Xbox has been in a pretty turbulent state of confusion for quite some time – the recent retirement of Phil Spencer and the resignation of Sarah Bond is almost the peak of it. We've seen various efforts from the company to try and get its games accessible and into the hands of more people, such as its multi-platform shift, but one of the more shocking ones was its “It's an Xbox” marketing campaign.
It launched last year, and tried to signal to gamers that you don't actually need to have an Xbox to play Xbox games. A trailer released alongside the campaign labeled everything from TVs to handheld devices as Xbox, as the company seemed to try to distance itself from being known solely as a console platform.
For many around Xbox, it wasn't a particularly popular marketing campaign, with high-profile industry figures like Mike Ybarra criticizing it as misleading, and anyone calling it “obviously unplayable.” Turns out, it wasn't particularly popular within the Xbox either.
Even Xbox's own employees don't like its weird “It's an Xbox” campaign
According to a new report from The Verge, the whole “It's an Xbox” marketing campaign was former president Sarah Bond's bright idea to get Xbox games into more people's hands and convey the message that “you don't need an Xbox to play Xbox.” It sounds like a decent idea, but it's disastrous for your business if you tell people they don't need to buy the things you make.
The Verge reports that many Xbox employees were outraged by the campaign, and many thought the whole thing was a hoax, made worse by the fact that the campaign went ahead without the presence of the Xbox Mobile Store, which was originally intended to launch in July 2024. We still don't know where it is.
Xbox blew its only chance to compete in the handheld market
The expensive but impressive handheld has put the Xbox in a tough spot.
As a result, Xbox's gaming revenue has been on a pretty steady decline in recent months and years, and shows no signs of slowing down. With Sarah Bond's departure and Asha Sharma's promotion, Microsoft is now clearly aiming for the “return of the Xbox”, seemingly dismissing Bond's previous attempts to keep Xbox away from the console.
Whether Xbox will be able to repair the terrible damage to its reputation it has already suffered remains to be seen, though many are already concerned about Sharma's background in AI. She's promised not to flood Xbox with “soulless slop” and has hinted at a possible return to Xbox exclusives, but we'll have to wait and see how Sharma's strategy differs from Bond's.
- brand
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Microsoft
- Original release date
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November 10, 2020
- Original MSRP (USD)
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$499
- operating system
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Proprietary (Windows based)
- processor
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Custom AMD 8-core Zen 2 3.8 GHz
- resolve
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720p – 4K UHD
