It’s never a good look for someone to be accused of plagiarism, but that's exactly what Microsoft is being accused of in the wake of its reveal of the Xbox Series X earlier this month.

Set to kick off the next generation of Xbox in a year’s time, the Xbox Series X was announced at The Game Awards with a cinematic trailer featuring plenty of detailed landscapes and Xbox franchise cameos tied together by evocative old-fashioned narration. Across social media, people have begun to point out how similar it is to other videos out there.

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Indie developer David O’Reilly was among the first to call out Microsoft, sharing a comparison on Instagram between the XSX reveal trailer and the launch trailer for his 2017 game Everything. The similarities can’t be denied, as both center on dynamic landscape shots and feature philosophical narration designed to invoke a retro feel. More than accusing Microsoft of plagiarism, though, O’Reilly explained that he mainly wanted to draw attention to the similarity before anyone could mistakenly accuse him of copying Microsoft.

That’s not the only part of the trailer that skews closely to existing art. Following O’Reilly’s post, another comparison was shared by Nicolas Boritch of the visual design label ANTIVJ on Twitter. This focused on the shots in the Xbox Series X trailer where waves of light pass over darkened desert landscapes, revealing in the process how near-identical they are to shots from Dry Lights, a 2015 VFX film created by ANTIVJ artist Xavier Chassaing. This led Bortich to question, “Are independent artists doomed to be ripped off?”

It’s an understandable question and frustration, especially since this comes not long after another video game-related trailer was called out for plagiarism. Earlier this month, Sony pulled a PS4 ad in Japan after it was discovered that the ad contained stolen animations from across a wide range of media, including movies, anime, and student work. This led to an investigation that found the ad’s animation director may have previously plagiarized other artists’ work on multiple occasions.

On the whole, though, it appears that Microsoft’s XSX trailer is far from as blatant in its copying. Multiple people have pointed out that while there are clear similarities with the above-mentioned indie videos, these all play on such common tropes in VFX and marketing that none of them could be considered truly original to the artists themselves. That being said, skewing this close to plagiarism is not something Microsoft should make a habit of, not if it wants to avoid adding to the problems  the Xbox Series X already has ahead of next year's launch.

The Xbox Series X launches in holiday 2020.

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