Xbox's Chief Strategy Officer says ads can offer "more affordable alternatives," but believes in-game interruptions "would be bad"

Would you be prepared to accept adverts in services such as Xbox Game Pass if it meant a lower price point? Newly arrived Xbox Chief Strategy Officer Matthew Ball has clarified comments made during a recent interview regarding the potential for “more affordable alternatives” supported by ads. After pointing out that he has just started his role at Xbox and is not stating the company’s plans or beliefs, Ball emphasizes that he did not mention any in-game advertising. In fact, he personally thinks anything that interrupts your experience would be a mistake.

A former industry analyst before joining Microsoft, Ball was asked by The Game Business about comments he had made earlier in the year about the potential for pause-screen adverts in games, like those seen on services such as Netflix and Hulu. In response, he notes, “The costs have gone up way too high on development, and at the same point, everyone feels terrible with prices going up on hardware or software or microtransactions. It’s not good if that is the only option.”

Ball re-emphasizes his personal beliefs that TV streaming is a strong example in favor of adverts. “In excess of 100% of net adds in the United States for years and years have been on the ad-supported tier. That has not excluded anyone from ad-free experiences. These products are still there. They’re still popular. The question is not, ‘Can we cram ads in everything?’ The question is, ‘Are there opportunities that allow the people who can’t afford, or wouldn’t try, to have an onboard to our properties and franchises?'”

Despite stating that he didn’t have anything to report on Microsoft’s plans, and had not yet even read into them, Ball’s comments led to some speculation online as to whether this could mean a shift at Xbox towards in-game advertising. To clear up the confusion, he has since shared a message via X stating that this was never mentioned during the interview.

“What I do say is that ads should be used to offer more affordable alternatives alongside today’s ad-free experiences, in the hopes more could play as a result. Similar to how Netflix and Disney Plus have ad tiers with all the same content, but at half the price or so. At no point do I even mention in-game ads (I personally believe interrupting the gameplay experience would be bad).”

Rounding out his original interview comments on the topic, Ball remarks, “It is coming from that perspective of ‘How do we reach more people? How do we keep our products affordable? How do we make sure that we can continue to fund outstanding work from our development teams?’ That’s the goal. It’s not about placing an ad in front of someone so that we can sell, you know, a pizza.”