I’ll prob get in trouble if I say this, but Microsoft marketing overall is the worst of video game publishers. I think they rely too much on the hardcore who keep track of stuff and not enough on the general audience who is unaware of things. I felt first time in a long time they got marketing right with Persona 5R, but everything else seems to fall flat. I don’t understand why they aren’t doing more marketing for high on life like you mentioned because I didn’t even realize it’s out next week until I seen a post on this forum about it.
Unsure what Greenberg and company are doing, but I feel like they drop the ball on basic marketing for their games, and there is no excuses to use the tactics they’ve been using
I think Jez stated that Microsoft folks told him at Gamescon (or somewhere) that their Game Pass marketing uses the same approach as Surface devices (not like that a good thing though ) and they rely on the word of mouth.
If people see High of Life banners on their Xbox screens they might be interested in that game without marketing even.
I think 2023 will decide how they approach the marketing. I still dream of their show being streamed via Netflix.
As someone who played Ghostwire Tokyo I’m not surprised. Game feels like a large Unreal Engine experiment more than a fully thought out game. It was never going to be a mainstream seller so they probably didn’t need to heavily advertise it. you can tell the English dub is pretty sub par, and it’s not very optimized on PC.
Exactly this yes. When the Xbox news cycle is “June, then ghosted for 6-12 months” I don’t know how I’m expected to stay excited.
I’m a Nintendo fan too and I feel like they’re always keeping the fans engaged. Direct every few months with major news and even they brought some smaller content to TGAs.
I don’t think High on Life needs Persona like billboards but I don’t see why it didn’t get a spot in any of TGA’s advertising reels?
I don’t even remember Halo Infinite’s marketing, really. E3 appearance, junk food wrapper appearances, and dropped on Game Pass like it’s just another addition is what I remember. It’s crazy Xbox marketed Persona 5 better than their own premiere franchise.
Xbox’s “word of mouth” is “NO GAMES LOL!” so I think that they’re not doing very well there.
Shouldn’t get in trouble. People should be level headed enough to admit it’s not good without blindly defending their chosen platform. I game on on both Xbox and PS5 I’ve got a switch but barely use it for myself the mrs might play the platformers on it. & I’ll openly admit I’m more of casual 99% of the games I play are AAA, I play the FIFA’s maddens as well as the halo’s gods of war etc & my mates do the same.
I might try the odd indie but things like tunic etc just don’t appeal to me generally.
I was speaking to 2 mates yesterday 1 who has a ps5 and another that has a Xbox one x. Both pretty casual AAA gamers nothing else
And trying to sell the series x or a series s to the lad who had the one X was impossible he wanted to play a Sony type AAA story game i tried to say games were coming soon with no details & he was like nah I’m going to get a ps5.
Advertising games like Sony isn’t going to move consoles or get them more game sales or more subs. It will just make hardcore gamers on forums like these more happy because they’re addicted to the hype cycle.
EDIT: And devs probably love that MS isn’t forcing them to make trailers every other month
Yeah advertising your amazing service/subscription that not a lot of casual players know about and a current gen console that costs 250 euros when the competitor has a shitty sub in comparison and their digital supposedly “cheaper” console is 100 euros + more expensive than the fuckin’ SX won’t get Xbox more sales and more subs…fuck advertisement, who needs that right? this shit is all about the “core gamer hype cycle”.
High on life is yet another game that didn’t get the marketing it deserved, the game is far deeper than the trailers would lead you to believe, I expected a 5-6 hours linear shooter but it is way more than that, beautiful too, man I hope Xbox gets better at marketing their games soon, something just isn’t right.
I’d say it’s almost the same thing here in the US, at least it’s very different now, they seem to have a big presence on Tik Tok but I don’t really see them going hard on TV ads anymore during big events like I frequently see Sony do, Microsoft had some special things during the 360 days and one of those things was COD marketing, here in the US COD was heavily associated with the Xbox 360 and it heavily benefited from that, they had that casual market in their grip, the 360 was THE console here, probably why Sony is so afraid of COD being associated with Xbox again, other things were both Halo and Gears being at their peak as well and they were huge franchises in the US.
This is probably the main reason why the ABK deal is critical for the Xbox brand to get back to a position more similar to the 360 days, COD association and Xbox COD bundles during the holidays would do wonders for the Xbox brand.
Xbox has the marketing for the blizz side of activision right now. I think even should the deal collapse they will get the marketing for cod after the contract with Sony runs out.
I think a lot of this comes down to their release cadence the fact they had such a gap in games and that they are focussing on getting games out. Making vertical slices for demos is very time consuming in an industry that is staff light right now. And Sony haven’t even had a big show this year. It’s down to diverting away from development.
I think it’s also down to a caution of overpromising and underdeliverung. We know Xbox has great games coming but Redfall, Starfield etc aren’t the same sorts of propositions as god of war. They don’t stack up in a cinematic trailer type of way so well. They aren’t meant to. But we know any showcase expects that or cinematic gameplay. Neither game is really like that. Both will probably have more players than god of war. But their audience and style is just different. Yet any show means they are endlessly compared.
) and they rely on the word of mouth.
