Xbox 360 location enabled
This Christmas the Scottish Government teamed up with Microsoft to encourage safer driving on Scotland’s roads (press release). Anti drink driving adverts were to be displayed on the virtual billboards within popular Xbox 360 games like the Need for Speed and Pro Evolution Soccer. Microsoft seems to have used ‘GeoIP’ to ensure the adverts were only displayed to online players in Scotland and not elsewhere.
This is a remarkably innovative trial by the Scottish Government, and I’m sure it will prove successful - although how its success will be measured I don’t know? And great foresight from Microsoft to build this functionality into their games before release, once again recognising the value of ‘where’. In the longer run, could the ability to embed local advertising content into computer games be disruptive to existing business models? In a similar way to the impact of Google Maps on geographic data providers, perhaps one day games will be free, subsidized by adverts for the video and pizza shops at the end of the road?
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