Reportedly, Microsoft is poised to buy in-game ad network Massive Inc. for somewhere in the neighborhood of half a billion dollars. The Wall Street Journal has the scoop, but both sides have refused comment. More coverage at 1up, Kotaku.

In case you need a refresher, we aren't very fond of Massive and its ilk round these parts.

The acquisition makes sense tho, from Microsoft's perspective. They have built their entire business, from DOS forward, on acquiring and refactoring software. That's how Microsoft works. Massive and the other in-game ad networks are conceived, funded, and run solely for the purposes of acquisition. They don't care about games, or about advertising really. Except insofar as they lead to profit. And this acquisition will only egg on Massive's competitors, who are likewise interested in being acquired. I think those companies will be targeted by big media groups like News Corp rather than software companies or game publishers.

So, Microsoft may be rolling Massive out in Xbox live soon if the news is correct. It's no secret that in-game ads via Live were going to happen anyway, but it may happen sooner than we thought. The consequences are not yet clear, and one could imagine a possible world in which the Xbox group revises and corrects Massive's impish tendencies. But this is also a good time to remember that you can always unplug your Xbox from the network or configure your router to temporarily block traffic to its port.