Xbox Ditching Odd Marketing Campaign And Deleting It From Web

Friday is nearly here. I can feel it in my bones. It makes me happy. Today, we have news about Xbox ending a strange marketing campaign, Teardown getting online multiplayer, Mewgenics DLC, and new information about Valve’s Steam Machine. It’s the latest edition of Morning Checkpoint, Kotaku‘s daily roundup of gaming news, rumors, and culture. Quick poll: How many of you are watching the CBS spin-off of a spin-off of Big Bang Theory? Statistically, at least one of you reading this watches Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage, right?

Xbox retires ‘This Is An Xbox’ marketing campaign

Following the big leadership shakeup earlier this year, Xbox is quietly discontinuing its “This is an Xbox” marketing campaign. As reported by Game Developer, if you try to find past Xbox blogs mentioning the old “This is an Xbox” slogan, you’ll instead discover they have mostly been scrubbed from the web. You can still find some of them via the Internet Archive, but it seems clear that Xbox is done telling you your phone is an Xbox and probably would prefer if you buy an actual Xbox, instead. Videos for the ad campaign are still up on YouTube as of March 12.

The campaign was built around various ads showing people that you can play Xbox games via Game Pass and streaming on other devices, like your PC, phone, and TV. It was all a bit strange and came at the same time Xbox began porting games to other platforms, like Gears of War to the PS5 and Sea of Thieves to Switch.

Reportedly, many Xbox staff members internally hated the campaign, whose creation has been pinned by some on departing Xbox exec Sarah Bond, though it is debatable if she is entirely to blame for the campaign or if she is being thrown under the corporate bus as new leaders try to steer Xbox in a different direction. Xbox has struggled to sell consoles and continues to face backlash for its ongoing connections to Israel’s military.

Valve reveals new details about Steam Machine / Steam Frame

During GDC, Valve shared more details about its upcoming console-like Steam Machine device as well as its standalone VR headset, the Steam Frame. The devices, which are still set to launch later this year, will be part of Valve’s Verified program just like the popular Steam Deck, the idea being that players can quickly determine if a game will play well on a Valve-created Steam device via a green check mark. This system isn’t great on the Steam Deck, however, and I have some concerns about how it will operate on the Steam Machine.

According to Valve’s GDC presentation, to get your game verified on Steam Machine, it only needs to run at 30FPS at 1080p on the device. Valve also says it won’t be testing “display resolution” or “legibility.” Hmmm.

Valve’s slide doesn’t mention anything about upscaling or frame gen, so hopefully that means a game can only be Steam Machine verified if it hits those metrics natively. Still, 30FPS/1080p seems to me like it should be the minimum for a Playable badge, a level below Verified in Steam’s compatibility rankings. I’d push it up to 1080/60FPS for Verified. But at the very least, I’m just happy to see Valve expanding its Verified program for its hardware. It helps make PC gaming more accessible and easy to understand.

Teardown gets big multiplayer update on PC

Voxel-based break-everything simulator Teardown now supports multiplayer. The update is out now on Steam and is coming “later this year” to Xbox Series X/S and PS5. Teardown multiplayer supports 12 players and supports a long list of multiplayer mods and modes.

Mewgenics DLC will be ‘substantial’ 

Edmund McMillen’s incredibly popular XCOM-like tactical cat game Mewgenics is going to get at least two DLCs in the future. As spotted by PC Gamer, McMillen answered various fan questions on March 11, including one about possible DLC for Mewgenics, and he said the first DLC will be “small but substantial” and will add new classes and over 300 new abilities.

“Big DLC will be later and might focus on a 4th act,” added McMillen. Previously, co-dev Tyler Glaiel stated that the first DLC should arrive before the end of 2027.

Silent Hill 2 remake hits new milestone

The excellent Silent Hill 2 remake from 2024 has hit a big new milestone, according to publisher Konami. Over 5 million people have now played the game. Not all of them have bought it, to be clear, as this data includes people who played the horror remake via subscription services. Still, I imagine Konami is very pleased with how the Silent Hill 2 remake continues to be a big hit and has helped revitalize the once-flagging franchise.

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