Friday is Sony’s (SNE) day in the sun, and so it wasn’t surprising to see the folks at XBox (MSFT) take to Twitter (TWTR) for a little freelance commentary about their main rival as the new PlayStation 4 went on sale. It was a bit surprising that they were so nice about it, though. This morning XBox had this to say:
Just like celebrity rap battles, both brands generally win when the twentysomethings who run their social media accounts start talking to one another. Last year, Taco Bell (YUM) took offense at a seeming criticism of its fire sauce posted to the Old Spice Twitter account, and Oreo (MDLZ) seems to spend a fair amount of time sending replies to other brands’ accounts, always in a friendly spirit. But companies aren’t always so magnanimous during their competitors’ launches. When Grand Theft Auto V was released, for instance, the makers of Saints Row paid Twitter to promote the hashtag #GATV, confusing many people looking for Twitter commentary on Grand Theft Auto (which fans were discussing under the similar hashtag #GTAV).
All this may be indicative of nothing more than that the twentysomethings running corporate Twitter accounts are really bored. But XBox did seem to get a fair amount of positive attention for its tweet, which was seen as heartwarming and savvy or possibly just plain confusing. But a little collegiality among the console companies does make a certain amount of sense. After all, they have bigger things than each other to worry about.
