Naming confusion might make people put an X on the Xbox

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For people who is into gaming and gaming hardware, the naming convention used by Microsoft for their Xbox products might be considered an “irrelevant thing.” However, the release of Xbox Series S and X caused a whole range of chaos to the people of the internet for the confusion it bought if listed beside its siblings, specifically the Xbox One S and X. It’s a great marketing strategy, they said. It would be easy, they said. But for the majority, it isn’t.



If we are going to review the Xbox names: Xbox (2001), Xbox 360 (2005), Xbox 360 S (2010), Xbox 360 E (2013), Xbox One (2013), Xbox One S (2016), Xbox One X (2017), Xbox Series S/X (2020); need I say more? Kids of today might find that easy to remember, however, how about the common moms and dads who just wanted to surprise their kiddos? Or the first-time purchasers? How would they be able to appreciate a product’s quality if plainly its name makes no sense to them?

Where exactly the problem is?

At the end of the day, the issue is not just about the shallow “why did they not think of a better name scheme?”, it would be about the advertising campaign or strategy the company thought of and how bad it actually is, since consumers aren’t ranting about the products, but the way the products were named. The fact that there are doubts, in any form, in the minds of people, clearly indicates that the marketing strategy failed; it should not be hard for us to understand that. Also, given the fact that it became a discussion and debate against a lot of consumers, is a mere manifestation that Microsoft failed on this.

If you still don’t get it at this point, let’s put it this way: It is the Holidays, you are an inexperienced buyer going into the store in hopes that you would be able to buy a great gaming console for the first time. The sales representative offers you a PS4, a PS5, an Xbox Series X, and an Xbox One X. As you muse over Sony’s contributions, you’re promptly ready to tell that the PS5 is likely to be the more up to date model, as five is more than four.

Xbox old models

Now, Microsoft’s awkward naming plan makes the “which one is the most recent variant” expression. Is the “Series” significant here, or the “One”? Contemplating on the further breakdown of the Series X and the Series S, What is X? What is S? People might throw a rebut like, “Hey, come on, the price would probably address your confusion! The most expensive ones are the most recent releases.” Great! Xbox Series S costs $299 USD.

People justify the confusion by saying that parents still generally call gaming consoles “Nintendos” up to this day. Now, can you visualize their kids saying, “Mommy, Daddy, if they don’t have a One, get the One X, but if they don’t have the One X, get the One S, but if they don’t have the One S, get the Series X, and if they don’t have the Series X, get the Series S. But if they run out of stock, get that Switch from Nintendo. If they don’t have that, get the Playstation 5 or the PS5. Thank you so much, I love you!” Can you just imagine how much headache this would cause to the parents?

Another thing that makes netizens outraged is this very simple detail that made a really great effect: S sounds very much like X. Let’s say a customer orders through a phone call, or even physically in a store, there would always be that, “Did you say Series S? Or was that an X?” With a lot of different communication barriers available in any platform there might be, a lot of inaccurate orders would possibly get nicely packaged and delivered. This produced the same number of angry and disappointed customers as well.

Should Microsoft worry about this impasse?

To prove how this is not just an issue for consumers, there are even experts from big gaming-related companies who expressed their sentiments regarding the same topic. First, we have Shahid Ahmad, PlayStation’s employee for more or less 10 years, and their recent Director of Strategic Content, who said in a tweet:

Second, the developer of the game ‘Nuclear Throne,’ Rami Ishmail, also called out the people that sided with Microsoft. He retweeted a screenshot of when ‘One X’ trended along with ‘One S’ and quoted:

With all the sarcasm intended, you would get where he’s coming from.

Lastly, the Gamer Network’s head of games B2B, Christopher Dring, also explained that the confusion of people will worsen. The different models of Xbox will be listed along with the different subscription plans and features. This is because customers would have to carefully study each to be able to determine which offer is better. Given the fact that the names of the consoles give them a hard time to automatically arrange it in their minds. Unlike the PlayStation (numbering their models from 1-5) that made it easy for people to ascertain which model is the latest.

We needed answers, and when a Microsoft representative released a statement, it just did not make sense. He said, via Business Insider, “The name we’re carrying forward to the next generation is simply Xbox”. While some people calm themselves by saying that this stressful wave of gaming crisis will end soon. There are many more people who still choose to believe that the Xbox series is a mess. We cannot really say when this mayhem will end. However the least we could do is to let the company know how frustrated we are as their customers.

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