Microsoft drops its ‘This is an Xbox’ campaign

We regret to inform you that your Chromebook is no longer an Xbox

Back in November 2024, Microsoft launched its "This is an Xbox" marketing campaign, which aimed to reposition its gaming division as a software ecosystem that does not require dedicated hardware. It was certainly catchy and memorable, though perhaps not for the right reasons. Just weeks after Xbox head Phil Spencer announced his retirement and his heir apparent Sarah Bond resigned, Microsoft seems to have removed all references to "This is an Xbox" from its in-house news site, Xbox Wire.

Game Developer was the first to report the news, noting that the original announcement for the campaign now leads to a 404 error page. A quiz tied to the campaign has also been removed.

"This is an Xbox" had been integral to Bond's strategy of expanding the brand beyond its roots in console gaming, though recent reporting from The Verge claims the campaign had "offended many Xbox employees internally." With hardware sales slowing, the goal was to reach players beyond the console, encouraging them to play Xbox games on laptops, handheld gaming PCs, smart TVs, and mobile phones. For a while, the ads were ubiquitous online and on billboards and buses, with their all-caps font and vivid green and black color palette.

At one point, the company even sold a range of "This is an Xbox" phone cases, T-shirts, and hoodies. "This is easily their worst Xbox marketing campaign ever, and that's saying a lot," wrote one commentator in response to the merch drop. "Listen. I use xbox as my main console but this shit is embarrassing💀" said another. (Notably, the Xbox Gear Shop, which sells the company's branded merch, is currently being revamped.)

The campaign had initially been pegged to the launch of a dedicated Xbox digital storefront to rival Apple's App Store and Steam. That launch was delayed, and the mobile game store is still nowhere to be seen.

The move to nix "This is an Xbox" comes just days after new Microsoft Gaming CEO Asha Sharma announced the next-gen Xbox hardware, currently known as Project Helix. In her post, she referenced the team's "commitment to the return of Xbox," an apparent acknowledgment that some Team Green diehards had been unhappy with her predecessors' multiplatform and software-focused strategy.

The "This is an Xbox" campaign still lives on, however, in a handful of YouTube videos uploaded to the Xbox YouTube account. We'll see how quickly that changes as we hurtle closer toward Project Helix's launch.