„Whoever came up with this clearly doesn't play games.” Ex-Blizzard president harshly criticizes Microsoft's bizarre idea

A lot of players are pretty skeptical about what Microsoft is up to these days, especially after they recently hiked up the Xbox Game Pass subscription prices. It didn't sit well with players, and many of them started canceling their subscriptions.

A while back, there was some buzz and mixed feelings about a Microsoft campaign claiming that basically all electronic devices are "Xboxes" and that players are reading messages sent from Xbox. Even the former vice president of the company couldn't resist taking a jab at it, criticizing the new slogan.

Microsoft wants to convince players that everything is Xbox. Source: Xbox Wire

Mike Ybarra, former head of Blizzard and vice president of Xbox, commented on a fan's post regarding the presence of the Windows system on the Xbox ROG Ally console, stating that Microsoft's new campaign doesn't make sense. The slogan "This is an Xbox" (referring to the system and Game Pass, not the hardware itself) is, according to him, a bad idea created by someone at the wrong time. Ybarra pointed out that players care more about the games themselves than all the marketing hype around device features:

Ybarra also mentioned that Microsoft has been kind of stuck for a while, not being clear about their strategy, which is causing them a lot of trouble. Although the Redmond giant has moved away from aggressively releasing exclusive titles and is heading towards a vision of brand unification, for some reason, it remains stagnant, unable to "heal" and stabilize, thus preventing further layoffs.

• Xbox Game Studios / Microsoft Gaming
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