in my games, sony will have one hell of a jihad on its hands

>But Google is FREE.

So is PSN.

this isnt surprising - its going on on xbox so publishers for sony will obviously push for a slice of the pie too