Summarizing the recent uproar of xbox users from many reports.: They are upset about a nag screen when they boot up their game console. It shows an ad for Modern Warfare 3 developed by Activision, Microsoft’s latest game studio acquisition.
The ad is fullscreen and prompts you to immediately buy it. The options to pass it and boot your device are greyed out, so it is hard to see them. And if you are not cautious enough like kids often are, you can buy modern warfare 3 accidentally by simply pressing the A button three times. So if you just turn on your console and try to spam pass, it can make you buy it.
The install size of MW3 is 200 GB and you have to install MW2 first, because the central hub for MW3 is just MW2.
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IMO: So much people are upset about this, but what i really can not understand are some linux people still thinking microsoft would really love linux now. The origin of GNU Linux is the call for freedom. Some naive people may call it some crazy ideology of long bearded nerds. I call it reasoning on the basis of mental health, achieving freedom by taking over the control of your device. Do you really think microsoft would give their customers freedom, letting them out of their vendor-lock-in and loose their monopoly?
Remember, microsoft’s Phil Spencer had to face a hearing by the FTC and they got away with it again. And this was just one of many legal proceedings microsoft had in the long history of this corporation’s “anti-competitive practices”. Just search for “Criticism of Microsoft” and you can find tons of evidence especially in recent times. And in almost all cases Microsoft got away with it.
In that regard i don’t know about you, but i find it highly concerning, that this corporation with it’s record of illicit behavior tries to sneak into the linux kernel for some time now.: DXGKRNL
Microsoft loves Linux because they can make money with it. That’s it. This has NOTHING to do with them having any interest in replacing Windows (Desktop or Server) with Linux to ANY capacity.
Their Azure ecosystem relies HEAVILY on Linux, and they also sell many Linux offerings in many forms (be it visible, or under-the-hood-hidden Linuxy things). So that’s really where “Microsoft ❤️’s Linux” comes from. They’re signalling they know Linux has market share dominance in the server space, and are trying to seem approachable instead of extremely-hostile-with-litigation.
As foor “Why do Linux people talk so much about freedom?”
It goes far more beyond just the adverts aspect. As you may (OP) already know, Linux gives you flexibility in changing anything in ways Windows simply either cannot, or does not (by design). Sure, the adverts stuff (Windows start menu adverts lol) is a legit reason, but it’s nowhere near the only reason.
Frankly I’m not the least bit surprised this Xbox advertising bs happened. If Microsoft is prepared to put adverts on the lock screen and all over the place in Windows BY DEFAULT for many editions, then this is barely a stretch for them.
That being said it is a dick move to do for a console ecosystem. As if it was even actually warranted anyways. CoD has so much brand awareness it’s pretty much Coke, advertising is just a reminder, not new information.
So basically MW3 is MW2 dlc, and there’s also this Microsoft bullshit
wait you have to BUY mw2 for mw3 to work?
What does XBOX - a console - have to do with the Linux OS?
You get what you choose, I guess. Its a point of “not knowing it better” and using things like windows, etc. but as soon as you get into the topic and you see what a shitshow is going on especially coming from the Microsofts side, you can choose the blue pill and forget about anything and just give up, turn back to your “comfy” habits.
If you choose to go down the rabbit hole, you may see that the privacy on the mainstream is fucked up, just take a look at a fresh installed windows 11. Open a terminal and type in netstat -tulpen (or was it “netstat -a” ?) and wonder why the hell are there so many connections open? Ok, you might think, this is needed to run windows. Now you can install wireshark and track some seconds, hit pause and scroll trough - bruh you think you installed a OS with some “meta data collections” you consent, but in reality you installed a spyware with some OS features. The “privacy” buttons while the windows installation are a joke imho.
And another thing: I decided a year ago to try to manually reduce the bloated windows thing, I disabled any service I could, most of them via registry and found out many scheduled tasks, that will re-enable things after some time - I finally had a windows 11 with better privacy - but it stopped working - even if you could get it done, on the next update it could also be re-enabled. At this point I switched to EndeavourOS fully on my gaming rig - no regrets, only 2 games not running caused by kernel level anti cheat for me, but damn, I love it driving linux as a daily thing, open netstat see there is nothing going on you did not consent to and it feels like my pc is more under my control.
Are you just talking about the normal home screen with ads for new games, like every game store including Steam?