Ad Nauseum

This is exactly what Sony has done with the new firmware update - and, of course, it's also exactly what Microsoft did with the release of the NXE dashboard update for the Xbox 360 many months ago. Both firms recognise the potential of on-dash advertising boxes - not only the potential, in fact, but the simple necessity of their existence.

Naturally, as with any advertising venture, there are a number of pitfalls which gape open as soon as you start down this path. It's possible, for example, to annoy users by poorly integrating your advertising space with the design of your dashboard - Microsoft avoided this by designing NXE from the ground up to be an advertising platform, but Sony has walked headlong into it by slapping a big ugly ad space over the top of its existing interface.

Even more annoying in the long term is the delivery of irrelevant advertising content to your users. Repeatedly telling players of Killzone 2 or Gears of War about the exciting launch of a new Hannah Montana game will result in users switching off and ignoring the irrelevant, annoying ad spaces. Modern consoles have individual user profiles which know perfectly well which games each user plays - this information can be used to create accurate targeting which changes adverts from being distracting to being useful and relevant.

The biggest pitfall of all, however, is also the most enticing - simple greed. Advertising space on console dashboards is justified if it's being used to promote features and content which are accessible through that dashboard - in that context, it's actually useful to users. What's vastly more questionable is the selling of that space to promote other products, treating it effectively as a standard ad format which is available to anyone with money to spend.

Microsoft, which has been keen to monetise everything to within an inch of its life in this console generation, has already started down this path with the advertising boxes on the Xbox 360. These spaces are pitched to advertising firms, and Microsoft clearly sees them as a new revenue stream - even though in many cases they're appearing on the dashboards of users paying for the Xbox Live Gold service, which seems a bit cheeky.

This is the tipping point at which many customers may begin to feel a little abused by on-dash advertising. Promoting new content on XBL or PSN, or highlighting new additions to the assorted video rental services, is something that actually makes the dashboard more useful and informative. Suggesting that you might like an ice-cold Pepsi or a trip to see Michael Bay's latest movie in the cinema, however, is just clutter, and platform holders will have to tread carefully here to work out where consumers' comfort zone ends.

For those complaining about the addition of advertising space to the PS3, however, there are no words of comfort. I'm surprised it's taken this long to arrive, in fact - and now that it's launched, you'd better get used to it. Love it or loathe it, on-dash advertising is becoming a core part of the console experience.