Xbox's Europe, Middle East, and Africa marketing director says the company needs to work "really hard" against its competition - namely, PlayStation - which he claims is "blessed with marketing funds" that his team doesn't get.
In a new interview with Marketing Weekly, EMEA marketing director Michael Flatt says that the company has to be "quite scrappy" to secure marketing investment, which is very surprising when you consider it's owned by Microsoft, which just last year spent $68.7 billion to acquire Activision Blizzard. However, perhaps it's expenses like these that Microsoft chooses to prioritize, as Flatt hints that the team has to be "quite tenacious to fight for funds that would probably go somewhere else."
Referring to PlayStation specifically, Flatt admits that "regrettably they outspend us" when it comes to marketing, noting that Xbox is "just not able to enjoy" the marketing funds that Sony's brand gets access to. "But that's totally fine," he continues. "We adopt what I would call a more fiscally responsible approach to media investments."
While it wasn't specifically an EMEA-region concern, it was noted by Hellblade fans earlier this year that Senua's Saga: Hellblade 2's marketing prior to launch was surprisingly quiet to say that the action-adventure is one of the main exclusive Xbox Game Studios titles dropping this year. A story recap of the first game was dropped six days before the sequel's launch, for example – which wasn't exactly the meaty bit of advertisement fans were expecting after days of developer Ninja Theory drip-feeding tiny teasers for the game. It still received generally positive critic reviews, but it's fair to say it didn't seem to launch with the bang fans might have hoped for.
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