Microsoft’s divisive ‘This is an Xbox’ marketing campaign was disliked by many employees, a new report has claimed.
The advertising — which claimed that phones, tablets and smart TVs now all counted as “an Xbox” too — effectively told consumers that you no longer needed to buy an Xbox console to play Xbox games.
While technically true in some respects, it was a bold move from a company badly struggling to compete in the console space — and a rather remarkable stance to take considering Microsoft’s established commitment to building and selling yet another generation of Xbox consoles in the future, possibly as soon as 2027.
Now, a new report published by The Verge has labelled this campaign as having “offended many Xbox employees internally”, and tied it to the wider “Xbox everywhere” strategy being pushed by now-former Xbox exec Sarah Bond.
Last week, IGN exclusively broke the news that Bond had resigned her position as CEO of Xbox, despite once having been expected to Phil Spencer as Microsoft’s ultimate gaming boss (a role that has now gone to gaming newcomer Asha Sharma instead).
The Verge’s report links Bond closely to Xbox’s marketing efforts last year following the departures of other senior employees, and suggests she was invested in the move to broaden the Xbox brand away from the perception that it was solely console-based. The report also notes the fact that Bond personally announced the Xbox mobile gaming store in July 2024 — a project that would have helped this multi-device Xbox push to become more realized, had it not been continually delayed.
Finally, citing sources among Xbox employees past and present, the report paints a negative picture of Bond’s relationship to other Xbox staff.
IGN previously noted that Bond’s departure was only officially referenced by Spencer in his own leaving statement. Other statements issued at the time by Sharma, Microsoft boss Satya Nadella, and Xbox studios boss Matt Booty, all made no mention of Bond or her departure whatsoever.
IGN has much more on Sharma’s arrival and the departure of Phil Spencer including the many farewells to him from veteran developers, Spencer’s personal words to the Xbox community following his departure, and Sharma’s own responses to initial concerns around her recent AI work and lack of gaming industry job experience.
Tom Phillips is IGN’s News Editor. You can reach Tom at [email protected] or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social
