I think it makes Microsoft feel bigger though.
If Microsoft were just Windows, Teams, Azure, Bing and whatever it is, Microsoft would actually feel like a competitor for firms like Canonical or Red Hat or SUSE which happens to be big but nothing special relative to the others, whereas it now, with with this very public service feels like a behemoth.
Huh, that’s a funky statement because having “Azure”, one of the largest Cloud Providers outside of China is definitely a different camp than Canonical, Red Hat and SUSE.
Although I don’t particularly like their cloud services they are undeniably an important part of Microsoft’s business. (And they also own a large chunk of the gaming industry nowadays).
>(And they also own a large chunk of the gaming industry nowadays).
They’re shuttering half their studios, cancelling half their games, and firing game devs by the thousands as they hand halo over to PlayStation lol. You’re technically right but they clearly aren’t taking that part of their business seriously anymore. IIRC Gamepass has plateaued on subscribers for years now even prior to their very aggressive price hikes over the last 18 months.
I saw an article the other day that said Microsoft is telling developers they have to have a 30% return on their games, which is almost double the industry standard. That’s just absurd.
Edit: worth mentioning that you have people openly speculating at this point that they might not even make another Xbox. I’m not quite in that camp, but I also think it is a distinct possibility given the back slide they are clearly in right own when it comes to gaming. Fun fact: It’s been 4 console cycles, almost 25 years, since we saw a major player drop out.
Yeah, you're right on all those fronts.. but they do own some large IP like Call of Duty which will continue to generate money for them for the foreseeable future.
I did hear the speculation about Xbox as well and I hope it's not true. I quite like the Xbox as a console (Series X was the first one I bought, used to be on PlayStation before that). Competition is good for the console space, and Nintendo and PlayStation aren't really competitors IMO. The audience for Switch and PS/Xbox isn't the same.
Yeah I’d be bummed too. I think they were on to something with the Series S (my Xbox currently) in particular but they blew whatever interest they had at the start. For $300 it’s been a fantastic investment, even though it’s collecting dust now.
> firing game devs by the thousands as they hand halo over to PlayStation
They kind of took it from Apple to begin with. We almost had Halo on the iMac before Microsoft acquired Bungie [1].
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6eZ2yvWl9nQ
Very familiar with that actually! Apple abandoned halo and Bungie, desperate for money, signed with M$. Hence the change 3rd to 1st person!
I'd no idea about this... any good additional reading? I'm a big Marathon fan and will likely try and finish Infinity over the holidays.
I’m going to try and find a good source on it but the short version is that Bungie was in deep financial trouble and approached Apple for an acquisition. Jobs didn’t want a video game company as part of their core business as it was not the future he saw for the company, but Microsoft was willing to make that deal, so Bungie went with that for the security. Jobs was pissed but ultimately he passed on an acquisition they felt was necessary for survival.
And Jobs was probably right. Apple was a bad fit for Bungie (and games in general). There is a reason Marathon is virtually unknown when it was one of the best "Doom clones" of the era.
Yeah I agree with it too - plus they were hurting financially, that’s a lot of risk to assume. And frankly what we got with FPS halo seems way better to me anyway. It’s hard to imagine the Apple version would’ve been a better game, but admittedly I am speculating.
Yes, of course those things are huge, but I was focused on perceptions.
Suddenly Microsoft has gone from being some software to being everywhere. I know that Azure is huge, but you don't see Azure.
I think you might be right but the other side of it is that Microsofts business outside of AI is mature other than their lock on the windows desktop you listed the others :-
Windows competitors are OSX (and the very good Apple hardware), Linux (which thanks to Valve is gaining users at an increased rate).
Teams competes against Slack/Discord
Azure competes against AWS/GCP.
Bing "competes" against Google Search
While they do have a share of each (and a big share of the desktop) they don't really have anywhere they can grow, they've filled their existing niches and are competing with other equally sized companies in all of them.
So spaffing some cash on AI on the off chance it pays off down the line might look smart.
Hell if AI does pay off then they look good and if it doesn't, it'll look bad for everyone who invested and they can at least shrug off the cash hit.