It’s just weird that Xbox has rebranded to XBOX on the back of 12,000 people voting for it in a poll

For starters, editorial guidelines dictate that beyond this story, we can’t spell out XBOX the way Microsoft would now like. We don’t want to capitalise full words regardless, because it is stupid and a cheap marketing trick to try to stand out. We don’t do it when game titles try it on, and we aren’t doing it for consoles either.

There was a time, not so long ago, when CEOs liked to do polls and claim the people have spoken – we are looking at you, Elon, but for Microsoft’s relatively new CEO of Gaming, Asha Sharma, to be jumping on the trend is odd.

Sharma posted Xbox or XBOX? on X (without the box). Okay. It’s the same word, but one is more marketing than the other, but we will let that slide for a second. Just over 19,000 people voted, with 64.8% of them voting for XBOX rather than Xbox (you crazy kids!). That, according to my best sums, means around 12,000 votes for the incorrect use of capital letters.

And then it was done. We are now XBOX, not Xbox. At least on X, and in the new logo. Now, I am sure this change would have happened with or without the poll. The latest Xbox (I’m not doing it) has sold around 30 million, and the 360 sold around 84 million. But only 19,000 answered the poll. It’s like when you see adverts on TV claiming 95% of women thought it made their lips plumper, and in two-point text at the bottom, they confess they only asked 47 people. Nonsense. Stop it.

We have had a series of mini changes to re-engage the brand’s fans, but nothing like enough to bring the flailing console back into any kind of contention with the masses. It feels right now, as though we are getting the bare minimum to keep xBOX in the news cycle.

We need strong competition in our “console war” to stop things like Sony and Nintendo just jacking the prices up with a nebulous “market conditions” excuse. Right now, we aren’t getting it, and no amount of capitalization is going to shield the smashing Microsoft is going to get from PlayStation when GTA VI finally arrives.

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