Shroud’s New Xbox Ad Reveals Microsoft’s Real Mixer Agenda
Mixer is utilizing Shroud and other popular gamers to promote their products. | Image: Robert Reiners/Getty Images/AFP
- Microsoft released a new Xbox Game Pass ad starring Mixer streamer Shroud.
- Shroud is one of several Twitch streamers who have left to join Mixer after signing exclusive deals with the platform.
- Ads like this may reveal Microsoft’s real agenda in bringing the streamers to Mixer.
Gamers got a lovely surprise this week when Microsoft posted a new Xbox Game Pass ad starring Shroud to its YouTube channel. Shroud joined Mixer in October, following other popular streamers like Ninja and KingGothalion who also left Twitch for the service.
Shroud Helps Microsoft Promote Xbox Game Pass
The ad is fairly self-explanatory and its overly descriptive title riffs off of the style of popular YouTubers. It begins with Shroud playing Xbox Game Pass on PC in a hang-glider, soaring in a sky which is then revealed to be a green screen. Shroud just wants to focus on the games and so with a hype clip of stitched together gameplay from games like Forza Horizon 4 and Gears Tactics, that’s what he gets.
The ad is funny, honest, and doesn’t lose itself in a flurry of marketing buzzwords. However, it’s also revealing Microsoft’s real agenda with Mixer.
Microsoft Got Ninja to Promote Gears 5
By signing streamers like Shroud, King Gothalion, and Ninja to exclusive Mixer deals, it has a close relationship with some of gaming’s most popular influencers. Ninja, who is a former Halo pro, has worked with Microsoft to promote Gears 5 and now Shroud is promoting its game subscription service.
It wouldn’t be an outrageous suggestion to say that the new Mixer streamers will also be used heavily to promote the Xbox Series X. If they are on Mixer, Microsoft can more easily manage what access they have to the console and how they stream it. It’s unclear how much money this will make Microsoft in Xbox Series X sales but it’s a very clever strategy that Sony can’t copy with the PS5.
