Xbox marketing manager acknowledges they set 'wrong expectations' for Inside Inbox

The hype around May Inside Xbox was enormous and for a good reason. It was announced that Xbox Series X first gameplay will be shown in May presentation. 

This has naturally led to people getting excited and expecting to see something like Halo Infinite or at least the promised gameplay of Assassin's Creed Valhalla.

Instead, the show was mostly focused on games from Xbox partners; smaller and mid-tier developers, without big AAA announcements and without any real gameplay.

These games and trailers were not bad on their own, we've seen some interesting new projects like The Medium, a psychological horror game coming from Bloober Team, a first-person adventure Call of the Sea. Probably the best moment was the new trailer for the Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2, called "Come Dance".

The only real letdown was the Assassin's Creed: Valhalla "gameplay", and that's the main driving force of the disappointment. It was a highly edited video consisted mostly of cutscenes, with only small parts of something that we could call gameplay.

Assassin’s Creed Valhalla gameplay trailer currently has more dislikes than likes, which illustrates the feelings of fans and their disappointment with what they saw.

It seems that at Xbox they understand their mistake, and they will try to learn from it. Aaron Greenberg, Xbox marketing GM, acknowledges that and says that they will try to be more careful with announcements in the future. 

They will have their next chance soon, given that they have plans to showcase new games every month throughout the year, in a series of events called Xbox 20/20 campaign.