While Sony may be fine with just sticking a higher number on its new systems, Microsoft seems to prefer a more creative approach. Sadly, it appears that not everyone is a fan. The director of the upcoming gameIt Takes Tworecently broke into a rant directed at Microsoft about theXbox Series X’s confusing name.
The latest criticism comes from Josef Fares, the founder of Hazelight Studios. During an interview with IGN, Fares took a break from promotingIt Takes Twoto bash the Xbox Series X/S consoles.
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The Swedish-Lebanese game director sat down to discussHazelight’s upcoming co-op puzzle-platformerIt Takes Two. While explaining whyIt Takes Twoisn’t getting any special features on next-gen consoles, he referred to the Series X as “the Xbox Blah Blah.” He then went into a short, curse-laden rant complaining about Microsoft’s confusing naming conventions.
The developer ofA Way Outsays of the Series X, “That’s a fking confusing name. What the fk’s going on with Microsoft? They’re losing it, man. What the fk is going on? Like Series S, X, Mex, Next. I mean, who knows this? Come on. Madness. Call it the Microsoft Box and that’s it. I don’t know. It’s a total fking mess. Trust me, even them, they’re confused in their offices. What is this X, S… I don’t know, what the f**k.”
And he’s right when he says thateven Microsoft has been having some troublekeeping the names straight. Most of the confusion comes from the similarities between the names of the Series X and Xbox One X. Many consumers mistakenly ordered the older console while trying to purchase the Series X, and even Microsoft employees have mixed them up in official statements. The company incorrectly referred to its next-gen console as the “Xbox One Series X” in one blog post.
For those who are curious, Microsoft named the previous console theXbox One X as a callbackto its origins. Specifically, according to Dave McCarthy, it was a tribute to the spirit of experimentality that went into the original Xbox’s development. It seems that Microsoft felt that having one X in Xbox simply wasn’t tribute enough. Presumably, that was also the logic behind naming the current console the Series X, which if anything makes it more confusing.
The simultaneous release of the Series X’s budget counterpart, the Series S, probably didn’t help much either. And of course, that console shares a similar name with another variant of the Xbox One, the Xbox One S from 2016. It’s not that confusing names are a new problem with Microsoft. During the 360 era, gamers often referred to the Original Xbox as the Xbox 1. And while an odd name was far from the Xbox One’s worst problem at launch, it did give the impression of moving backward. Still, at leastXbox never got confusedabout the name of its earlier consoles.
It Takes Twois in development for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X and Series S.
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