Microsoft gaming boss Phil Spencer has responded to the launch of the corporate’s ‘This Is An Xbox’ advert marketing campaign, which is already a meme on-line.
This week, Microsoft launched a brand new promoting marketing campaign designed to hammer residence the truth that you possibly can play Xbox just about on any gadget and anyplace, sparking but extra backlash on the firm’s console technique.
The ‘This is an Xbox’ marketing campaign consists of pictures of cats and a bento field amongst different units that play video video games. The thought Microsoft is attempting to get throughout, which is consistent with its earlier messaging, is that Xbox is much less about consoles lately and extra about with the ability to play on any gadget able to taking part in a online game. So, on this sense, a TV is an Xbox, a telephone is an Xbox, and so forth.
That hasn’t gone down nicely with core Xbox followers already dissatisfied with Microsoft’s gaming technique in recent times. Not solely have they seen the Xbox console fade from significance as gross sales of the Xbox Series X and S collapse, however the Xbox console unique turn out to be extinct.
In a brand new interview with Rolling Stone, Xbox CEO Phil Spencer mentioned the way forward for the Xbox model in addition to the promoting marketing campaign. “It’s an attention-grabbing subject as a result of as we have a look at the model, as we’re altering the model, [it] means one thing totally different,” Spencer mentioned. “It actually was a field when it first launched. It was the Direct X field. What it’s grown into now’s extra accessibility. Xbox isn’t only one gadget, Xbox is in your good TV, Xbox is in your PC, Xbox is in your telephone, and we’re in the course of that transition.”
According to Rolling Stone, Spencer acknowledged that some followers could be turned off by the marketing campaign. Some folks “lengthy for the simplicity of a single field, single platform, single sport,” he mentioned, earlier than insisting “as we speak’s largest video games are greater than any of the person platforms.”
That’s a nod to the likes of Fortnite and Roblox, which have turn out to be huge platforms with month-to-month participant counts akin to the likes of Xbox, PlayStation, and Nintendo consoles. For Spencer, then, the main target is on the video games.
“I feel the factor that ought to actually have longevity are the video games, characters and world — and the platforms ought to allow us to expertise these video games the place we wish to play,” he mentioned. “That’s how we take into consideration Xbox as we speak.”
Image credit score: Microsoft.
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can attain Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
