Xbox users call out Activision and Microsoft for “vomit inducing” full-screen Modern Warfare 3 ad

Activision and Xbox have teamed up to release full screen ads for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 on the console’s homepage, which players have since heavily criticised.

As shared by multiple users on social media, the ad in question pops up when players boot up their Xbox. “Fight against the ultimate threat,” the screen proclaims.

It then suggests you perhaps buy the game ahead of its full release later this month (as a reminder, you can play the Campaign early if you pre-order). Your three options are simply “Buy Now”, “Get the Vault Edition Upgrade” and, mercifully, the option to “Exit” away from this ad and get on with what you actually booted up your Xbox for.

Needless to say, many aren’t especially delighted with this decision by the Call of Duty and Microsoft teams (which for now appears to be affecting predominantly players in the US – I and other members of the Eurogamer team have not seen it when booting up our consoles).

The Verge’s Tom Warren shared an image of the ad on X (formerly known as Twitter) adding that while he will accept this sort of thing “for new features / dashboard updates”, he won’t be so forgiving with marketing such as this advert.

Meanwhile, over on Reddit, several members of the Xbox community have labelled this marketing stunt “vomit inducing” and “unacceptable”.

Others have joked that Microsoft is putting its recent, record breaking, acquisition of Activision Blizzard King to good use, and we should expect to see Candy Crush preloaded on consoles in the near future.

As a general point, Microsoft deployed similar pop-up ad tactics for both Starfield and Forza Motorsport earlier this year, so perhaps full-screen marketing like this is going to be the norm going forward.

Elsewhere in Modern Warfare 3 news, Activision recently blamed the game’s potentially massive hard drive footprint on an “increased amount of content available Day 1”, which includes open world Zombies, support for items being carried forward from Modern Warfare 2, plus map files for the current the Call of Duty: Warzone.

As Matt reported yesterday, some early access players on PS5 are reporting file sizes of almost 240GB once Call of Duty HQ and the campaign are installed.