Xbox ends its big week by taking over the Las Vegas Sphere

Microsoft ran an Xbox advertisement on Las Vegas’s new Sphere venue on Thursday, filling the city skyline with its own spherical logo.

Sphere is an 18,600-seat entertainment arena which opened last month. The venue’s exterior features 580,000 sq ft of LED displays, making for some striking visuals – and building-sized advertisements – on the backdrop of the city’s iconic Strip.

The Xbox takeover was planned to coincide with TwitchCon, which is taking place in Vegas this weekend, as well as the launch of a new Xbox marketing campaign.

Microsoft’s gaming division kicked off its holiday season marketing campaign this week with a new live action trailer titled ‘Wake Up and Dream’.

The trailer features a custom score by Son Lux, a BAFTA-nominated band, and Academy Award nominee for the musical score to the film Everything Everywhere All at Once.

The ‘Xbox Power Your Dreams’ brand campaign kicked off in October 2020 ahead of the Xbox Series X/S launch the following month.

It’s been a big week for Xbox overall, after closing its $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard last Friday, in what was Microsoft’s and the game industry’s biggest deal to date.

The acquisition saw Microsoft take control of franchises including Call of Duty, Warcraft and Diablo, and establish a significant foothold in mobile gaming, notably with the addition of Candy Crush maker King.

Other developers which have joined Xbox Game Studios as part of the deal include Infinity Ward, Raven Software, Sledgehammer Games, Treyarch, Toys for Bob, Beenox and High Moon Studios.