Who is Asha and Where is Phil?
So, I hear this fellow Phil Spencer is moving on. I don't know the man personally, but he had a look about him like he knew where the 'undo' button was, which is more than I can say for my nephew. Now we've got Asha Sharma stepping up to the plate. The news says she's the new CEO of the Xbox. I thought an Xbox was that thing I use to prop up the short leg of the dining room table, but apparently, it's a whole 'ecosystem.' Back in my day, an ecosystem was something you studied in biology class before the teacher let you go outside to play kickball.
Asha hosted a big meeting with Satya Nadella, and they spent the whole time talking about the 'long vision.' Whenever a CEO starts talking about a 'long vision,' it usually means my subscription price is going up and I'm going to have to learn where they moved the 'Save As' menu again. Satya says they are 'always investing' in gaming. I wish they'd invest in making the font on my email bigger without me having to use a magnifying glass. I've got three different 'Xbox' boxes in the basement that the grandkids left behind in 2012, and not one of them will play my Perry Como CDs.
The High Cost of Virtual Reality
They're talking about 'crossroads' and 'divesting.' It sounds like a lot of fancy talk for 'we spent too much money on the bleeps and the bloops.' They say the brand is under strain. Well, my lower back is under strain every time I try to weed the garden, but you don't see me hosting an internal Q&A session with a CEO. I remember when gaming was simple. You had a paddle, you had a ball, and if the ball went past the paddle, you lost. You didn't need a high-speed internet connection or a 'Game Pass.' You just needed a thumb that didn't cramp up after ten minutes.
Now they want to put the games in 'The Cloud.' I asked the man at the Genius Bar—which, let me tell you, is a very misleading name for a place that sells phones—where this cloud was located. He just laughed. I don't think it's very funny. If my games are in a cloud, what happens when it's a sunny day? It’s just another way for them to keep the physical discs out of our hands. I like a disc. I like to feel the plastic. I like to see the little shiny rainbow on the back. You can't put a cloud in a drawer next to your extra batteries.
Invest in a New Printer Driver Instead
Satya says gaming is a 'fundamental' part of Microsoft. If you ask me, the fundamental part of Microsoft should be making sure my computer doesn't restart itself in the middle of a bridge tournament just to 'update the firmware.' I don't want firm ware. I want soft ware that does what I tell it to do. They spend billions of dollars on these game studios, buying up 'Activision' and 'Blizzard.' Those sound like names of laundry detergents or weather events, not companies. If I had a billion dollars, I wouldn't buy a Blizzard; I'd buy a car that doesn't beep at me when I forget to put on my seatbelt to drive to the end of the driveway.
The article mentions that the Xbox brand is at a crossroads because they decided to 'divest.' That’s just corporate speak for 'selling the family silver.' My neighbor Earl divested his riding lawnmower last summer, and now he has to pay the neighbor kid twenty bucks a week to trim his grass. It’s a slippery slope, Satya! One minute you’re the king of the consoles, and the next minute you’re wondering why nobody is buying your Zune. Remember the Zune? I still have mine. It’s a very sturdy paperweight.
Conclusion
At the end of the day, Satya and Asha can play their space-marine games all they want. I'm going to find my reading glasses, brew a pot of Sanka, and see if I can't get that spider solitaire game to work one more time. If Microsoft really wants to invest in the future, they should invest in making a keyboard where the letters don't rub off after three months of writing letters to the editor. Now, does anyone know how to turn off the caps lock? It seems to be stuck again.