Microsoft has been dedicated to its beguiling "this is an Xbox" campaign for about a year now, but time has not made former Blizzard president Mike Ybarra any more convinced things like TVs and Meta Quests are "Xbox" simply through the healing power of cloud gaming.
Therefore, "Ditch the 'This is a Xbox' campaign," Ybarra writes in an October 19 tweet. "Wrong idea, wrong time. Xbox is about games - games always rule the world."
"If they don't have parity between the console and any other 'device,'" Ybarra continues, "then it's just not an Xbox. Confusing - whoever came up with this clearly doesn't play games."
Microsoft marketing director Craig McNary might disagree. In his November 2024 Xbox Wire news post introducing the "this is an Xbox" campaign, McNary insists "whether you have an Xbox console, play on PC, with Samsung Smart TVs, handhelds, mobile phones, Amazon Fire TV, or a Meta Quest headset with Game Pass Ultimate, you can play with Xbox.
"In fact, you're probably reading this on an Xbox-enabled device." I am not. So the idea that Xbox is ubiquitous seems unbelievable – especially since players need to pay increasingly astonishing prices for the Ultimate subscription service, which, according to McNary, is what grants them the privilege of Xbox-ing their lives.
"It just feels like they keep pushing the needles in further and further," Ybarra continues to say on Twitter about Microsoft. "Cuts heals - I don't see any healing happening just more needle pushing deeper and deeper."
