BTS Jungkook recently worked with Xbox to hold a free concert on Times Square, as well as a special edition Xbox Series X.
We assume most of our readers might vaguely know about BTS, but don’t really know or care to learn about the pop group. All you need to know is that the group is temporarily on hiatus, as some of its members are serving military duty.
BTS are one of the biggest celebrities in their native Korea, but given kpop’s growing international appeal, they are also some of the biggest celebrities around the world too. Jungkook in particular has launched a solo career since 2019, and has also been working to cross over his appeal beyond Korea.
Jungkook very recently released his first full solo album, Golden, last November 3, 2023. It was this album launch that gave Jungkook the opportunity to do something with Xbox. So yesterday, he actually held a free concert on TSX in New York’s Times Square.
Jungkook was gifted a special edition Xbox Series X at the event, and fans who watched his concert on stream also had an opportunity to get this special edition console. As reported by Pure Xbox, the concert was definitely a huge success, given the millions of impressions it had received.
As you can see from fan pictures of the console, the theme of the special edition Xbox Series X was actually the album Golden. It uses the same colors, theming, and logos as the album itself. The front of the Xbox Series X features Jungkook’s signature, and the text in the back of the console reflects the song listing and other contents of the album’s inserts.
Microsoft went the extra mile, of course, so they also made a special edition Xbox Series controller also themed around Golden. It has that green coloring with gold embossing around it, that would make it a hit with non-BTS fans as well.
We don’t know how likely future Xbox events with Jungkook or other kpop stars will be in the future, but it’s a bit ballsy for Microsoft to reach out to a non-traditional gamer audience for this kind of collaboration. It definitely indicates that Xbox is serious about becoming even more mainstream, and getting their name out there to non-gamers.
Perhaps its their recent acquisition of Activision Blizzard King that’s emboldened the company to experiment. Maybe next time, they can go after some of America’s own celebrity royalty, like Taylor Swift or the guy from The Bear.
