Microsoft’s year of shame

The last ember of optimism in my subconscious wants me to believe that by putting the four words above in sequence, shouted in 30pt font, the truth of it has already rung out in your mind. You don’t need the impassioned argument about how Microsoft is the shameful poster child for just how contemptible an American megacorp can be in the year 2025. You don’t need me to muster every bit of evidence I can find, because even if you don’t remember each step in the bleak parade you can recall the shape of the march.

Or maybe that’s just the end-of-year fugue trying to convince me it’s already past time I surrendered to the sugar coma and don’t have to do any more work. Who can say? Either way, when you chalk up this many Ls in a single year, I don’t think the passing shame of a single week’s news cycle can do the whole picture justice. For as much criticism as Microsoft has gotten this year for closing game studios like Arkane, for pivoting Windows away from the kind of software that…