> It's going to hurt when agriculture does not see the efficiency gains it has been receiving for the last century or so.

Could go either way. Advanced robotics + AI could finally break more agriculture free from the "tied to people's time" limitation. Or all the growable land could be in use, so that simply decreases prices a bit.

Expect world population leveling off will be the biggest determinant.

Sure, but this particular issue isn't because we're hitting some plateau on computer cost or performance efficiency where instead of paying less money for more performance like we've gotten used to you're paying the same to get similar performance.

Instead for probably the first time in the history of computing devices as a consumer product, you're paying significantly more money to get the same thing you could have paid much less for months or years ago. If you bought a computer in 2025, it's unexpectedly an appreciating asset.

Ponzi scheme stock market is also relevant here. Productivity will max out if RSI AGI doesn't pan out.

> Overall gaming is a dying business.

What? Both PC and mobile markets are growing by any reasonable metric, and consoles are propelled by stellar Switch 2 sales.

The gaming market is ripe with money, it is total failure on Microsoft side that they failed to capture any of that. Xbox is on life support, and Windows platform tax is captured by Steam, where Valve funnels it into Linux to make its own platform.

Good. AAA should die, and the earth where it had grown should be salted.

Gaming is fine. Remove AAA from the equation, and current gaming is perfectly fine. Indies are plentiful and offer a great experience. Even lower-budget games from larger companies are fine without being plagued with every horrible practice (e.g.: microtransactions).

Also, the past 4 decades of games are still available. Hell, I would probably need two lifetimes to play all games in my queue list.

It may not be the infinitely profitable industry that attracts the likes of Microsoft, and that is a good thing. In fact, I view Microsoft failing in gaming as a hopeful sign for the health of videogames.

> Sounds like an opportunity then for you to create a competing company that functions the way you feel it should function

Sure, if one has millions and millions in capital. Because why would an investor put a money in my company that works the way it “should” according to me if it produces lower profits as compared to my competitors?

There are reasons people don't start businesses. Besides all the regulations, there's the constant struggle to pay rent.

You have to be delusional if you think you are in that class that can spin up an xbox competitor

What people value is subject to marketing and long-term manipulation, not to mention a poverty of competition.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asha_Sharma

Bachelor of Science in Management from University of Minnesota

Marketing role at Microsoft 2011-2013 out of college, standard average college grad role.

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There are thousands of more intelligent, harder working, better credentialed, better achieving college grads alone at this point.

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COO of Porch ~2013-2017 - how does one go from a standard marketing role to COO, ok whatever maybe its a smol startup

"After departing Porch, she joined Facebook as VP Product & Engineering for their Messenger and Instagram Direct products."

lmfao - more credence to the fact that most "Product" roles are leeches. VP Product and Engineering at Meta is absolutely crazy at this point in anyones career.

Management Degree -> Marketing Role -> COO of startup (lolwut) -> VP Product/Eng at Meta (cough nepotism? cough)

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COO of Instacart in 2021 LMAO

President of Core AI at Microsoft in February 2024 LMAO

insert "i have no technical ability whatsoever"

While she has some experience, she well may be a total outsider for the assigned role. This is often the case in Satya's Microsoft. Spontaneous program managers from that special village somewhere in the world (nepotism) who have near zero prior participation in the industry (incompetency).

I don’t pretend to know GP’s motives for putting it that way, but if I was going to put on my evil hat and kill off a gaming company/division I’d also put a woman in the hot seat. Not because I think women don’t understand gaming, they do; nor that I think women can’t run successful companies, they do; but because a large chunk of the gaming market is openly misogynistic and would root for the failure outcome I was orchestrating. Hell I’d even throw in some kind of golden parachute deal because that would enflame the trolls even more. People are easy to manipulate, and that’s quite possibly what’s happening here.

He just mentioned her gender.

I didn't get the impression OP focused on the gender. Is it forbidden to mention a gender if it's female?

Seems to me the one focusing on the gender is you.

Hit a nerve eh?

[dead]

Better stated than my ham-fisted attempt. Thank you. :^)

Except the increase in prices is not tied to M2 in this case. It's clearly a matter of supply not matching demand, as a result of changes in priorities of computing equipment manufacturers. You don't have to look at M2 to understand that Micron, Samsung and SK Hynix deprioritising DDR memory over HBM for AI data centres has led to the rapid increase in prices for consumer-grade RAM.

Inflation is different.

Rule 72 is nominal prices.

Inflation accounts for a 2026 xbox being significantly more advanced technology than a PS1

Yeah. Xbox is profitable despite how terrible it is in terms of game exclusives, just not 30% profit margins profitable. Instead of focusing on that they buy studios to close them and then wonder why they don’t have better margins.

There are a few points to raise here.

Firstly, yes PC is mostly digital only, but there is at least competition between PC gaming marketplaces, which helps to restrict anti-consumer practices like deleting content that gamers have paid for.

Secondly, some of the competitors in the PC gaming space allow for physical backups of installation media, which helps with game preservation. For example, if a game is bought on GOG, the installer is mostly/always one that can be backed up onto physical media.

Thirdly, while it's true most gamers have moved away from physical media, it still has value. For example, second hand games allow for more people to take part in gaming than could otherwise (legally) do so. Taking away physical games won't stop people on low incomes from wanting to game, and is likely to lead to a resurgence in game piracy. Not exactly the outcome game industry leaders are likely to welcome.

You're cherry picking. They built Windows. They built Office. They built Azure. Windows Phone (RIP). Exchange. Sharepoint. Visual Studio. Bing.

Every big company has a raft of acquisitions in their history and if you really want to you can draw a tenuous line between an acquisition and a subsequent product line. The claim that Microsoft "fundamentally doesn't make anything, they never have" is just silly.