YouTuber Breaks Down Xbox's 'Almost Perfect' New Ad Campaign

New marketing campaign convincing people to not actually buy Xboxes is "genius".

Okay, buddy.

Good for casuals i guess but not so good for the actual Xbox. To quote one of my favourite films "if everything is an Xbox then nothing is".

I think what Microsoft is doing is great for Xbox and potentially the future of gaming. Xbox is now an ecosystem that just so happens to have a console.

I always find it funny when I’m on my Xbox One watching YouTube and the ad pops up to tell me that I’m watching this video on an Xbox.

Sony will follow like they did with the ports. There will be Xbox and PS consoles as long as there is a console market, but Microsoft and Sony's games are available elsewhere already. Microsoft is just ahead of the competition in that sense and because of that raises eyebrows, especially here on dedicated gaming sites popular with traditional gamers, that are less than 1% of the console gamers.

There's nothing that Steam Deck does that other devices can't do, but still 10% of the massive Steam user base play on Steam Deck. The future is not for restrictive consoles, except for Nintendo if they're always as lucky as with Switch, that I doubt.

I stated when this ad first came out that I thought it was strengthening the 'Xbox' brand - which is Microsoft's 'Brand' for the whole of their Gaming side - not 'just' the Console. It's reiterating that Xbox is everywhere, everything is (or has the potential) to be 'Xbox'.

The fact that 'everything' is XBOX is reinforcing that Brand. If you 'want' to game on Console, then yes Microsoft has an 'Xbox' Hardware and is still releasing games 'exclusively' on their own Console - even if they 'choose' to release some games later on PS. Some may also release Day 1 on PS too, but you can't play them 'free' on Game Pass, can't Stream them to ANY device etc. Also won't be sold as 'Play Anywhere' so you get the PC version as well.

Xbox is not just the Console - it maybe your primary hardware choice for gaming, but if you also game on PC (inc Handhelds like the RoG Ally), Mobiles, tablets etc, then your options to play your Xbox games is expanded. If you Prefer to game on PC, you don't need an Xbox console - why spend money on hardware to play Xbox games when they already have Hardware to play those games.

Xbox Hardware has been more of a Consumer choice - its not 'necessary' - but it is still the only Console Hardware to offer Certain games and Game Pass. Indy may release on PS, but Xbox is the ONLY console this Christmas you can play it on - and its a lot cheaper to buy a Console than an equivalent spec PC.

Streaming isn't 'great', but it maybe good enough for the mobile/tablet gamers that maybe wouldn't or can't justify buying Consoles. Just because they didn't buy/upgrade to a Series S/X doesn't mean they aren't playing on 'virtual' Xbox hardware in the Cloud and therefore are part of the Xbox ecosystem...

If it’s ALMOST perfect there will be numbers to back it up. How many people are jumping on board? Are Gamepass subs rising? Are people being fooled into thinking an iPhone is an Xbox?

I have no doubts it’s good for business, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s good for the Xbox brand, a smart tv or a phone definitely are not Xbox’s.

Microsoft has made it clear that Playstation is also an Xbox now and with that in mind when it comes time to decide which console to get when the next generation starts, the Playstation 6 is the obvious choice to me. Playstation & Xbox games all on one console.

I’ve seen like 10 videos tearing the campaign to shreds but glad you found a positive one I guess.

Meanwhile this video makes it perfectly clear why it’s such a dumb marketing move, at least for now where none of those devices can actually play 90% of Xbox games:

https://youtu.be/BmVoVgN1Oes?si=gzViD0JpyTsgIvut

The adverts are clever. It’s the product that is the problem. In theory, it’s great being able to access gamepass via the cloud on all my devices….in practice it is a laggy unplayable mess for every game I have tried. Yes this is not going to be the case for everyone but I have seen enough comments from people who have a similar experience to me to know that it is still a widespread issue.

If casuals sign up for a month of gamepass, try to stream COD through their phone and find it a blurry lag fest then they are going to lose confidence, unsubscribe and go back to their native mobile games whilst associating Xbox with a poor user experience. Cloud gaming just isn’t at the quality where it is ready to be pushed out to the masses in my opinion.

For me the advert is dumb because cloud streaming is tied to Gamepass Ultimate.

You convince someone with the campaign and they discover they need the most expensive package to play

@themightyant
Right behind you, give me a next generation Xbox home console any day.

Saying a phone is an xbox is like saying your phone is a cinema, a word processor, a PC etc. Technically it is but who uses a phone for those things? Probably a select audience. Because its an awful option versus the real thing. Same with Xbox streaming games to these sort of devices. Its just not the proper intended experience.

@themightyant
The only thing I will say and it might be just my UK location I tried streaming on my series x just for fun, 400mb/sec internet. So fast.
And I must be honest what a horrible picture and mess it was. Now for me that will put a lot off to drop that streaming technology straight away and put them off for a very long time.
So if this is the current very poor quality, why not wait until it is better then promote and release cloud streaming.

@BAMozzy you're 100% correct with this analysis. I think it's a difficult swallow because the name "Xbox" as the brand contains the word "box" which is immediately correlated with the console itself. If they'd rebranded the service to "Microsoft Gaming" along with the company and advertised with "We are Gamers" then it'd be less genius but more accepted within the hardcore to play "Microsoft Game Pass" on other devices

The chase for the casual gamer has been a thing forever. I have seen every company try and be cool, accessible, edgy and now be 'on everything'

Unfortunately it is only ever short lived and they always return to their core base.

The only thing I can think is that when the next generation of gamers come through they will be more used to the whole streaming of games and the tech will be better by then too.

Anyone thinking sony won't follow Xbox steps will be surprised in the future.

Sony is mimicking every single Xbox step towards multiplatforms. It all started with Play Anywhere in 2016, bringing games to PC, then with cloud gaming (who sony already have too), until it finally come to games on rival consoles (MLB on Xbox, Horizon Lego on Switch).

Sony is going much slower than Xbox in that direction but they will reach there eventually, it is pretty clear.

Also, no problem for me with using 'Xbox' name in this strategy. Xbox is Microsoft brand for Games. So Microsoft Gaming = Xbox.

Xbox got bigger and is now everywhere, which gives them the highest user base among the big 3.

Think that way: To play sea of thieves on PS5 you need Xbox Live account. Minecraft on Switch? Xbox Live account. PC? Xbox Live account. Sum that to Xbox Cloud Gaming and you have xbox live everywhere.

So now Xbox has users on their own consoles, on PC, on their rival consoles. So even PS5 sales can mean Xbox customers.

They're everywhere now.

@abe_hikura For me its also the fact that the video is saying how it builds on the XBOX brand, but then he talks about Gamepass, xcloud etc. Not XBOX Gamepasss, just gamepass. In the same way we have people always hyping up micrsoft gaming, not XBOX gaming.

everyone talks about boosting the brand but everything is tied to not actually using the brand name they are wanting to boost. The biggest issue with Xbox as I said in another thread is the core brand of Xbox which is just not as well known as playstation.

@Banjo- I see this 10% comment for steam deck thrown out now and again, but as far as I knew sales were close to 5m and there are 130m active steam users. Is the figure based on like daily play or something? Not being argumentative just genuinely curious as very hard to find steam sales data haha!

Brand needs to be as simple as possible. On a computer, browsing PC and Xbox games used to be a mess and the websites used to redirect to the wrong versions. I complained about this.

They should stick to a brand and Xbox is fully associated with gaming unlike Microsoft that is probably associated with Office. Xbox is the right choice for their whole gaming business.

That said, it's sad that Microsoft names its Surface devices better than its consoles. Xbox 6 would be a better name for the next-gen console. They skipped numbers with Windows, so they can do it again. Windows and Surface use logical numeration, Xbox doesn't: Xbox One S, Xbox One X, Series S, Series X...

@Coletrain There is no official data for Steam Deck sales, but the 10% comes from real statistics.

I think the online console gaming community forgets how much of a bubble we actually are, but when Sony themselves have gone from 100 million sales with the original Playstation to 120 million sales with the PS4, with a peak of 150 to 160 million with the PS2... well there's a problem. As a reminder Playstation just celebrated it's 30th anniversary.

Consoles have GREATLY struggled to expand to new gamers. Nowadays brand new gamers enter gaming through mobile or PC if they want high end games. Consoles were meant to be the accessible gateway into gaming, and they've largely failed. Rather, as a market they're the smallest out of the bunch (not counting cloud), especially if you consider each platform individual.

With this understanding, Xbox expanding their gaming ecosystem to more platforms and trying to reach new gamers certainly makes sense. I've never seen this as a campaign trying to give up on consoles. I saw this as a basic realization that the best selling console to date is hitting sub 160 million gamers (and that's assuming every individual hardware sale is a new person). Meanwhile there's over a billion gamers on PC and far more users on PC with access to the internet, and on mobile there's over 3 billion gamers. The vast, VAST majority of existing gamers are never going to buy a console, and there aren't really that many people who are looking to get into gsming for the first time that want to do so through consoles.

Making a campaign toward these people who were never going to pick up any console, and explaining that Xbox is more than just a box, isn't a bad idea. In fact it's a very good one for Xbox which presents this idea of expanding its gaming ecosystem to gaming markets they weren't in before. It seems silly to me how much people who clearly already own an Xbox are complaining... like did they really want Xbox to do an ad aimed at them buying another current gen Xbox? I think perspective is a good word, because I don't think many people are thinking outside their own.

Now all of that said: if I'm being honest, this marketing campaign is ridiculously premature. As a marketing campaign, I appreciate it. After years of promising their new strategy of "playing your games everywhere", this is the first time they are actually flaunting it. There's literally nothing new in this campaign. They've made their strategy clear for a long time. But this is the first big splash of it we see... but then the question is, what do we splash onto? The Xbox Mobile store is delayed indefinitely (as is native cloud gaming in app and purchasing games at all in app) with Xbox at the mercy of the court's response to Google and Google and Apple themselves. The Xbox PC app has certainly improved but still far behind, and battle net hasn't been integrated much at all. No cloud saves or play anywhere cross buy. The cloud experience is pretty good if you have nice internet, but still sub par even then. It's still officially in beta so to even use it you'd need to pay for Ultimate which comes with literally everything else and treats cloud as a bonus perk. No enhanced bit rate and still waiting on Orion tech (if it exists) to be implemented from Bethesda. Owned games on cloud also just became a thing and it's not very many. I feel like they really, really, really wanted to have this out for the holidays, but the question is what are they even selling people? A subpar gaming launcher that comes predownloaded on Windows 11? A cloud experience that needs a lot of work and costs $20 a month to officially "try"? This really seems like something that should've been pushed back a year. Again as a marketing strategy, I applaud it. They keep saying they want to reach the 3 billion+ gamers out there (most of whom will never touch a console), and this is their first real attempt at that. Execution and timing is horrendous. None of what they're really promising exists yet.

@Banjo- so like, % of daily players as opposed to overall steam users? Coz you won't have all 130m playing daily, so maybe like 4-5m is a more likely figure.

Either way, the market for Xbox anywhere is certainly there, be good to see MS publish steam style user figures, they're a really good metric for engagement

@WildConcept6 I agree with you, just a couple of things to add about the mobile stores, the price for playing Xbox Cloud and the marketing campaign.

The mobile stores aren't ready, but Google and Apple are being legally regulated regarding user's choices like PCs in the past. That's a bigger W for Microsoft than the ABK trial. They're waiting for that.

Microsoft is not afraid of being first regarding multiplatform plans since Xbox One, but that also means they anticipate the evolution of the market, which is good if your plans are long term like theirs. Sony is reluctantly doing the same as them, but slowly and with many more limitations like no cross-save nor cross-buy. Microsoft is ahead and completely on board, so that would benefit them in their long-term plans, not to mention their massive cloud infrastructure that Sony lacks.

Paying for Game Pass Ultimate just for Cloud doesn't make sense, but they're planning new tiers. That makes the campaign premature, but starts selling the brand to everyone that doesn't have an Xbox, like you said. Xbox needs a cheap only Cloud tier if they want every device to potentially be an Xbox.

About steaming quality, they're also ahead of the current circumstances for most, but those that really care about quality or don't have an excellent connection are already PC or console customers. Those that only play mobile games may try more games on mobile.

@Coletrain I think it's active Steam accounts, so 13.2m sold and this is old data, so more now. If it's 10% of daily users you can extrapolate as more or less would be the same percentage for the total, like a massive survey.

It’s an absolutely crap advert that is spouting lies. Until the whole XSX library carries over to PC then it’s not a real Xbox. It’s really that simple. It’s not a unified, seamless platform if purchases don’t carry across between console and PC.

Good advertising....for features and things that are not working properly and undercooked.
They are too worried about where the industry and themselves gonna be in 10-20 years that they forgot where is their current fanbase today. Its on the xbox along with 80% of all GP subs (if not more).
I still dont understand why they are pushing this narrative today. They still need to push console for at least 2 gens and then they can transition.

I just play games that look fun.

Everything either evolves or eventually ends.

I think it's a great way to stop selling consoles.

"I work in advertising for a living." And? lol.

If everything is an Xbox, then why buy an actual Xbox. Dude, if you work in advertising for a living, you should change professions.

I don't have a problem with "everything is an Xbox." I have a problem with them selling games OUTSIDE of their ecosystem.

While the implications of "everything is an Xbox" bothers me, I'm glad there are people actually seeing the good in it. There will be no surprise to hear my admittance that I have a doomer perspective, but it comes from a place of concern for Xbox, not hate.

I think it appeals to people it needs to reach. MS knows it lost the console war, but fortunately for them the console war is fast becoming irrelevant. Sony is slowly moving it's library to PC and 3rd party devs are moving away from exclusives, especially for big and/or multiplayer games.

MS doesn't care if you buy the next gen PS instead of Xbox because they'll make more money off of you. I am glad they continue to make hardware. I'm especially excited for the native portable! With all the work on the surface, it could be a big hit.

@eduscxbox ssshhhhh! Youll upset the "fans"

@Moby Only Nintendo can keep going like in the 90s because of the ancient hardware and cheap development. Microsoft needs to be multiplatform and that's alright, it started with Xbox One. The funny thing is that the "fans" don't see that Sony is doing the same. Sony is 30 times smaller than Microsoft, has an astronomical debt and has stated that they need to reach players on other platforms, but still they think that PS is better than ever and that Xbox is doomed.

Personally I have loved this campaign from the start but I’ve been saying since I was a teenager when xbox came out that MS wants in as many homes as possible. Tech access changes lives and enriches them (with moderation of course) ao anything that breaks down barriers in gaming is good. And from a business perspective this is better for MS as a whole. Imo.

The first 2 minutes of the video are enough. You can come to the same conclusions watching the actual ad yourself as well. I still think this ad campaign will do very little for them. They need to rebrand their gaming division and ditch the green & name Xbox

@Millionski I agree with you. Microsoft fundamentally misunderstand the mobile video game player. They don't want to pay for anything, $5 like Star few Valley might appear too much. They love F2P games that have like pseudo-gambling mechanics that get them to spend $20-100 to speed up artificial timers to progress their gameplay. Console and PC games offer a near complete experience for a fixed price + DLC and of course have loads of F2P games that mostly require physical hardware peripherals like controllers or M&K because they demand precision. Microsoft ain't gonna be able to exploit the mobile gamer in the way they think with their traditional game experiences. I think the Nintendo Switch sold like hotcakes with their Fortnite bundle early in its lifecycle. They understood younger players wanted a mobile experience but better control & also have it "free" even though it came with $20 of in game currency to encourage the gambling mechanic of unlocking skins. Needless to say, I totally agree with you. Microsoft is pushing half baked experiences. If they can work with their Surface division and put out a great handle, they'll shift more people over but honestly the PC handheld market is saturated already with a couple of contenders already on Gen 3-4 of their hardware.

I’m all for whatever Xbox wants to do…I’ve been with them since the OG Xbox and I’m willing to ride it out till they crash and burn or evolve into a better version of themselves…that said I also have been with Playstation since the PS2 and Nintendo since the SNES religiously buying both there hardware so it’s not like my entire gaming library rests just on them lol

@themightyant I do believe the 10% figure, just not 10% of total active users. I think that study or whatever it was for the steam inputs did settle on 10% of players using steam deck, but it was using live data like, at any given time 10% of players playing games daily were steam deck users.

Digital foundry bring it up all the time that estimates are around 5m steam decks sold (could be 6m now?), but to be fair that's still pretty awesome. Excited to see future chipsets being able to run high frame rates at lower power draws (which has got to be the main reason MS are waiting, battery life at 25/30w is abysmal on everything but Rog ally x)

The reason Xbox and Playstation have sold less consoles this generation is the console prices haven't reduced. In fact they went up.

No one wants a digital only console in the lower working classes as they tend to own fewer games and use CEX etc.

So rather than an Xbox or PS, they get gifted a switch, cheap mobile or tablet.

In that respect you can understand the strategy. But it all falls down as the experience is rubbish.

@Kilamanjaro Mobile players won't be paying for Ultimate. Game Pass needs a cheap tier for cloud gaming and on this site it has been reported that Microsoft is already planning that. They are also waiting for Google and Apple that tried to abuse Epic and Microsoft and that are being legally regulated now. Epic and Microsoft won't be paying Google and Apple 30%. Apple tried to circumvent the commission using a "app quality fee" that would be disproportionate for popular games as is based not on each piece of software, but on the number of downloads even outside Apple's store. These things are what the big publishers are fighting against.

@themightyant It is not 10% of Steam players using a controller are using Steam Deck as a controller. It is 15% of all Steam sessions use a controller and 10% of all Steam sessions use Steam Decks. The other number I used was the number of active Steam users in 2024, 132m, 10% of 132m = 13.2m.

@Coletrain Right, I think it's safe to say that Steam Deck is a success. More importantly, started a new trend in the market that traditional gamers here are underestimating. Restrictive consoles have three problems ahead: the cost of development, the limited software sales (not enough for Sony that has twice as many consoles as Microsoft in the market) and future regulations. There will be consoles, but Microsoft and Sony have stated that they need to release their games elsewhere. The console market is not disappearing, but it's changing.

@themcnoisy Not to mention that the next PS and Xbox will be more expensive.

@themightyant same for my ROG Ally, if that could dock into a 4k TV decently without an eGPU I'd be set for life

@Coletrain I still don't have a PC handheld, but I was interested in Steam Deck when it was released. Now, I'm waiting for the rumoured Xbox handheld since I don't own Steam games and the PC games I own are Play Anywhere.

@Banjo- this is what makes MS next move so intriguing. Is the handheld going to be dockable? Is the console going to run PC storefronts (presumably with a clever default settings for your monitor app)?

For how brilliant the steam deck et al are, I don't foresee a future where MS or PS can sell switch numbers, but combined with a PC/console hybrid, as an overall strategy...well, I'd be in heaven mate!

@Coletrain My prediction is that no console will be selling Switch numbers, including Nintendo's. If Steam Deck was a Sega console with Sega games, its sales wouldn't be enough. The brilliant thing is that it, your Rog Ally and every other are not traditional consoles and have blurred the boundaries between console and PC.

If the Xbox handheld is not 100% cloud, but capable of running games on its own and also run more powerful games with the power of the cloud, it could be really interesting. Some people say that it could be one hybrid using the cloud and also with TV connection. I'm intrigued. A only-cloud gadget wouldn't interest me, I think.

These are the leaked plans (that can change):

Develop a next generation hybrid game platform capable of leveraging the combined power of the client and cloud" and "sub-$99 gadget".

Those plans tell me a next-gen console that will be assisted by the cloud and an Xbox Portal.

@themightyant I'm reading the report now and I agree, it's confusing, which is probably why it was reported on other pages that it is 10% of Steam users. The first point is very clear, "15% of all"; the second point is also clear, "42% of these controller sessions are using Steam input", the third point is not clear: "During that time, the controller landscape has changed..." The controllers total would not be over 100% so it could be read as percentages of the total, but would leave 5% using mouse and keyboard. It's not well written if it is as you say.

@themightyant How do you post shortened links?

@Banjo- I think even with a cheaper tier it's not going to be moving millions of people over from gatcha - style mobile games taking in big cash. It's my hope MSFT lets ABK do their thing on mobile because Microsoft never cracked the code on its own & I hope they don't hob let those studios like so many other they've acquired. Don't see a need for them to bring all games under game pass but once they can get their own store on mobile they have a ton of opportunity for growth. Just think it's not gonna be what they think it is. Families and younger people are not clamoring for the Xbox brand.

@Banjo- well the theory is that the series s versions of games are the ones that could end up on the handheld, as the current windows handhelds are more powerful than a series s anyway (not in terms of TDP which is obviously much higher on a series s, or CUs, which are the main limiting factors in a handheld, but in memory size, speed and processing power.)

If that is what happens then the series s will have been the most incredible Trojan horse in the history of gaming, because PS will have to scale down for most of their PS5 output which means a lot more work.

@Coletrain Nice input. Right, some people say it would equal Series S which makes sense because all current-gen games have a Series S version. Huge win, like you said.

Microsoft is supposedly working on a handheld version of the Xbox interface that would be cross-platform. With handheld PCs becoming more powerful, a handheld Xbox matching Series S makes sense and the interface would be used on it and every other device. Perhaps the sub-$99 gadget is a different thing (a USB stick?) or they just mean cheap third-party gadgets playing Xbox games on Cloud, which is already a thing.

Doesn't Rog Ally have an expansion port for GPU upgrade? Could the next-gen Xbox be like that and be only one device with a port for upgrades and for connecting to the TV? Exciting and intriguing!

@themightyant I mean, when you make the link shorter and replace the address with words, how do you do that? Thank you.

@Banjo- yeah the ROG ally you have to use a proprietary eGPU which at the moment in the UK is only the 4090 (and it's about £2,000, so a no from me haha), but the ally X supports thunderbolt so can use pretty much any eGPU.

I'd love an eGPU docking solution for MS handheld, but I think the cost would be an issue unless by the time they release it super resolution and frame gen tech are able to work from incredibly low native resolutions and produce good image quality (not necessarily 4k, but maybe 1440p or something).

But yes, all very VERY exciting for us gaming folk, the only limit being our wallets 🤣

@Coletrain Indeed. 🤣

Do you think that there will be a next-gen console and an Xbox handheld or that there will be just one next-gen hybrid console and that the rest is related to third-party devices?

@Banjo- oh both console and handheld for sure. Sarah Bond already announced one and Phil announced the other. The part that we need the crystal ball for is whether they are just variations on an Xbox as it is now, or if they open up to steam/epic/gog.

Truthfully, if it's just another Xbox with more power I'd probably go full ham into PC gaming and grab a vrr tv to go with it

@Coletrain I will choose the next-gen console and perhaps the handheld too. You are right, Sarah said next-gen console and Phil confirmed handheld plans separately. If Xbox allows other stores, I might get the rare Sony exclusive that interests me, Astrobot and little else since they killed Wipeout and Final Fantasy games are coming to Xbox already. 😁