Well, this isn’t a good idea after laying off thousands of people: a global Xbox FanFest tour. Yet apparently it’s still going ahead, even after Microsoft fired the person who pitched and created the show in said layoffs. Face, meet palm.
Microsoft trumpeted out tour dates for the Xbox FanFest event yesterday in another of its blog posts pretending everything’s okay at green towers. “The Xbox FanFest Tour is a global, multi-city run of fan-first events built around connection, local community, and the games we love,” the Xbox Wire post read.
The event already ran in Los Angeles alongside the Xbox Games Showcase, before the recent restructuring was announced, and Microsoft has evidently decided to continue with the plan, taking it to Gamescom in Germany and around the world thereafter. The tour dates are as follows:
- Cologne, Germany — August 26, at Gamescom
- Tokyo, Japan — September 17, during Tokyo Game Show
- London, U.K. — September 26
- Mexico City, Mexico — October 17
- Sydney, Australia — October 17
- Toronto, Canada — November 6
- Seattle, U.S. — More info coming soon!
What the Xbox FanFest event actually is, though, is harder to discern. It’s a ticketed event but tickets are only given out through “city-specific” sweepstakes, none of which are currently open on the Xbox FanFest website. There’s also no specific information about what will happen at the FanFest event there beyond vague promises of celebrating “the games, players, and moments that have shaped Xbox over the past 25 years”.
Chris didn’t have time to visit the LA Xbox FanFest event during Summer Game Fest this year, but said it was a separate thing to the Xbox area he saw the company’s new games at, so don’t expect demos of upcoming games there. Various reports of the LA FanFest event mention that Xbox leaders Asha Sharma and Matt Booty were present and that attendees were given an Xbox Series X console in original Xbox green – the new console edition announced during SGF.
However, I imagine SGF is very much the nucleus of the FanFest operation, and that while there may be a sizeable splash at Gamescom, and perhaps in Tokyo around the Tokyo Game Show, that enthusiasm may peter out for the rest of the countries listed. And of course there are bigger concerns: not least whether Asha Sharma or Matt Booty will show their faces after firing 1600 people from the Xbox division and earmarking a further 1600 for layoffs over the course of the next year.
The Xbox FanFest event was created, incidentally, by Chris Munson, who was let go in the recent round of layoffs. “After 15 1/2 years, I was affected by the layoffs at Xbox today,” Munson wrote on LinkedIn at the time. “End of an era.”
It was also revealed this past weekend how much the Xbox prices are going up in Europe following the recent price increase. An Xbox Series S will now cost £430, and an Xbox Series X will cost £670. The Xbox Series S is now almost the exact price the Xbox Series X launched at.
