Sarah Bond Doubles Down on Xbox Indie Support: ‘True Culture Is Born in What You Do When Things Are Really, Really Hard’

ign.com:

Last summer, I tweeted an observation that surprised me from the Xbox & Bethesda Game Showcase in San Francisco: a slate of diverse games, many made by diverse creators, presented and marketed on a stream to millions of viewers by diverse presenters, all under the slogan of “Gaming for Everyone.” I realized it felt different from the Xbox I remembered from my childhood. Different in a very good way.

been thinking lately about how when I was growing up, I perceived Xbox as this really edgy, masculine, aggressively GAMER brand. never, ever felt it was for me. it is *wild* how they've managed to 180 their messaging so thoroughly to become the "gaming's for everyone" folks

My tweet got picked up at the time by GamesIndustry.biz and inspired an interesting history lesson on the shifting of Xbox’s messaging over the years. You can read their writeup for the full rundown, but in summary: Xbox’s brand identity used to be quite literally “edgy.” It was focused on “hardcore” gamers, its marketing was almost exclusively masculine, and, frankly, the whole business felt rather exclusionary. Xbox of the early 2000s was for “gamers,” maybe, but not for me, despite my love of games.

But at some point in the mid-to-late 2010s, something began to change. Now the key phrase isn’t “edgy,” it’s “everyone.” This has extended not just to Xbox’s most overt advertising, but also to more subtle things like who it puts out front to announce new games or initiatives in its public presentations. It encompasses Xbox’s accessibility and sustainability efforts, its philosophy around reaching players on platforms other than just Xbox consoles, and its efforts to diversify its portfolio and game libraries.

I bring up this observation in front of Xbox