I was inspired to create this thread after briefly chatting with a Microsoft employee when I was in New York city recently. One thing he said that caught my attention was that the culture of Microsoft is slowly changing from one that is men in business suits to one that mostly cares about tech and the future of tech. And it caught my attention because I too been noticing that. This thread isn't just about Microsoft in gaming but Microsoft as a whole.
Microsoft gets a lot of hate whether in gaming or outside of it and for good reasons. They are looked at as a archetypal of what an evil big corporation is about in electronics. Back in the day the tried to monopolize the OS market. When it came to PC gaming they tried to nickel and dime PC gamers which left even till this day very hated scar on PC gamers from MS. We all know about Games for Windows Live. And with the Xbox they also tried nickel and diming and the one I hated the most was having to have an Xbox Live subscription just to use netflix(which I'm GLAD is gone now!)....
Again my point is MS has left a very bad taste in peoples mouth outside and inside of gaming. You had Steve Ballmer who in my opinion was a big quack who didn't give to sh*ts about making MS innovative, but was just a man in a business suit who only cared if products were selling. He wasn't a tech guy like at least Bill Gates was.
But going into the Xbox brand. The original Xbox was an alright console but it was the 360 that really put the Xbox brand on the map. Whether you liked the 360 or not it was a GAMING console for GAMERS from 2005-2009. It was kicking a lot of ass especially in 2006 and 2007 with games like Gears, Halo 3, Mass Effect, Crackdown and many more. Its wicked bladed interface(god I miss it!) was even themed for gamers. Sure the 360 was a faulty piss of shit with hardware issues but the 360 early on was when MS was for GAMERS. Peter Moore knew what gamers wanted because he too was a gamer.
Then came only the Lucifer himself aka Don Mattrick. Instead of getting another person that gamers resonate with, MS got a man in a business suit. Who only did not give a sh*t about gamers and what gamers wanted, but he dangerously tried changing and by FORCE the main demographic of the Xbox 360 who were hardcore gamers. And by that he forced the kinect down our throats along with its casual games, not because the Kinect was "evolutionary" but because he wanted to chase after that Wii money. Although the market for casuals in consoles was soon becoming almost non-existent with the arrival of gaming on smart phones.
Don Matttrick turned the once hardcore gaming machine known as the Xbox 360 into a poor mans console Wii. Not only that but ignoring to build up the Xbox's first party games with quality exclusives By then I already jumped ship to Sony even before the disastrous Xbox launch.
After the apocalyptic like Xbox One launch I promised myself I would never touch another Xbox console ever. And of course we all remember this!
That was until a man named Phil Spencer came in, Phil Spencer who is not just some man in a business suit but an actual GAMER! Phil Spencer literally fixed almost ALL of Don's idiotic mistakes(I don't feel like addressing all of them) and even some of the nickel and diming mistakes from the 360 days. Phil Spencer has made the Xbox brand BACK into a gaming brand for gamers whether we agree or not. Phil Spencer has tried being innovative with things like backwards compatibility. But the one thing I love most about Spencer's Xbox era is the fact that he is trying his best to build up the Xbox first party which is NEEDED. Phil Spencer MADE me trust the Xbox brand again because he is trying to make the Xbox brand into something like the early days of the 360 with kickass games.
But more importantly what shocked me MOST about Phil and MS is their growing support for PC gaming. We always use to hear how MS would post BS saying they would support PC gaming but never do. But this time we are seeing one of their biggest games Gear 4 being on the PC which surprised. Hell before Gears 4 we've seen games like Forza, Quantum Break, KI, etc,etc come to the PC. We've seen them add cross-play(which early they said they'd never do), free online for PC gamers and even attending the PC gaming conference. At least from this we are seeing MS attempting to support PC gaming and a changing culture within MS.
But MS still has a problem they have to fix their windows store(and make it LOOK like a store for PC gamers), but more importantly they have to SHOW and PROVE to PC gamers that they can trust them. A lot of PC gamers and I mean A LOT have a ugly scar from MS back in the GFWL days. And not even Spencer(they see him as a console guy) and his strategy to support PC gaming can fix that. If MS wants a guy to connect with PC gamers it needs to be a former Valve guy who really understands the nature of PC gaming and knows what PC gamers as a demographic likes and dislikes.
Now finally moving on from gaming and addressing my biggest points with Microsoft as a WHOLE... After Satya Nadella replaced Steve Ballmer as CEO I am starting to see MS be a company more about the innovative, about tech and the future of tech. Unlike the Microsoft that was men in business suits with Steve Ballmer. I'm starting to see MS take more risk with going more and more into hardware(which we hardly saw) like the Surface Book which I love. Then we have Hololens which is just amazing. I'm not trying to be a Microsoft dick rider but I believe MS as a company now is very innovative(even inside gaming whether some wants to admit or not), but their problem is that they are bad a execution and then another company takes the idea and does it better.
I just hope that they keep with the approaches they been doing and do not revert back to the Steve Ballmer days. I feel if they keep with this approach it will spell go for not only gaming but the tech world as a whole because it would encourage good competition.
To me I am slowly seeing a culture change within MS but does anyone agree?
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