Microsoft has launched a new ad campaign that plays fast and loose with the definition of “Xbox.”
“What is an Xbox?” the company asks in the ad. At first, you see an Xbox Series X console, the more logical answer to the question. However, Microsoft then presents a variety of devices, including a laptop, smartphone, ROG Ally, Meta Quest 3 VR headset and Amazon Fire TV stick, which are also accompanied by a caption that reads ‘This Is An Xbox.’ All of this is shown to the tune of the 1991 Black Sheep hip-hop track, “The Choice is Yours,”
For the hardcore gamer, the intention is likely quite clear: Microsoft is trying to emphasize the fact that you can play Xbox games on a variety of devices through its Xbox Cloud Gaming service. The service lets you stream hundreds of games to the aforementioned platforms through a $22.99/month Game Pass Ultimate subscription.
On the flip side, it’s rather interesting that the ad never actually clearly features the words “Xbox Cloud Gaming.” For the average person watching the ad, who only has a passing familiarity with Xbox, it would likely create some confusion.
In a larger sense, fans have also been confused with Xbox’s messaging in recent months. Earlier this year, the company brought four of its exclusive games — Hi-Fi Rush, Pentiment, Sea of Thieves and Grounded — to PlayStation and Nintendo consoles. Indiana Jones and the Great Circle from Microsoft-owned Machine Games is also coming to PS5 just a few months after Xbox. And just this week, Microsoft CEO of Gaming Phil Spencer told Bloomberg there are “no red lines” preventing which other Xbox games from coming to other platforms.
Speaking to Rolling Stone this week, Spencer acknowledged that the ad’s platform-agnostic positioning of the Xbox brand would be controversial, noting that some people “long for the simplicity of a single box, single platform, single game.” However, he argued that “today’s largest games are bigger than any of the individual platforms,” presumably referring to the likes of Fortnite, Grand Theft Auto V and Microsoft’s own Minecraft.
According to Spencer, the Xbox brand “means something different” nowadays versus what it did when it launched 22 years ago.
“It literally was a box when it first launched. It was the ‘Direct X’ box. What it’s grown into now is more accessibility. Xbox isn’t just one device, Xbox is on your smart TV, Xbox is on your PC, Xbox is on your phone, and we’re in the middle of that transition,” he said.
Spencer went on to say that the “biggest growth in Xbox players is on PC and cloud,” leading the company to pursue such initiatives, including this latest ad campaign. “The console space all up isn’t growing, across all of them. We love those customers, but in terms of continuing to expand and grow Xbox, it’s about PC, it’s about cloud, and it’s about making our games more available in more places,” he said.
“We are trying to expand, ‘What does an Xbox mean?’ I want Xbox to be something 20 years from now,” he said. “I think in order for Xbox to be vibrant, be successful, it needs to be about multiple pieces of hardware.”
However, Spencer stressed that Xbox will “definitely do more consoles in the future,” as well as “other devices.” The latter point is presumably referring, at least in part, to a gaming handheld that Spencer has teased several times and outright confirmed to Bloomberg this week but said it’s years out.
While it remains to be seen what will come of Xbox’s larger plans, the company has several notable games set to release in the coming months, including Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 (November 19th), Indiana Jones (December 9th) and Avowed (February 18th).
Image credit: Xbox
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