In case you were wondering why I haven't posted here about Activision Blizzard's Diablo Immortal woes, it's because I've been posting about them on my blog all about Diablo III, and why it was such a disappointment to me.
In spite of Nintendo Switch's really good sales last year, I'm on record as being skeptical about the system's "legs." Sure, the system surged ahead in the holiday quarter of 2017, but they still didn't manage to out-sell the console sales leading PS4, and 2018 was off to a slow start. A lacklustre showing at E3 seemed unlikely to help, either, taking the wind out of the Switch's sales at a time when Nintendo should have been doubling down on their 2017 success.
Which is why I'm not particularly surprised to learn that the Switch's last-quarter sales are down compared to the same period of last year, as reported by GameSpot:
Back in April, when Microsoft was (yet again) trying to woo users of Google's Chrome browser over to Edge by boasting about Edge's battery performance, I predicted that it would only be a matter of months before Google improved Chrome's battery performance to be every bit as good as, if not better than, Edge's. Having previously confessed my unseemly love of saying, "I told you so," I will now take this opportunity to point out that Google have done precisely that.
But, and there is a but, an independent test disputes Microsoft's
claim. YouTuber Linus Tech Tips has pitted Microsoft Edge against Google
Chrome, Mozilla Firefox and Opera and discovered that it does not
deliver as strong a performance as Microsoft claims.
Linus Tech Tips took four Dell Inspiron laptops, with the same specs,
and found that Microsoft Edge trails Chrome and Opera in battery life
tests. It would seem that it still beats Firefox, after all. However,
the results are much, much closer than what Microsoft's own tests
indicate.
This is how Microsoft's month has been trending. After managing to go weeks with nary a negative headline in sight, they've now managed to fumble their response to WannaCry twice, are scrambling to do damage control after a source code leak, and had both their Windows 10 S security claims and their Edge browser battery life claims debunked, by experimentation, in the last week. I don't know why they thought that PC consumers would simply accept their PR releases as fact without independent benchmarking, given that independent tests have only been part of the PC culture for a few decades now, but Microsoft seem to have done exactly that. Winning!
So, in the face of all these headwinds, what is Microsoft's current focus? Apparently, mobile. Yes, again.Yes, really. From ZDNet:
The PC is Windows' stronghold, and, despite predictions of its
demise, the PC seems to be holding its own, thanks in part to some nice
hardware designs coming out of Microsoft recently.
But a few projects that Microsoft has been working on recently also show how it wants a life for Windows beyond the classic PC.
One of these is the effort to get Windows 10 running on ARM.
Running Windows on ARM chips - the same chips used to run smartphones -
means that Windows could start appearing on small, lighter, always-on
devices. The first hardware is expected later this year.
Another
project that could still show promise is Continuum, which allows a
Window Phone device like the Elite X3 to dock with a keyboard and
monitor and perform like a PC.
And finally there is Windows 10 S - a locked-down version of Windows 10 that aims to compete with Chromebooks on ease of use.
All these projects are looking at slightly different things, but they
are all linked in their goal to take Windows beyond its traditional PC -
that is, desktop and laptop - territory.
[...]
The bigger question is whether Microsoft can make a real breakthrough
with any of these new categories. The desktop is Microsoft's home
territory but when it comes to mobile it's an outsider at best. Android
and iOS are firmly in control and as Microsoft found last time around,
dislodging them is going to be incredibly hard.
However, it seems
that Microsoft could be finally getting over the technical issues that
have held back its ambitions beyond the desktop. The next question is to
persuade consumers why they should make the switch.
Did I mention that Microsoft and Qualcomm are being threatened by Intel with possible patent infringement litigation for that Windows 10 on ARM project? Because that also happened last week. It's almost as if Intel realized how many of Microsoft's future plans were depending on Windows 10 on ARM to be their linchpin, and pounced.
Did I mention, too, that Microsoft themselves now can't be bothered to develop natively for UWP, essentially signalling the beginning of the end for a platform which is critical to their mobile efforts? Or that Microsoft have other lawsuit troubles, with their defence against Kaspersky Lab's antitrust complaint not exactly getting off to a strong start? Added to all of that, it's nearly month end, putting us just days away from learning just how stagnant Windows 10's growth has been over the last
30 days.
Honestly, Microsoft have so many issues, on so many fronts, that it's becoming difficult to keep track of them all. Their efforts seem to be focused on everything, which sounds impressive until you think about it for a second, and realize that "Microsoft is focused on everything" is just another way of saying that Microsoft lacks focus. The strain has been showing for a while now, but the cracks in the facade are becoming increasingly difficult to ignore, and it's hard to say what benefits, if any, are being realized through this seeming lack of strategic focus. I know that Microsoft want Windows 10 to somehow make them everything to everybody, on every device, in every circumstance, all the time, but somehow that seeming less and less like a realistic plan, and more and more like the Underpants Gnomes.
It's Microsoft's move, but with the situation becoming less tractable with each passing month, I'm not sure how many more chances they'll have to make "fetch" happen. Especially since their competitors in all these various tech-driven spaces aren't exactly standing still, waiting for Microsoft to catch them and pass them. How many more moves will Microsoft get, before it's effectively game over? Rich as they are, how many more missteps and outright failures can even Microsoft afford?