Ignore the LLM Slop and the Noise, Microsoft is in a Death Spiral
Last week:
"Microsoft squandered most of its good will with the Xbox One. That console was first announced as an "always online" device with restrictive DRM features that limited how you could share and sell games; it was bundled with a Kinect camera that could potentially surveil you; and at $499, it was $100 more than the PlayStation 4. Microsoft quickly reversed many of its DRM-heavy plans for the Xbox One, but by that point the damage was done. Sony ultimately sold more than twice as many PS4 units as the entirety of the Xbox One family (which included the cheaper One S and more powerful One X), according to data from Ampere Research."
Two weeks ago:
"Originally launched on the N64 in the late '90s, Banjo-Kazooie eventually arrived for Xbox 360 in 2008 following Microsoft's acquisition of developer Rare. But despite earning a legion of fans, the franchise has not seen an all-new entry in 17 years, since Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts released for Xbox 360, also back in 2008."
Pumped out by MSN today (Microsoft bumping/promoting slop about itself, citing fake sites):
Slopfarms with slop image are trying to cover up for Microsoft, but the year 2025 was a truly terrible one for Microsoft. January will likely start with another massive wave of layoffs at Microsoft (not yet, people are off work).
Microsoft's XBox is pretty much dead and calling PCs "XBox" or calling ROG "XBox" is just an attempt to fool XBox 'fans' (if there's such a thing). Speaking of PCs, how is Vista 11 doing 5 years after its release? Are "AI PCs" selling well?
No?
So what does Microsoft have left to sell? Its shares? Whose value is a fiction? Microsoft's debt is ballooning not because of "investment in AI"; it's due to bookkeeping issues.
"The Gerstnerisation of Microsoft" is what we called it 7 months before Gerstner died. Gerstner sacked 35,000 IBM workers; Microsoft fired a similar number of workers last year alone. █