Xbox and Doritos may be planning the next chapter in the two companies' long history of promotional collaborations. It's one of the gaming industry's most memorable partnerships. Xbox and Doritos have fully embraced the jokes and memes over the years, even leading to a Doritos Crash Course Xbox 360 game published by Microsoft. It's been some time since Xbox and Doritos last teamed up, but that may be about to change.
The most recent major collaboration between the two was in 2017 when Xbox partnered with Doritos for a special Xbox One X giveaway event. Bags of specially marked Doritos offered a chance at winning an Xbox One X, Xbox Game Pass subscriptions, Xbox Live Gold subscriptions, and more bags of Doritos. The promotion ran in tandem with a #PlayBold social media campaign involving various European influencers, as well. Which is all to say that the Xbox and Doritos partnership tends to be a big marketing effort.
A teaser for the upcoming Xbox and Doritos partnership was shared via Doritos' official Instagram account, which was then shared by Xbox. The Instagram post shows a red triangle, an "x," and a controller, followed by the date "10.3.22." The Doritos Instagram post notably doesn't feature any Xbox branding whatsoever. The colors used in the post are even red and white instead of green and black. The only direct connection is Xbox sharing the post via its Instagram story.
As for what the collaboration between Xbox and Doritos will be, if it does turn out to be a new promotion, there's no clear evidence yet. These types of collaborations typically involve contests to give away consoles and various other Xbox-related prizes, Xbox logos on bags of Doritos, and social media campaigns, like in 2017. There are, unfortunately, no AAA games coming from Xbox Game Studios this holiday season, so there are no big promotional opportunities there. It may just be a standard Xbox Series X/S giveaway.
While many video game fans may think Xbox and Doritos partnerships are inevitable, there was some question regarding whether Doritos had decided to switch to PlayStation going forward. In 2020, Doritos partnered to give away PlayStation 5 consoles for the launch of both next-gen consoles instead of the Xbox Series X/S. Perhaps Doritos will alternate between the two going forward.
All in all, this is likely to be a relatively standard holiday season marketing effort. Perhaps it will tie into Halo Infinite, or perhaps it'll be a simple Xbox Series X/S promotion. Expect an official announcement on October 3.