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"Xbox Game Pass deemed a failure, Microsoft fires 9,000 to pivot to AI, Microsoft abandoning the console market, and more!"
First CUPodcast clip I've bothered to watch in almost two months (despite the typically CLICKBAIT-y title and video description). It's still kind of weird seeing Ian clean-shaven and with short, almost Pat-like hair now. Still, regardless of Ian's hair length, I find myself agreeing with pretty much every word he said here. Nor did Pat say anything blatantly dumb in this one that I immediately and completely disagreed with, either (which he has done in some past CUPodcast clip instances).
As someone who hasn't touched anything X-box related since the 360 (and the only 360 I ever had was the original "fat" one, rather than the smaller "slim" ones), and who just completely wrote off X-box entirely when the X-Bone was announced with all of its myriad problems, and who never, even once, remotely considered anything past that (X-Box Series Whatever the Fuck, etc.)[1], all I can say in response, if Microsoft does leave the console market, is "and nothing of value was lost."
Also, yeah, if everyone keeps firing people and replacing them with AI, then who do they think is going to have any money to buy their fucking AI slop horseshit afterward? I'm not the first person to make that point, nor is Ian, but it's still a good point.
And, lastly, I've never once touched anything to do with Game Pass, and assuming it continues to exist in the future, I don't plan to ever start touching anything to do with Game Pass, either.
In the end, as usual, it all comes down to appeasing the almighty "shareholder," rather than the "end user" of the product. Shareholders, ultimately, will be the inevitable, inexorable cause of death for Capitalism, even as they were, are, and continue to be the heart, brain, nerves, guts, skeleton, muscle, skin, hair, and lifeblood of Capitalism now.
[1] - And not just because that's around when I, seemingly forever, abandoned all console gaming entirely. I mean, I still to this day occasionally muse about maybe someday getting a Switch (or, now, Switch 2) and/or some variant of Playstation, but since then, I have never even once thought to myself "Hmm, maybe I could get a new X-Box something or other someday."
