Microsoft putting their ads into Madden, other EA Sports games

Filed under: Sony PlayStation 3, Nintendo Wii, Microsoft Xbox 360, Business

You have to hand it to Microsoft, when life hands them delicious cake, they sure know how to turn it into delicious cake-o-nade. When they gobbled up in-game advertising firm Massive, we all thought it was just to make lots of money. Now that the company has inked a deal to handle advertising in EA Sports games like Madden, NASCAR, Tiger Woods, NHL and Skate, we learn that it was actually to make lots of money and hurt Sony and Nintendo in the process. With Microsoft making cash off of every ad in Madden and the other games, we imagine Sony and Nintendo are left with a difficult choice. Do they allow the ads on their console and put a bunch of cash in Microsoft's already considerable war chest? Or do they not allow the ads and walk away with nothing?

If you're a conspiracy theorist, now would be a wonderful time to point out that the news comes almost exactly one week after Microsoft's Peter Moore moved to EA Sports, just in time for their companies to make sweet love and sweeter cash while Sony and Nintendo walk around the field stapling classified ads that they cut out of the newspaper to stadium walls. You know, just saying.

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[via] Joystiq