In a recent interview on Dropped Frames, Xbox head Phil Spencer makes some comments about celebrities and other rich people asking for a free Xbox Series X. The conversation is rather funny, but does take a bit of a more serious tone when Spencer starts talking about other, more deserving recipients of free consoles.
Spencer is the executive vice-president of gaming at Microsoft and the head of the Xbox brand as a whole. Naturally, those looking for Xbox Series X handouts often try and go straight up to Spencer, but he's since revealed that it doesn't work all too often.
When the question is first asked about rich people wanting free stuff, the group jokes around about Snoop Dog's Xbox Series X refrigerator, to which Spencer explains that "Snoop has been with [Xbox] for a long time." When pressed further about the issue of celebrities contacting him, he does give a little more information.
Spencer starts off by saying that the amount of free stuff that rich people want is staggering. He claims that influential people contact him for this sort of thing often, but he has a witty response for them prepared. It may be in jest, but Spencer's typical response to this kind of inquiry is that he sent their free Xbox Series X to another organization that needs it more, such as the Boys and Girls club. This leads in to his final point about giving away free stuff, in which he says he wants the consoles to go where they should go.
Spencer doesn't elaborate much on what this means exactly, but it's clear that he's not interested in giving away free things to people that can easily afford one of their own right. The crew at Dropped Frames all get a good laugh out of this whole interaction, but viewers and commenters seem to have taken a different message from it. Some find the trend of rich people asking for free stuff to be incredibly annoying, and in this case it feels like the classic Instagram influencer asking for free ice cream gag on a much higher level.
At any rate, it looks like everyone will still have to pay full price to get ahold of an Xbox Series X or Xbox Series S come November 10th. With financing options for the new Xbox and the very affordable Xbox Series S option, that shouldn't be a problem for most gamers, especially not the rich ones.
The Xbox Series X releases on November 10th.