Microsoft’s fullscreen Xbox pop-up ads don’t have to be annoying

theverge.com:

By Tom Warren, a senior editor covering Microsoft, PC gaming, console, and tech. He founded WinRumors, a site dedicated to Microsoft news, before joining The Verge in 2012.

When I turned my Xbox on yesterday, I was greeted with a fullscreen pop-up ad for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III. I posted on X (Twitter) about it and thought nothing more of it because annoying as it was, this isn’t the first time Microsoft has used a fullscreen takeover to promote one of its new games — and Microsoft now owns Call of Duty.

But the internet wasn’t happy about this particular one. “Is this what we should expect now that Xbox owns Call of Duty?” asked VG247. “I do not want these massive, 90s-era Xbox Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III take-over pop-up ads to become the norm,” proclaimed Windows Central. On X, the feeling was similar: these ads are annoying.

But they didn’t have to be this way; they could actually be useful instead.

Microsoft has been using these fullscreen Xbox ads for months now. One of the first ones appeared after the Xbox Developer Direct in January, promoting the latest Xbox announcements. Then another followed in June following the Xbox Showcase.

Both seemed annoying but weren’t directly promoting a single game, so I grumbled at my Xbox bootup being interrupted and moved on. Then Microsoft started using the same pop-ups for Starfield, Forza Motorsport, and now Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III. If you’re an Xbox owner, you might not have even seen all of them because unless you turn your Xbox on every day, it’s likely you missed one. And thankfully, they don’t all stack up and suddenly appear.

But what I found particularly irritating about the Starfield, Forza, and now Call of Duty ones is that these pop-ups