and yet its always Sony. 

Fingers crossed!

Seriously though, companies do this all the time. Machina made a mistake. Big deal.

Huge fuss over something relatively small and irrelevant.

And the pathetic badmouthing of kowenicki here is indeed pathetic, good job guys.

Why the pics in the OP have nothing to do with this topic, and why no one of them shows the "confientuality" thing ("Description of video will include (no modifications): As a perk of being a Machinima affiliate i recived a monetary bonus...")

And most important, why isnt there a similar pic of the polemic xbox one promotion?

Thread is about Microsofts Xbox console, so a fair comparison is to use Sony or Nintendo who also make consoles to keep things somewhat videogame industry related.

Kow's comparison using Sony is relevant.

These are ads, plain and simple. Just like a commercial where a company pays another to create a video that is marketing the product in a positive light, that's what happened here. I don't really understand why this is a big deal. This is just a part of the change of landscape in advertising due to the Internet.

Move along. Nothing to see here....

There was a follow-up article by the same website.  They received a response from Machinima and Microsoft.

http://www.igameresponsibly.com/2014/01/21/microsoft-and-machinima-have-officially-commented-on-xb1m13/

Posted Jan 21 2014 by Dylan Zellmer

As of now, you’re likely aware that we broke news over the weekend of a new campaign to promote Xbox One on Youtube‘s Machinima channel. At first, we thought it was business as usual, but later details proved that the dealings were somewhat covert in nature.

When we reached out to Microsoft for further clarification on the matter, we were given a joint statement from Microsoft and Machinima,

Joint statement from Machinima and Microsoft:

 

“This partnership between Machinima and Microsoft was a typical marketing partnership to promote Xbox One in December. The Xbox team does not review any specific content or provide feedback on content. Any confidentiality provisions, terms or other guidelines are standard documents provided by Machinima. For clarity, confidentiality relates to the agreements themselves, not the existence of the promotion.”

This statement seems to implicate Machinima added the clause forcing YouTuber’s to speak only positive comments about themselves, Microsoft, and Xbox One after the deal had been struck. As for the confidentiality verbiage, Microsoft and Machinima state that it wasn’t created to disavow the existence of the promotion, only the guidelines for eligibility.

Welcome to the new world where "Social Media" is the new major PR spend for big business

Never.

It is not a fair comparsion, the thread is about Microsoft and Machinima. Mentioning Sony/Nintend is off topic.

Good job commenting before reading the jest of the article...........................There is more to it then that.