A workaround is offered but it limits interactions

Feb 6, 2015 12:19 GMT  ·  By

The Xbox One is a very successful piece of hardware but with popularity come some unexpected and unwelcomed consequences, which for users of the platform translates into a lot of spam messages delivered by shady individuals and companies.

At the moment, there’s no way to eliminate them all and almost no filtering is being done by Microsoft, but it seems that the problem is known and a solution might be in the works.

The official Twitter account of Mike Ybarra, the partner director of Program Management for the Xbox brand, states that spam will continue to pose a challenge for a while and that for now the only way to lessen its impact is to go to the Privacy section on the console’s interface in order to choose a custom setting and allow only friends’ messages to arrive.

Most of the Xbox One spam messages are linked to the Ultimate Team mode in FIFA 15 and offer to sell points to gamers, even to those who do not own the EA Sports-made football sim.

Restricting the feature only to friends might be a problem for those who are engaged in multiplayer and need to rely on outside sites to get partners for raids and other activities.

In the long term, spam is a big threat to home consoles

Gaming is growing as a business and that means there are a lot more people who want to profit from gamers who have lax security or are unaware of the many scams perpetrated over the Internet.

The FIFA 15 Ultimate Team messages say that they will offer free packs or sell points, but they often only seek to get the previous account data of the user.

Microsoft needs to eliminate spam from Xbox One because gamers that feel harassed might spend less time with the device or avoid picking up titles with extensive multiplayer features.

As of now, the platform is still lagging behind the PlayStation 4 from Sony in terms of sales all over the world but it has shown good momentum during the Christmas shopping season.

In the United States, the Xbox One has had its price reduced to 349 dollars (269 Euro) on a permanent basis.