The console war has been raging on for decades, ever since Sega felt like it could give Nintendo a run for its money. These days, heavyweights that continue to trade shots in 2021 are PlayStation and Xbox. Both launched their newest consoles at the tail end of 2020, and both have enjoyed the best starts to life for each company of any consoles to have come before them. The console war has been fought online, in stores, and on the playground. Now, Xbox is taking the fight to pastry. After Sony teamed up with Gregg's to celebrate the PS5, Xbox is joining forces with Krispy Kreme to create the Xbox doughnut. We managed to get our sticky little hands on one, and this is what we thought.
The Series X|S's first nine months have been fueled by Game Pass, and rightly so. The subscription service continues to prove it is just about the best deal across all forms of media right now, not just gaming. However, Xbox has taken a detour this week in favor of some culinary marketing – although as usual, all roads lead to Game Pass. The Nexus Doughnut, a dessert inspired by its own creations, was launched in the UK with the help of doughnut specialists, Krispy Kreme.
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I grabbed a few of these brownie batter-filled delights to take them for a test run. Test taste. Whatever. The treats are topped with green icing and powdered sugar to create the iconic Xbox logo. However, beyond making the doughnut look pretty cool, the topping doesn't contribute much to its taste – it's just some generic tasting icing. That coupled with the sugar makes its first layer very sickly sweet, but if you're expecting anything else from a Krispy Kreme doughnut then you have most certainly frequented the wrong establishment.
Speaking of which, there's not much I can tell you about the dough part of the doughnut that won't surprise you if you have eaten at least one doughnut from Krispy Kreme in your lifetime. There's a reason the brand is synonymous with one of the world's most famous desserts. The Nexus Doughnut is constructed upon the same foundation as pretty much every doughnut on the menu – very much an “if it ain't broke, don't fix it” type approach. People come to Krispy Kreme for that Krispy Kreme taste, regardless of the topping and the filling. It's always a wise choice not to mess with that.
Finally, we arrive at the main event of what has been a pretty standard doughnut up until this point. The brownie batter filling. The three words that immediately caught my eye when the doughnut was first announced. If you thought the icing was sweet, it's got nothing on the filling. The difference is, the filling has a distinct taste. There's nothing generic about it. A gooey, chocolate delight awaiting you in the middle of a familiar doughnut. You'll find no complaints about that here.
The little bit of bad news, you won't be able to play Halo Infinite on your doughnut, nor any other Xbox game for that matter despite the flashy, edible logo emblazoned on top. The good news, buying some will get you free access to Game Pass, and if you're lucky, maybe even a Series S. If you buy a box of a dozen Krispy Kreme doughnuts between now and the end of The Nexus Doughnut's run on August 22, 2021, it will come with a free month of Game Pass, although it's limited to one per customer, so you can't buy 144 doughnuts and snag a free year. You'll have 144 doughnuts though, so really, you've already won. You'll also be entered into a prize draw to win one of 110 Series S consoles. Even if you don't have a sweet tooth, it's probably worth picking up a dozen doughnuts before the closing date for that reason alone.
Doughnuts were purchased from Krispy Kreme for this review by TheGamer.
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