After being announced in 2024 as a seemingly years-long strategy, Xbox’s marketing campaign titled “This Is an Xbox” appears to have been quietly discontinued, leaving behind only website errors.
Microsoft seems to have removed the February 2024 advertising campaign that declared “This Is an Xbox” on nearly every device, literally, except for a cat’s litter box. Fans quickly reacted with anger when the strategy was first teased at a town hall meeting meant to address rumors about Microsoft bringing platform-exclusive titles to competing devices like the PlayStation 5. Now, in 2026, Forza Horizon 5, once an Xbox exclusive, has been available on PS5 for almost a year.
What hasn’t happened, despite also being revealed in February 2024, is the “This Is an Xbox” strategy itself. By 2026, the entire marketing campaign has been scrubbed from the internet, according to Game Developer. Microsoft’s blog post that announced “This Is An Xbox” alongside images of laptops and TV screens has been evicted from its former domain, leaving behind an ominous 404 error screen, or a message stating “Oops! That page cannot be found.”
This internet “scrubbing” occurred two weeks after the new CEO, Asha Sharma, defended her position on social media. She claimed her “focus is to make Xbox the best place to play, return to our roots, ship great things, and become stronger for the future.” These statements were made just three days after her appointment as CEO; she faced criticism for her lack of prior experience in the video game industry and for holding a CoreAI executive role before taking the helm at Xbox.
Xbox recently showcased “sneak peek” photos of new work-in-progress hardware at GDC, following confirmation that the company is developing Project Helix — a next-generation PC-and-Xbox-hybrid console. This might be what Sharma meant by “ship great things” and by Xbox becoming the best place to play. A tweet from the Microsoft Game Dev account on March 11, 2026, accompanied this revelation, stating “Xbox at GDC 🔥 Sneak peek #GDC2026” and included images of the hardware.
However, the “This is an Xbox” campaign still exists. The original post remains accessible via Archive Today. Since the campaign’s announcement, Phil Spencer and Sarah Bond have departed Xbox, with Asha Sharma now holding the reins as CEO. With the upcoming Project Helix being demonstrated and the now-erased domain websites for the platform-centric “This is an Xbox” campaign in the rearview, it appears Microsoft is fully focused on the future.