Microsoft is displaying another advertisement on Windows 11. This time, a pop-up banner promotes the company’s Game Pass subscription for PC.
I’m a fan of Xbox PC Game Pass, it’s a great service that lets you play many games, including new launches, without spending any money. But, there are better ways to promote it than pop-ups that users may find annoying. How many different types of ads have we seen on Windows 11?
Here’s a quick recap, the operating system shows ads for Xbox Wireless Controller, Bing AI, Microsoft 365, and others. There are ads in Outlook app, Start Menu, File Explorer. Of course, we shouldn’t forget all those recommendations for Microsoft Edge. The Weather app contains advertisements. Even the Microsoft Store displays “suggestions” on the homepage, which are just ads, but at least it’s limited to apps. How many of these products can actually be useful to a user?
Microsoft says these are not pop-up ads
Let’s go back to the Xbox PC Game Pass ad. Believe it or not, according to windows latestA Microsoft spokesperson told the blog that these pop-ups are not classified as advertisements, but rather the information is considered tips and suggestions. It is debatable what qualifies as advertising and recommendation.
Interestingly, the spokesperson also told the blog that the alert gives people the option to purchase Call of Duty Black Ops 6: Vault Edition from the Microsoft Store or download the Microsoft Defender app. Before you ask, no, this is not the same app that is preinstalled on Windows 11, the antivirus on your PC is called Windows Security. Microsoft Defender is a type of security dashboard, and it is not free.
So, are notifications a suggestion for Xbox PC Game Pass? Even if its purpose is to highlight a specific game, its purpose is to promote a paid product. Microsoft can wrap it up however they want, but that’s really what ads do, they’re a marketing tool to spread the word about what the company is selling. The company has been doing exactly this for the past few years.
This ad or notification, whatever you want to call it, has a button to dismiss the pop-up, and another button to say “Join Now” which when clicked takes you to the Microsoft Store page where you can sign up for PC. Can purchase/subscribe to Game Pass. Don’t want to see these notifications? You can turn off ads in Windows 11 by following our guide.
This isn’t the first time we’ve seen such ads in Windows 11, remember when Microsoft placed ads for Game Pass in the Settings app? I’m a gamer and occasionally use Game Pass, but I still think these banners are unnecessary. The service has become quite popular among the gaming community. If you’re a gamer, you probably know about Game Pass, and you’ve either subscribed to it, or chosen not to. My point is that these pop-up ads provide very little value. This makes me wonder how non-gamers view these ads, perhaps they are even more annoying, i.e. completely irrelevant to their use.
What do you think about such advertisements?
Thanks for reading..
