There’s a new Xbox giveaway going on right now where you can win a cool looking copy Final Fantasy-Themed Xbox Series X console. It looks great! Apparently it doesn’t really work either.
Following its impending arrival on Xbox was announced in 2023the popular MMORPG Final Fantasy XIV finally became playable on Xbox consoles via an open beta in February – about a decade after release. Sure, you have to pay for both FF14
On March 14th Xbox posted on Twitter (or X or whatever). that there was a short competition and the main prize was a good looking Xbox Series X console. Many people shared the tweet and responded with all the appropriate GIFs and images you’d expect from people who are excited about something. But what most of these people probably didn’t know is that the cool Xbox isn’t functional at all. It is not your fault. This fact is not explained in the contest announcement tweet or in Xbox’s follow-up posts. Instead, it’s buried in the rules for the contest.
The relevant text can be found in the section “OFFICIAL RULES FOR THE MICROSOFT FINAL FANTASY XIV PROMOTION.” in Section 4, Subsection a, Line 1, which explains what you actually win if you are randomly selected. Here’s the important thing:
“One (1) Grand Prize: One (1) custom Final Fantasy XIV console bundle for Xbox Series X (NOT FUNCTIONAL, FOR USE AS ARTWORK)”
Don’t worry, Microsoft isn’t jumping the gun and giving you a dead Xbox and a Game Pass membership and asking you to buy a console to actually use it. The same section of the rules explains that you will also receive a second, working Xbox. And a copy of FF14‘s collector’s edition. Still, I wonder how many people enter this contest and don’t realize that the cool Xbox it’s being promoted with is nothing more than a fancy-looking piece of “work of art.”
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