Microsoft Wants To Show You Ads In Between Boss Fights
Microsoft has filed a patent for a system that pauses games to display advertisements in exchange for limited playtime. This move reflects the company's ongoing efforts to increase profitability within its Xbox ecosystem.
Why it matters
It highlights a growing trend of aggressive monetization in gaming, potentially signaling a shift toward ad-supported models for premium console experiences.
Microsoft already shows you ads whenever you log into the Xbox Series X , but it seems like it's exploring an ad-supported way to essentially rent out games on Xbox consoles.
Microsoft filed a patent called 'contextually aware management of interactive software application access,' which describes a process of pausing your game at the operating system level and presenting 'audiovisual promoted content' (in other words, an ad), which would then grant you a credit once it's over. That credit, at least in the way it's presented in the patent documentation, would grant you access to the game for a limited amount of time, from 15 minutes to an hour.
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