Someone with supposedly direct knowledge has chimed in
A couple of weeks ago, we mentioned how Microsoft’s “This is an Xbox” advertisement on the official Xbox Wire website had been mysteriously removed, and that ad is still giving off a “404 Not Found” message at the time of writing.
This naturally led many people to conclude that the “This is an Xbox” marketing campaign was being scrapped by Xbox, and although that hasn’t been confirmed by Microsoft, a recent report from The Information suggests that it has indeed been “axed” at the direction of new Xbox boss Asha Sharma.
The report says that, “according to someone with direct knowledge of the move”, Sharma gave the direction for the mysterious scrubbing of the “This is an Xbox” page as part of Xbox’s online footprint:
“And she has axed a controversial marketing campaign… That campaign—which was controversial among Xbox loyalists and staff because it appeared to say consoles didn’t matter anymore—was scrubbed from Xbox’s online footprint this month at Sharma’s direction, according to someone with direct knowledge of the move.”
As you can see, The Information does mention here that the “This is an Xbox” marketing campaign has been “axed”, but not everything related to it has been removed – the old YouTube videos for it still exist, for example, and the phrase “This is an Xbox offer” even appeared in the recent Just For You deal on the Xbox Series X.
It’s entirely possible that Asha Sharma is still in the evaluation phase when it comes to this campaign, and if she feels it just needs a rejig before it’s sent back out into the world, it may yet return. Then again, it never proved popular with Xbox fans in the first place, and therefore it might be worth finding a different way to communicate a similar message without feeling the wrath of Xbox’s most hardcore console players.
In any case, keep in mind that the quote above is just based on a report rather than anything official, and it’s also only based on “someone with direct knowledge of the move”. In other words, take it with a pinch of salt!
What are your thoughts on this? Let us know down in the comments section below.
[source theinformation.com]
Fraser is the News Editor at Pure Xbox, where he spends his time reporting on the biggest stories in the world of Xbox and beyond.
