Microsoft is making a serious change to their Xbox consoles that is imposing advertising artwork on the users home screen. They are now automatically displaying Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 themed backgrounds. This is significant because it's an experience change to every user without user consent. People are pretty angry about this pushy marketing technique.
Microsoft pushes persistent Call of Duty branding to Xbox dashboards without user consent
You'll find it in the console's general settings as Event Themed Backgrounds. The way it works is not like the dynamic backgrounds that reflect the game you're playing. These themed, promotional backgrounds are on no matter what game you're currently playing.
They're not a transient event. They're a permanent 'on top' of what's going on.
The way you get this behavior is you go Settings > General > Personalization > My backgrounds. Event Themed Backgrounds is on by default. That's the big deal right now that's bringing a lot of heat from the community.
People want the Call of Duty branding off their dashboards. If they want to turn off the event themed backgrounds, they can go through the settings I just listed. This will give them the control they want.
But you have to know to look for it. The new update creates a dynamic between marketing automation and user control.
There were some of the same topics around balance and stability we touched on during our last Xbox update. There's just another level of complexity to the user experience with this new change. The known fact is that Microsoft is activating this marketing tool on every console. Users need to proactively opt out to get back to their preferred viewing experience.
Source: IXBT
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