'PlayStation's Blessed with Marketing Budgets We're Not Able to Enjoy,' Xbox Bigwig Bemoans

Microsoft on publisher acquisitions: "no worries, Phil. Here's $75 billion."

Microsoft on marketing Xbox: "best we can do is five bucks and a few tweets, Mr. Greenberg"

This sounds like another excuse for a future price increase of all tiers on GamePass

Says the company 20 times richer than their competitors combined, lol. What he means is MS don’t care enough about selling consoles as opposed to Gamepass.

Cry me a river!

He is talking absolute shyte. Embarrassing.

Imagine spending billions on development, acquisitions, agreements for day one releases on Game Pass, etc., then not even giving your marketing team the budget to inform people of your products and services. Imagine doing this when you're drastically behind compared to your much smaller competition.

As for the people already engaged with them? Close studios and change prices on your services multiple times in order to really aggravate them.

This in addition to their existing management issues that make their first-party output unreliable to begin with.

A person actively working to sabotage the Xbox brand probably wouldn't even need to do much different than what they're already doing.

Microsoft is a very, very successful company, so it boggles the mind how they seem incapable of running this division competently.

This topic is over in Pure Xbox.
Similar comments and lots of moans and deserved and even some feeling Xbox consoles or Xbox as we know it are no more, even the hardest of Xbox fans seem to have no defence over on pure Xbox or like me just can’t be bothered with Xbox anymore.

• Bought Mojang for $2.5 billion
• Bought Zenimax / Bethesda for $8.1 billion
• Bought Acti-Blizzard for $68.7 billion
• Bought Ninja Theory, Double Fine, and small devs for hundreds of millions of U$D
• Paid plenty of 3rd party publishers / devs to released their games day 1 on GamePass which is unsustainable service

But don't have the money for big marketing? Tell me this is a very late April Fool's prank from MS 🤣

What a cock up of a company Microsoft have been with the series consoles and games pass and cloud gaming.
No wonder they hardly sell much and get noticed in UK and Europe nowadays.
The more than comes out about Microsoft and gaming, I’m glad I switch a few weeks ago to PS5 as my main console and eco system.
Along with my Switch as well.
When our pets get ill and past repair we can put them down sadly. Maybe we should take this stance with Microsoft console gaming and get it over with.

There was a hidden message in his words that MS is focused on game pass not the console(s)

Microsoft just ain't got the talent for marketing. Like how many people bought an xbox one x thinking it was the series x. They flopped with the name. And a better or simpler name might have helped sell the console more. Coz I'm sure a lot of people were confused with the name and sometimes confusion can deter people from buying something.

@PuppetMaster it's not the whole of Microsoft. I think it was the marketing team. I think Microsoft gave their marketing team a small amount of money and told them to work with it. So that's why the marketing team said they don't have the budget.

I'm confused. But didn't they say they could spend Sony out of business?

Lmao, this is just embarrassing from Microsoft. Playing the pitty card yet they've just spent over 70 billion on two of the biggest publishers around.

Should be using their budget on marketing their games and consoles instead of putting out hundreds of controller colours and Fridges 🤦

Physical games are presented in stores and pop up in advertising of these stores. Xbox has almost no presence anymore, not in game, toy or electronics store or anywhere else because they stopped releasing physical games and/or their customers didn't by physical games anymore. It's not a wonder the brand is dead.

FTC is still fighting the Activision acquisition and Microsoft had a major outage today. There’s just so much “corporate” about that brand.

Lmao I was immediately going to say, umm, $69b can buy a few commercials!

What is an XBOX? 🤔😋

I am going to send Microsoft a copy of Oliver Twist; I’m sure everyone there will identify with it.

I have an PlayStation and an Xbox and a few more gaming platforms besides. And I have to say: Xbox is just embarrassing themselves at this point.

Deep down what they actually care about is WINDOWS.

Why does no interviewer ever mention the fact that Xbox is owned by a multi-trillion dollar corporation?

I think the people in charge of money at Microsoft have been watched Field of Dreams or Wayne's World 2 too many times. People don't just turn up if you build it. You need to tell people what you've built.

To be fair - There’s nothing really worth marketing for them 😂

@lacerz explain how did Microsoft have an outage? All the news outlets that claim that are completely ignorant. Crowdstrike’s Falcon update messed up and corrupted Windows installations And the same has happened with Linux and other OS’s in the past…

Back to the guy does seem genuinely frustrated. Corporate budget allocation is so stupid sometimes. How can they spend billions on acquisitions, but not assign budget to do proper marketing. Not surprised though, working in corporate myself, I have seen some crazy budget prioritization.

Sony had Spider-Man 2 ads everywhere last year, they wanted to make sure people knew it was out to the point even ITV1 was showing SM2 trailers. Starfield? Hellblade 2? Yeah i was if lucky if even YT bothered to show ads for those games.

Microsoft got the big bucks, they just dont believe in their products.

Like Xbox could easily market in South America and Central America. They can grow those markets and get exclusive content. They won't tho, that would actually take careful planning and dedication.

MS best console was the 360, which had a horrendous first year(s) on the market with RROD running rampant...and that's the high water mark as far as Xbox consoles go. I'm not trying to start a flame war, just pointing out the absurdity of it.

The header instantly reminded me of when i was a kid (were talking 35 years ago here) and my mate would knock for me and ask if i wanted to go to the shop to get some sweets. Id ask my mum for some money and she would give me 50p vs his £1 so i would get in a grump and tell him i wasnt going 😂

Here we go again. Making excuses just like they did during the whole Activision buyout fiasco. They are in the mess they are in because of absolutely dreadful management from everybody involved in that company ever since the Xbox 360 really when they had the market lead and squandered it all by the end of the generation.

@UltimateOtaku91 the fridges launched on schedule and we're even advertised well. Maybe they should stick to fridges. Give Whirlpool a run for their money. I'd buy a Zune trash compactor in a heartbeat. The Amy Hood Infinite Hairdryer. It just blows hot air all day long.

Sounds like telling your boss the other guy works harder because he gets paid more than I do. Don't do that.

"They're blessed with marketing budgets we'd dream of!"....says the marketing division rep of a company whose parent is a multi trillion corporation that has spent billions buying up the biggest AAA Third party publishers!

I bet Playstation's acquisitions team had "Gamer" Phil Spencer's corporate credit card to splash the cash too!🙄😅

I mean it’s a ridiculous position to spend nearly 80 billions buying studios and publishers and be minding the budget for marketing, but was that incendiary title/header really necessary? Do you really need to incentivize console war sh*t here?

How is Phil Spencer still the boss of Xbox Gaming?

there not wrong though most of the time you never hear about anything released on xbox till it turns up on just released on gamepass

Kinda unreal when you think about the money Microsoft has compared to Sony.

Even if they had a big marketing budget I don't think it would have made a big difference. They need to make better games. I play Forza Motorsport with my friends. Because of my friends I'm having fun, but the game itself is just sub par. Definitely needed more time in the oven. And that's the case with a lot of their games. With playstation you know you're getting finished games (aside from a few bugs at launch).

Awkward. Sony has more recognizable and succesfull franchises.. I like Microsoft, but what do they have really? Forza and Halo, correct? Sony has at least five or six succesfull franchises..
Nintendo has (way) more, but Microsoft is easily dead last. Hmm. I wonder how long it will take before they throw the towel into the ring and go third party.

Good ol' scrappy Microsoft. Such an underdog story.🤣

Bro twitter and YouTube is not expensive compared to cable television wtf kinda budget r they working with

I literally cannot stop laughing 🤣🤣🤣

@IOI um…… how is that incentive of console war?

Sony is more popular because of hard work and grit.

And question to you.
Why do Microsoft always cry boo-hoo for being ‘third/underdog’?

Stomping spoilt rich kid, that’s Microsoft.

"And thus, the console war of the 9th generation was won by Sony." - future scholars on the subject

Why this malice here? Sony earns a lot with PS here in Europe, with very high sales at PSN, so of course there is steam in the machine. On the other side Xbox, which never was as successful here, even in the best 360 / worst PS3 times. As a big company, you just put that much money into marketing if the ground is not fertile enough.

And don’t forget, this guy Michael Flatt is probably loosing his job, so maybe he exaggerates.

@DennisReynolds and both seem to be pretty mid

@Max_the_German Pure Schadenfreude, mate

They’re also blessed with a ridiculous amount of top tier exclusive games Xbox doesn’t have too.

Gone are the days when Xbox had adverts like this -

https://youtu.be/_RxuFelEQH4?si=25xu1e1eV4Cr5OnF

I’m old enough to remember the days when a Halo release was such a big event that it garnered international news coverage. MS had the budgets then. That’s massive exposure to new audiences.

I now believe it's the Microsoft big wigs above Phil Spencer and the European CEO (if they have one) since the buyout of Acti/Blizz it's clear that shareholders are not happy because of the potential late returns. And the only way to claw back that amount of money earlier is too release games on other platforms and get Gamepass on every device early. It's Xcloud service isn't the best from what I've read and seen for some modern games, I've only ever used it to stream Dead Space 1 through the Xbox app on PC when I had Gamepass.

With the price increase as well and the lack of games for it's own console and the belief they don't even fully support there own system. It's clear who's now in charge it's not Phil Spencer and co

@CutchuSlow the naming choices at Microsoft went tits up in 2013, how can you name the 3rd Xbox the Xbox one and not expect some confusion from the less informed consumer.

Then the similarity between Xbox one x and series X etc is definitely an issue that's caused real confusion. I consider myself in the know about the console market but once nearly went to buy a 2nd hand Xbox series S in Facebook before realising the seller had mislabeled his Xbox one s

In the Xbox 360 Vs PS3 days you couldn't move for seeing ads for Xbox 360 games and the console. it seemed every multiplatform game ended with that iconic 360 logo and sound bite.

They dropped the ball with Xbox one and still advertised that heavily early on, then the tide turned to be all PS4 ads and them getting the logo on multiplatform ads and now you never see Xbox ads.

It's not a lack of money...they just gave up

My heart bleeds for the 3 trillion dollar company.

@Max_the_German

If they don’t advertise they won’t make a dent into the competition. People buy the brands they see in adverts.

For me it’s more Xbox just doesn’t care much outside of the America’s.

They have just released GP on fire stick. Yet how many parents or casuals would know? Unless they show people the product they won’t know.

But if GamePass is so profitable and successful, why is there no money in the budget for marketing???

Oh yeah thats right, cause it isn’t profitable or successful.

Its only a matter of time before Microsoft pulls the plug on some part of Xbox.

@Maubari "Sony has more recognizable and succesfull franchises.. I like Microsoft, but what do they have really?"

I think the important point here is about great, efficient, and memorable marketing can make a big difference in the long run.

I mean. Sony doesn't have any IP or franchise at all when they released PS1 back in 1994. Meanwhile their competitors, Sega and Nintendo, already has plenty of popular and successful franchise. It was a very hard task to compete with giant companies like Sega and Nintendo, especially when back then Sony doesn't have any experience at all.

But Sony marketing team did an amazing job to the point more and more people attracted to get a PS1 and associated new IP's like Tekken, Crash Bandicoot, Resident Evil, Tenchu, MGS, Suikoden etc as "Playstation games". And one of the biggest reason why Sony 1st party IP like Gran Turismo, Wild Arms, Wipeout, Twisted Metal, GoW, Uncharted etc became really popular was also because Sony did a great job with the marketing. These new IP's can rival the popularity of Sega and Nintendo franchise in the long run.

Remember that Crash Bandicoot 1 ads where Crash cosplayer standing in the front of Nintendo HQ and mocking their games? MS rarely have any unique and memorable ads like that.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mTi5EaocGaY&pp=ygUbQ3Jhc2ggYmFuZGljb290IG5pbnRlbmRvIGFk

Or Gravity Rush. Despite the franchise only has 2 games, a manga, and anime, but Sony did a great job with the marketing to the point a lot of people are still talking about this franchise and asked Sony for a 3rd game. For me, GR 1 & 2 ads are probably some of the cutest & memorable ads for video games
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7tFkBX1-Hr8&pp=ygUYZ3Jhdml0eSBydXNoIGxpdmUgYWN0aW9u
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tgky0MmxSqk&pp=ygUYZ3Jhdml0eSBydXNoIGxpdmUgYWN0aW9u

Heck. I'm sure a lot of people still remember the bizzare & creepy ads back in PS3 era. Like the crying baby doll for example.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gqkNPcUMffU&pp=ygUPcHMzIGNyeWluZyBiYWJ5

Or the amazing Long Live Play ads
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7_fPtazfALA&pp=ygUScHMzIGxvbmcgbGl2ZSBwbGF5

You can see the big different how Sony marketing team put a lot of effort compare to what MS did with their 1st party or even 3rd party games.

Plucky, strapped-for-cash underdog Microsoft fighting the good fight against evil mega-corp Sony. A modern David and Goliath story. Brings a tear to my eye.

@Kidfunkadelic83 you got 50p? Blimey I used to get a 10p mix from the sweet shop. 50p you rich b'stard....

So to add to the multiple errors, corpospeak backwalks and unbelievably poor decisions, they've added a cry for sympathy as well. I think at this point, unless everyone in management is fired and replaced with competent people, Xbox is done.

Here's two quotes that sum them up.

"I can’t imagine a way in which you could have f**ked up more." - Thank You For Smoking

"No future, no future, no future for you." - Sex Pistols.

What a poor excuse. Xbox have spent the past 2-3 years complaining about big bad playstation while trying to but Activision they've forgotten how bad they are. Maybe if they spent more time focusing on gamers instead of profits they wouldn't be struggling. Focus on your consumers and your profits will follow.

I could be wrong, but I get the feeling that a lot of the XBOX exclusives have the same, somewhat limited target audience; lots of testosterone and explosion filled games that mimic blockbuster movies. Sony exclusives, in my not-humble-at-all opinion, are more varied, and some are comparatively high art.

Microsoft, sorry Xbox needs to buy up some media companies just so they can compete.

Oh goody, another XBOX related article that has nothing to do with PlayStation on a PlayStation website. Enjoy the flame bait clicks I guess

BEST JOKE I'VE HEARD!
today anyway

Microsoft are like a rich spoilt child that gets upset because all of the other middle class/poor kids are more interested, more friendly to the poor kids that all share their sub standard toys together so the rich child then goes on a tantrum and starts finding ways to bully them and get them in trouble just to satisfy themselves & feel wanted because they wouldn't give the other a kids a look or a go with their toys 😂

This guy is just complaining. He is on the other side of success and he is trying to make it make sense.
Xbox has been around 2001-2002.
That’s over 22 years of marketing for Xbox. There was a time when Xbox had momentum and that was during the early and midway through the 360’s life cycle.
That guy may have not been there to experience that but they gave Sony a run for their money. Even over here in the US Microsoft had all the major sponsorships in entertainment. EA sports was big and sporting events had Xbox everywhere.. etc.

Just maybe Xbox got complacent and when Sony was behind they never let up. They learned and they adapted. Creating partnerships and friendships with developers is also better than just buying up a big percentage of the market.
Sony and Microsoft just done things differently. Sony’s way just seems long term and Microsoft’s way was hurry let’s buy a big piece of the pie to catch up.
End results so far. Xbox GamePass still not seeing massive adaptation that they predicted and currently seeing price increases with less day one content for their mid tier subscription service, and making what they promised on a top tier pay wall.

So about funding for Europe.. they really need to reevaluate their console and streaming service moving forward as a whole. Maybe just maybe they will turn things around but throwing money to Europe with their current situation is really just a waste.

Microsoft CEO just keep talking nonsense, did absolutely NOTHING for their XBOX, thinking their Gamepass can printing money.

O boo hoo. How on earth can they make such ludicrous comments like:

"We adopt what I would call a more fiscally responsible approach to media investments"

Perhaps if Microsoft invested in advertising they wouldn't be in third place. They have no-one but themselves for not diverting a bigger proportion of their budget into the media side of things. It's called growing your business. To criticise Sony for that is madness. It's almost like Sony has to spend more on advertising to make up for the fact Microsoft is buying up half the industry.

It's nonsense like this which is why I actively dislike Microsoft and will never buy into their ecosystem. It's pathetic. They are one of the richest companies in the world. Get your house in order.

I'm sure this playing pauper has nothing to do with the fact FTC is calling them out for broken promises over the Activision blizzard merger either...

Truly pathetic

This is really just sad now, bunch of whiners.

To me, the name 'Xbox' is wrong. I personally think it's the stupidest brand name ever.

What an absolute clown show Xbox is.

I sure don’t have Sony’s marketing budget either but I reckon I could buy Microsoft a clue

(… or at least a better excuse maybe) 😼

poor microsoft

This is such a funny thing for Xbox to say in light of recent events

I give a free bit of advice for XBOX. If you release a stable of great games consistently, you don’t need a big marketing budget as the games will sell through word of mouth, popularity and players streaming it. No amount of marketing is going to sell a crap game in huge numbers. Pandering to a vocal minority doesn’t sell games when you alienate the majority of the gaming community either.

Sony : PlayStation “It’s for the Players”

Microsoft : XBox “It’s for our Shareholders”

Perhaps it is an ego thing? Do Microsoft believe that they are so well-known, so indispensable, that they do not need to market themselves?

Is it because PlayStation has a far more varied library of games?

However, I believe that Xbox is much bigger in the States, than they are in Europe.

I have access to Microsoft GamePass. But I do not think I have ever actually used it. I would much prefer to have games on disc, than a download. But that is another matter, entirely.

The last game I bought for the Xbox was Forza Motorsport. Before that, it was Starfield. In fact, those are the only two games I have bought for the Xbox in over a year.

They don't have a very big marketing budget because they don't really have anything to market.
It's that simple.

Oh and also they are playing the victim card here.... again!!!

@thefourfoldroot1 @RBMango

And others.

One thing I would say though is: MS has the money, but does Xbox?

MS has spent so (so) much on Xbox now recently, apparently without decent return. Is MS now seeing Xbox as a failure, and tightening those Pursestrings?

Xbox seem to be so desperate to make money any way they can (GP price rises, games on PS, shutting studios etc) - I wonder if an ultimatum has been served by daddy MS - "Make money, or we shut you down".

Their marketing is just awful anyway - at the start of the generation they advertised "12tflops" all the way... When most who knew what a tflop was, knew that how well a console performs is not just about GPU tflops, and most of those who didnt know (except fanboys of course) didnt care.

What’s he moaning about? Microsoft had a ton of free marketing this very weekend!

@CutchuSlow you say they flopped with the name but I always thought it was semi intentional to confuse people in buying the wrong console

Sadly, Sony isn't blessed with the acquisition budget of Microsoft

Microsoft are, by market cap, about 14 times bigger than Sony. If Xbox doesn't have the marketting budgets Playstation has, then that is a choice. And that choice tells us that Microsoft doesn't value Xbox as much as Sony values Playstation.

Please Microsoft stop acting like your are a small player you can 69 billion to buy Activision Blizzard nobody believes your nonsense.

@CrashBandicoat Microsoft has been fined so much for terrible practices no they are clearly the good guys. They steal your info with Windows 11 in Europe fined several times its a horrible company the only reason they exist is because there is no real alternative.

I keep telling people, Sony does as well as they do because they know how to market their games.

@Wiceheid And what is marketing today anyway? Most games are announced with a YouTube video. Their practices make me sick. They closed two insanely talented studios while at the same time using two square enix studios to help two games in development hell make it to market. I don't understand rooting for this kind of industry. Luckily I don't give a crap about Activision but I do worry for two of my favorite studios in Arkane and DoubleFine

Edit: i guess I should've actually read the article. I'm not in Europe so I am unaware of Sonys strategy across the pond

@TheAmbienWalrus True and Sony also did great marketing in Asia. Like in my country they did many offline launch event. One recent example is for Stellar Blade launch event where they hired a popular cosplayer for meet & greet and people can buy Stellar Blade games or merchandise.
https://blog.playstation.com/2024/04/11/20240412-stellarblade/

They also did the same for some Asian countries like Singapore, Malaysia, etc. So no wonder Stellar Blade sales are strong. Not just the game is great but Sony put a lot of effort in the marketing.
https://blog.playstation.com/2024/04/11/20240412-stellarblade-2/

MS on the other hand, they don't even care to officially launch Xbox in my country lol.

@CrashBandicoat And you think MS aren't anti-consumer? Should i remind you which company who popularized paid DLC and put a paywall to play multiplayer for console? Or which company who illegally monopoly the OS market and got punished because of it?

Oh so sad! Anyways...

I just seen multiple Astro Bot ads at EVO, the biggest fighting game event / tourney. Astro Bot is not a fighting game but Sony clearly know how to market their games at big event. Ironicly, Sony also advertised Killer Instinct despite the game is Xbox exclusives 😆

@Rodimusprime1313 "Sony is all in on the Playstation since it's their main source of revenue"

Sony always put a lot of effort for PS before the brand became their main source for revenue. And they also made a lot of money from:

• Movies and tv series. Spider-Man movies, Uncharted movie, TloU tv series, etc are popular and received well at box offices.
• Music since they are one of the biggest music label in the world.
• Semiconductor that used by many companies like Apple etc.
• And their digital camera, tv, and audio also made good revenue

@Hunter1994 What PS copied from Nintendo, God of War? GT? Uncharted? Horizon? Lol you Nintendo fanboys are silly af 🤣

Such bad decision making since the end of the 360 era where they had beaten the PS3 on price and performance. A series, pardon the pun, of bad decisions followed. The woeful One launch, the joke that was Kinect, the u turn on online only, the series naming nonsense, the GamePass moneypit shambles, the closing of in house devs and finally the crazy spend on studios to still not have any AAA titles to show for it 3 years later.
And the folks making these decisions are paid not too far of £1m pa I expect.
Shambolic, the Xbox leadership of the last 10 years should be ashamed of themselves.

@Northern_munkey 😂😂😂

@PuppetMaster Sony owns Evo now, so it's not surprising. They can advertise anything they want there at zero additional cost. Well... aside from the cost of making the advertisement itself.

Except they now have more IP's, more Studios' and more developers than Sony. A huge budget from the big buck corporation they're under and just spent an unbelievable amount that is almost the entirety of Sony Corporation's net worth. And they still act like they can't compete?

If Sony can nurture studios, create great IP's, compelling games and a successful console with a much smaller budget for their gaming division that's not them being bullies. That's your own damn incompetence. You guys have no clue how to run a successful gaming company. You never had any place in this industry and both then and now, like in every industry Microsoft is in, thought you could buy your way to the top and even fail at that.

Then you tried to change the industry because your own incompetence to create great games and a successful console by introducing 'services'. You failed at that too.

You wanted to be the 'Netflix of gaming'. You got your wish because Netflix has been slowly failing for years, in millions of debt, cancelling shows and arguably not as great as their competition. Just like you!

@Rodimusprime1313
Playstation isn't their main source of revenue, semiconductors and camera sensors are, to the point almost every phone in the world have their sensors.

Playstation is their most famous brand and the one making news for Sony.

@JohnnyShoulder I couldn’t have said it better myself. You nailed it PERFECTLY in one sentence sir. Well done!

Also, love your avatar! The Prodigy is one of my all time favorite musical acts. 💪🏽💪🏽💪🏽

@Nem I mean, Sony already sponsored EVO multiple times before they decided to owned half of it. They see EVO as an important investment that can help them in the long run. MS could do the same like Sony but they choose to spent billions to acquired publishers then complaint how Sony always beat them.

@WhiteRabbit He could be a Nintendo fanboys too. Their trademark line always about Sony copied everything from Nintendo. But yeah, who the hell fanboys for Tencent lmao 🤣

You can hardly deny the title seems very ironic.

@Hunter1994
Then why are you responding to a Playstation news site? but when I see your username, you are still too young to understand the adult world. It will work out just fine.

@DETfaninATL Thanks man!

Yeah they are my faves too. Saw it was 30 years since the release of Jilted Generation... which makes me feel reeeeeealy old!

@CrashBandicoat So why are you here wrote multiple paragraphs about "Sony is a pretty sinister company & anti consumer" in a news about MS, an anti consumer company, who shoots themself in the foot with their marketing as if MS aren't anti consumer and Sony is the ultimate bad guy?

Not just you off topic but you barely talked about MS.