The gaming world has seen a dramatic shift in the last few months, as the PS5 and Xbox Series x shake up the scene with powerful new hardware. And while it's difficult to find a gamer that hasn't heard of the new consoles, companies still need marketing to reach as wide of an audience as possible. It always helps to have a familiar face backing a system, and Xbox has found one.
Anthony Mackie is best known for his role as Falcon in the Avengers movies, with the actor stepping into the shoes of the hero many times in the MCU. Mackie has appeared in other projects too, of course, with the most recent being a new ad for the Xbox Series X, Microsoft's latest console.
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Mackie is playing the role of Falcon in the ad, so it has more to do with Avengers movies than one might think. Falcon vents about the five years that he missed during Thanos' snap, which caused characters to fade away at the end of Avengers: Infinity War. Falcon says that he missed his nephews growing up, and that he has a lot to catch up on in the world, before being presented with an Xbox Series X console.
Xbox's marketing for its new systems has been pretty on point. The company created an Xbox fridge after fans started making comparisons between the shape of the system and the appliance after the reveal, which seems to have been well-received by the community. Famous actors are often used for promotional content, and the snippet in the Xbox ad about Falcon and the Winter Soldier's upcoming release seems to be a nice bit of cross-promotion, so the association makes sense.
Not to mention, Xbox Game Pass is featured heavily in the gameplay segment of the ad, and Disney Plus has ran promotions with Game Pass in the past, so it seems that the companies have formed a tight bond together, at least as far as marketing is concerned. There's a good chance the companies will work together again in the future, if the new Anthony Mackie ad is any indication.
Still, with PlayStation releasing some weird ads lately, the marketing for the next few years of game consoles is going to be interesting to see. Iconic video game ads don't release as often as they used to, but how they're looked at a decade from now will doubtlessly be an interesting retrospective.
The Xbox Series X is available now.