Microsoft is celebrating Windows 11's launch with a freaking NFT

News
By published

The NFT promises "valuable experiences and rewards."

Windows 11 live concert ad
(Image credit: Microsoft)

Windows 11 is out now, and Microsoft is celebrating the launch in all sorts of ways. There's a big Times Square ad, some Windows 11-branded ice cream, and an absolutely wild light-up takeover of the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, but none of that prepared me for the livestream Microsoft is holding tonight to close out launch day. At 5 pm PST Microsoft's streaming Elevenation, a "6D musical experience" starring musicians Tate McRae and Allen Stone. And what 6D musical experience would be complete without an NFT?

That's right: Microsoft's making an NFT to celebrate the launch of an operating system, which strikes me as a certified 'How do you do fellow kids?' move if ever there was one. The site for the launch event is light on details: the FAQ helpfully poses the question "What is the Windows 11 NFT?" and then provides this as an answer: 

"The Windows 11 NFT is a one-of-a-kind cryptographic token that lives in your digital wallet and unlocks valuable experiences and rewards."

The 6D experience also seems to simply be a livestream with multiple camera angles to choose from, so sadly it's still just a boring ol' 3D concert you'll be watching on a 2D screen. Sorry, folks—Microsoft hasn't revolutionized science and mathematics to bring you this event.

What "valuable experiences and rewards" could the Windows 11 NFT be promising, I wonder? An exclusive wallpaper? A fun avatar of Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella singing a duet with Tate McRae? A guaranteed waste of everyone's time and our planet's resources? We'll find out soon enough.

Wes Fenlon
Wes Fenlon
Senior Editor

Wes has been covering games and hardware for more than 10 years, first at tech sites like The Wirecutter and Tested before joining the PC Gamer team in 2014. Wes plays a little bit of everything, but he'll always jump at the chance to cover emulation and Japanese games.


When he's not obsessively optimizing and re-optimizing a tangle of conveyor belts in Satisfactory (it's really becoming a problem), he's probably playing a 20-year-old Final Fantasy or some opaque ASCII roguelike. With a focus on writing and editing features, he seeks out personal stories and in-depth histories from the corners of PC gaming and its niche communities. 50% pizza by volume (deep dish, to be specific).