The official announcement of Microsoft’s “This Is An Xbox” marketing campaign is no longer accessible online, and appears to have been removed at some point in the last two weeks.
The promotional campaign, begun in November 2024, was meant to highlight the ability to play Xbox games across a range of devices such as Smart TVs, tablets and PC handhelds. But the idea was not well received by fans, or reportedly by even by some Xbox employees internally.
Instead, the campaign seemed to suggest, fans no longer needed to buy an Xbox console at all — something Microsoft was already struggling to sell when compared with its console rivals. Recent years have seen Xbox sales in notable decline, with 2025 hardware figures particularly poor.
Now, Microsoft’s blog post announcing “This Is An Xbox” to the world is no more, something initially spotted by Game Developer. Analysis of archived snapshots of the page by IGN shows that it had been online as of March 1, but is no longer accessible today. Accessing it now simply shows an “Oops! That page cannot be found” message.
Another major page, where players could answer quiz questions to find out “What Is An Xbox” is also now gone, and simply redirects to Xbox.com.
The timing of the pages’ disappearance is interesting, coming shortly after the recent management upheaval that saw Phil Spencer retire, Sarah Bond resign, and Asha Sharma named as Microsoft’s new gaming boss. Reports detailing what had led to the reshuffle, and in particular the sudden exit of Sarah Bond, suggested that the “This Is An Xbox” campaign had been launched under her watch, and had been unpopular among other Xbox staff members.
At the same time, the campaign’s promotional videos are still accessible via YouTube, including its glossy campaign ad helmed by Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind director Michel Gondry. IGN has contacted Microsoft for comment.
Of course, Microsoft is also now attempting to reassert its place in the console wars with early talk about its next console, codenamed Project Helix. It’s hard to image the company wanting to continue telling consumers they can just play Halo on a smartphone when it is also now actively promoting the promise of a new, and quite likely very premium, next-gen machine.
Yesterday, during a session at the Game Developer’s Conference 2026 attended by IGN, Microsoft revealed early features of Project Helix and confirmed plans to send alpha versions of the hardware to developers in 2027.
Tom Phillips is IGN’s News Editor. You can reach Tom at [email protected] or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social
