The Xbox One and the dashboard that users will use is being designed for one specific group, and it is not gamers. It seems as though the console was designed and conceptualized to help advertisers, as the Microsoft's UK Xbox Live Advertising team explained during a visit to the company's head office with StickTwiddlers. The technical account manager for Xbox Live Advertising spoke of the console's improved technology that will allow for easy switches to watching television and how it will affect advertising:
"With the new Xbox One, the technology and Kinect has improved a lot...so that actually, 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."
This unnamed employee also spoke about how he was excited by this transition to a console built for advertisements, as the Xbox 360 apparently dropped the ball in this regard:
"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..."
Finally, the senior digital art director/use experience designer revealed how the transition of consoles to more of a living room and family item has affected the way advertisements are taken in by consumers:
"But with Xbox, it's lots of people in front of one big screen. They are playing or watching together, and advertising is being consumed in a totally different way."
While gamers expect a certain amount of corporate shilling and mild exploitation from the companies that provide their video game consoles, this disregard for fans and users of the Xbox is disapointing, to say the least. With the Xbox One's reputation already suffering, this could be a deciding factor for undecided gamers leaning away from the Xbox and towards the PlayStation 4.