Microsoft recently announced that it will be adding additional Silverlight support on the Xbox 360 and will include support for Silverlight advertising. Despite many assurances from Microsoft that the additional support does not mean an expansion of advertising that will interfere with the gaming experience, owners continue to express their displeasure with the move.

It seems that many owners feel that they are already spending $50 per year for the Xbox Live service and the idea that Microsoft believes that they need to expand the amount of advertising on the console is meeting with a lot of public backlash.

Much of the actual backlash surrounds some leaked pictures that are from what is supposedly the new updated Xbox 360 dashboard that features a McDonalds banner above the dashboard control tiles, as well as a Coke logo in the upper right that goes next to the avatar icons, and an ESPN sports ticker with logo at the bottom of the screen. The biggest complaint that we are hearing about this is that the advertising takes up space that is normally devoted to the dashboard themes that Xbox 360 owners have. In many cases, these dashboard themes were purchased and some are complaining that the advertising placement obstructs the view of themes that Microsoft sold knowing that they were planning to obscure them with advertising.

From what our sources are telling us at the moment, Microsoft is still playing around with their advertising strategy for the Xbox 360 dashboard and nothing yet has been set in stone. Still, it is quite obvious to us that many of the concerns that owners are already raising are valid. The reality is, however, that advertising within video games is here to stay. With the increased costs to deliver both video games and video game content everyone is looking for a way to defray the costs; and advertising is one important way to do this. With the captive audience that video gaming consoles deliver, it is no wonder that advertisers are seeking more ways to reach this target audience.