PlayStation bug showed what gamers really think of ads | Kaser Focus
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Earlier this week, many gamers were shocked to turn on their PlayStation 5 consoles, only to be confronted with a dramatic change to their dashboards: Usually, each game’s icon on the dashboard has a piece of art from that game as a background. Instead, they saw full-screen promotional news posts and advertisements for the game (or sometimes sales in which that game featured) as backgrounds instead. The ads were often outdated or irrelevant to the user — especially given they usually owned the games in question.
PlayStation quickly rolled out a fix and assured users this was a bug introduced in a major update, not a change in its advertising strategy. However, mistake or no, it also offers a glimpse into how players would respond if PlayStation actually rolled out a change such as this. Needless to say, they weren’t happy. The biggest complaint on sites like X and Reddit was that there was no apparent way to disable this despite the PS5 having a setting to turn off ads. Some users went so far as to say these full-page promotional images put them off of using their PS5s entirely.
The second biggest was that the ads and news shown in the new display weren’t relevant and often months out-of-date. Users pointed out that this would prove especially bothersome when playing older games, as these promotional posts might include spoilers or just be comically old. But for the most part, users who noticed this change were clear: They didn’t want intrusive ads on their dashboards. Despite this being a bug, it could prove to be valuable as a case study if PlayStation ever did consider rolling out fullscreen dash ads.
In personal news, I’ll likely still be catching up on September’s games before the October releases — such as Silent Hill 2 Remake, Metaphor: ReFantazio and Dragon Age: The Veilguard — start to show up. That being said, since it is the spooky season officially, I might try my hand at Zoochosis, an atmospheric indie horror title that cropped up online.
Join us for GamesBeat Next!
GamesBeat Next is almost here! GB Next is the premier event for product leaders and leadership in the gaming industry. Coming up October 28th and 29th, join fellow leaders and amazing speakers like Matthew Bromberg (CEO Unity), Amy Hennig (Co-President of New Media Skydance Games), Laura Naviaux Sturr (GM Operations Amazon Games), Amir Satvat (Business Development Director Tencent), and so many others. See the full speaker list and register here.
What to play this week
What’s new:
Until Dawn Remastered
Throne and Liberty
NHL 25
Starfield: Shattered Space
Master Detective Archives: Rain Code Plus
Metal: Hellsinger VR
Zoochosis
Mobile Suit Gundam: Silver Phantom
Sword Art Online: Fractured Daydream
Kill Knight
SpongeBob Squarepants: The Patrick Star Game
New on subscription services:
MLB The Show 24 (Xbox Game Pass)
Open Roads (Xbox Game Pass)
Sifu (Xbox Game Pass)
WWE 2K24 (PlayStation Plus Essential)
Dead Space (PlayStation Plus Essential)
Doki Doki Literature Club Plus! (PlayStation Plus Essential)
Alien Isolation (Amazon Luna Prime)
Mortal Shell (Amazon Luna Prime)
Dusk (Amazon Luna Prime)
Perish (Amazon Luna Prime)
Tormented Souls (Amazon Luna Prime)
Amid Evil (Amazon Luna Prime)
Valfaris (Amazon Luna Prime)
Doomblade (Amazon Luna Prime)
Monster Harvest (Amazon Luna Prime)
Bear and Breakfast (GeForce Now)
Monster Jam Showdown (GeForce Now)
TerraTech Worlds (GeForce Now)
NBA 2K25 Arcade Edition (Apple Arcade)
