Users who recently booted their PlayStation 4 might have seen some pesky ads on their dashboard.
It appears Sony and Activision have seized the holiday season as an opportunity to sneak in an ad for Destiny 2 on PS4 consoles. Some users are reporting that a Destiny 2 icon, seemingly out of the blue, now appears within their games list, even though they don't own the game.
Of course, they put two and two shortly after discovering the icon, realizing that Santa Claus didn't magically download the game onto their system — it was an ad, actually. This isn't a new feature, either. A similar stunt was pulled with the first Destiny game in 2015. Naturally, some gamers are pissed off about this unsolicited, annoying ad.
So, here's how to get rid of it and prevent other ads from appearing in the PS4 dashboard.
How To Get Rid Of Ads On Your PS4
Fortunately for gamers, getting rid of those pesky ads isn't difficult at all. Like any other game, it can be deleted by pressing the Options button. But doing so only removes that particular ad at that particular time. To prevent similar ads from appearing in the future, follow the steps below.
First, navigating to the Settings menu. Go to System, then Automatic Downloads. Once there, deselect Featured Content if it's selected. It should be indicated by a checkbox icon. Voilà! No more ads, ever.
Keep in mind that disabling this option without first deleting the Destiny 2 icon won't remove the ad. Again, as mentioned above, gamers can delete that by going to the dashboard, highlighting the icon, and pressing the Options button on the PS4 DualShock controller. Choose Delete to remove it completely.
It's safe to assume that the ad only appears for users who don't own Destiny 2, but even for them, ads for other games may still appear in the future. So it's probably best to turn the feature off completely.
Curated Content
The Destiny 2 icon that mysteriously appeared on gamers' dashboards is what Sony likes to call "personalized, curated content." But that's perhaps just a nicer, fancier way of saying "ads." These are promotional content through and through, no matter what jargon Sony says. There's nothing more annoying for gamers than booting up their console and seeing an ad right within their dashboard — not cool, Sony. Not cool.
Did you see an ad for Destiny 2 on your PS4 dashboard? What do you think of this behavior? As always, feel free to sound off in the comments section below!
