Microsoft confirms it nixed the 'This is an Xbox' campaign and is resetting how Xbox presents itself

Microsoft's Xbox has made some questionable marketing decisions lately, and new CEO Asha Sharma is trying her best to clean up the mess left behind. Following a report earlier this week suggesting she was quietly trying to scrub the controversial "This is an Xbox" campaign from the internet, a Microsoft spokesperson has now confirmed it officially.

The anonymous spokesperson confirmed to Windows Central that the company is putting the towel on the controversial marketing campaign. Sharma ended it because it "didn't feel like Xbox," and is now "personally leading a reset of how we show up as a brand."

Asha retired 'This is an Xbox' because it didn't feel like Xbox. She is personally leading a reset of how we show up as a brand.

For those who haven't been following it, Xbox rolled out the This is an Xbox campaign in November 2024, linked to then-president Sarah Bond. Microsoft used it to promote Xbox as an everywhere brand, pushing the idea that you can play Xbox games on a PC, on your phone (through the cloud), on Smart TVs, and various other devices.

The campaign proved controversial almost immediately. It promoted partnerships with the likes of Samsung and LG, which actively discouraged users from buying Xbox hardware and instead encouraged them to subscribe to Xbox Cloud Gaming on their phones or TVs. It leaned so hard into the play-anywhere angle that, instead of promoting Xbox products, it promoted the idea of not buying them.

The campaign was still being pushed just a few months ago, but Sharma's first move as the new CEO was to kill it entirely. Microsoft hasn't announced a replacement campaign or laid out exactly what this brand reset looks like in practice. But the new comment makes clear that This is an Xbox is no longer the brand's direction.

The timing is worth noting. With Xbox's next-generation PC-hybrid console, Project Helix, expected to blur the line between PC and console even further, a campaign that discouraged users from buying Xbox products would only have added fuel to the already-burning rumours that this is Microsoft's last push into console hardware.