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Gamers receptive to ad-supported Xbox Live service

Two weeks ago, we polled you to ask whether you'd be interested in an ad-supported version of Xbox Live. The results are in and they're somewhat surprising.

Nearly half (46%) of Xbox 360-owning poll respondents would opt for an ad-supported version of Xbox Live if it were available. Of gamers who were willing to view ads in exchange for free access to Xbox Live, 40% of them were not previously subscribers to Xbox Live, suggesting that Microsoft could considerably expand the ranks of gamers who use Xbox Live if the company were to offer a free version of the service.

Over half (52%) of the Xbox 360 owners who responded to the poll said that they pay for Xbox Live now and would continue to pay for the service in order to avoid seeing advertisements. Our gut tells us that this number is skewed somewhat higher than it would be if this were a real option. Gamers tend to react very negatively to the idea of advertisements, but might be somewhat more tolerant of ads in practice (this gut is supported by the insane traffic that still inundates certain popular games sites, where the advertising is egregious, invasive, and not at all consumer-friendly).

Might this idea actually see the light of day? We reckon it depends on whether the value created by a connected gamer exceeds the foregone subscription revenues. The success of Asian MMOGs (free to play, but digital content'll cost ya) indicates that the real value of a connected gamer isn't necessarily in the subscription fees.

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