I’ve watched a video of hers before. My takeaway was that Microsoft is a heavily bloated company that suffocates internal development but with the OG Xbox and early 360, they were like a side bet that didn’t have a great deal of oversight from MS Windows/Office/Server mega money eyes.

They didn’t have a great deal of internal dev studios but they were really good at identifying third party exclusives to pursue and early on managed them and the few studios they did fully acquire well. It worked well for the first Xbox and first half 360. It differentiated the Xbox/360 from Nintendo and Playstation

Then I guess success led to changes in leadership aimed at growth and using Xbox as a platform to push more MS services and they lost the focus and ability to identify and secure great third party exclusives. That coupled with not having internal game dev teams in numbers and experience like Nintendo and Sony meant if they didn’t hit with their living room smart device dominance ambition, they’d just have a worse PlayStation. That’s what they ended up with with the XOne - a worse PS4. Then it happened again with the XSX because of lack of execution with their internal studios. An XSX just became a PS5-lite library-wise

Pitchford is the only person in the industry that seems to love the smell of their own farts as much as Tim Sweeney

Mobile and I imagine Google Docs really did a number on Windows necessity. In my experience, large companies and government rely on Windows and O365, smaller organizations use Google Docs. Even universities I’ve seen start with classrooms a decade ago using Google Docs and hangouts to eventually using Google Suite or whatever its called these days for student/faculty email

At least word documents saved as PDF and shared is way more common today than a decade ago. A decade ago I mainly remember seeing nothing but Excel and SPSS in classes, now I see professors showing how to do stuff in Google Sheets. For a long time computer science and math professors have been geeky and idealistic so you’d regularly see Libre/OpenOffice used in lectures

Another is Blender. In like 2008 ~2.49 Blender, professionals would scoff. A decade later Blender 2.8 releases and by today I hear way less vitriol and more opensess as another tool in the toolbox or recognition as great for at least learning or professional use for smaller teams. Flow was a successful movie made with it

Davinci Resolve is getting better and a lot more mainstream today than a decade ago. And stuff like Kdenlive is more powerful than the vast majority of people need. People were doing great stuff a decade+ ago with iMovie and basic Windows Movie Maker

Video games are a lot easier now because of Valve with Linux

Mobile, adults used to have laptop that pretty much excited to login to their credit cards and pay them, use TurboxTax, print out MapQuest directions, etc. Phones have made a laptop redundant I think for most people now. Work provides one if needed. TV for movies and phone for everything else

To me there’s nothing Microsoft can do to stem the decline of Windows. Mobile first is standard now. Microsoft has no presence in smart TVs because they failed with Windows Mobile and Xbox hardware is on life support and they never made the stripped down Xbox Windows available for TV makers anyways. The loss towards mobile will continue.

Then there’s national security concerns for countries around the world to be reliant on American software and hardware. Diversification of operating system has picked up heavily. It started like 20 years ago but it didn’t seem to really pick up until the Huawei sanctions and driving Huawei to their own OS and Chinese government to invest even more into domestic Linux distro a. Then the recent American trade wars renewing interest in European countries in Linux and LibreOffice. My understanding has been that Linux had had strong adoption in India for some time now

Desktop Linux in the US, I say just keep focusing on prosumer/professional users. Software developers and other IT professionals are already Linux heavy. Some commercial software is available like Maya and Davinci Resolve. Krita and Blender are great. Kdenlive is good. Seems like GIMP and Inkscape development may be picking up momentum. Darktable is great. Valve keep focusing on SteamOS and community distros keep supporting more handhelds making every year easier and easier for gaming. Steam Deck 2 is hopefully a way more available in retail than the first deck. First product work out the kinks and prove viability. Second product and possibly AMD, Nvidia, Qualcomm, etc are way more interested in low power gaming than before as well as first class Linux support

Outside of the US, I feel like Trump both term one and now term two has really given Linux and open source software a global boost in appeal.

Not weird. It’s the main reason to play. For me it wasn’t even really about the main plot line, ended up not caring for the Wild Hunt or the White Frost at all but every tidbit about the conjunction of spheres, Heart of Stone, and the various non-Wild Hunt factions and quests were pretty captivating to me. The small quest lines were usually interesting. The Crones were a lot more interesting than the Wild Hunt

Cyberpunk is edgy mature. Even more so than the Witcher series. I’m not saying that disapprovingly. I like both but I don’t think they’re a far cry from the previous 15 years of mature video game stories. They’re still stories that need direct physical violence to work. They have a grand scale.

Some standouts I remember, of course all violent, from the past would be KOTOR 2, GTAIV, Eternal Sonata, Xenogears, StarCraft 1/Brood War, Persona series has been consistently interesting, Yakuza games and that reminded me of Shenmue, Dragon Age Origins, Dragon Age 2 is cool with the timespan of story in a single city, Bioshock games, the first 2 Fallout games, Planetscape Torment. There’s a lot. What makes Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk standout to me is primarily graphics and scale. A bunch of interesting questlines in single games. They’re all a bunch of violent games though.

Eternal Sonata I think was the most memorably unique of the games I listed and maybe across all the games I could remember that had high production values for the time. I wish that got a PC release/remaster

The reaction of diehards wasn’t close to golden. You had the lore-aficionados that found the game as whitewashed, the shippers thought every relationship was shallow and role players thinking it jumped the shark even more than previous games with anachronism. The game was stable. Not buggy. That is its elevator pitch for why it’s good

Where they may lag behind is powervr graphics and the accompanying drivers though that will mostly be a problem for those interested in running windows software through the developing software and whatever comes of the Debian VM progressing

Canceling NordVPN was a pain. It took numerous emails across numerous days for them to cancel and remove my credit card info. Lesson learned, I only pay with PayPal where I can revoke permission for recurring payments or pay with crypto. Went expressvpn to the cheaper nordvpn then to proton unlimited

Ya it’d be better if it didn’t require a phone number but it’s a solid start as it’s build up a user base over the past decade. Matrix is good but I know far less people that use it and it’ll be a long time of growing with nerdy/geeky communities before it starts getting more mainstream users

I would guess he’s thinking money. Design, production line, and legal are all going to be extremely expensive. Bezos is a name and face but if you replace his name with JP Morgan Chase, BNY Mellon , Blackrock, etc is there really that big of a difference. The large financial institutions have done far more for far longer to people all around the world

It’s a slow grind for adoption. I’ve had Signal installed on my phone since like 2016. Went from one person I knew to now about ~30. It’s mostly people from work at tech companies but progressively I’ve noticed other industries employees adopting it for unofficial chat that my contacts list has been growing over the years. Probably won’t take off in a few years. Maybe another decade

I have one. I think it’s too big. It’s fine if I’m playing with my elbows rested on something but anytime my elbows aren’t backed by something, it’s not ideal. And then whenever I travel, with a case it is bulky. I got a Switch 2 and that feels great to carry around regardless of less ergonomic hand grips

Real just need Steam Deck performance and screen size but like 100-200 grams lighter. I’m guessing once AMD starts churning out 3nm UDNA APUs will be the time for PC handhelds to go a lot more mainstream. FSR4 will be a great boon for low powered gaming

I’m pretty sure people have been playing Tales of Berseria on Steam Decks for 3 years and it still says unsupported. Seems perfect to me

I think DC Universe Online went free to play before the PS4 came out. Don’t recall any other. PC had a lot of free to play games during the PS3 era though. Shooting games like Crossfire and Americas Army. A ton of free to play MMOs and I think it came out like halfway through the PS3 era, League of Legends

It’s nice. Today I was playing it with a friend. The larger display and detachable joycons are great for easy socializing activities. Besides Nintendo first party games I have no intent to buy any single player games for this console. But anything local multiplayer, I’m all over that. Ya I hope someday PC handhelds can become ubiquitous local multiplayer machines that weigh about the same as a Switch 2. I just don’t think they’re there yet. Eventually someday but it’s a nascent developing form factor for PCs. For now I’m happy to have a Switch 2 and a Legion Go

I’m pretty satisfied as a subscriber. Slowly using proton mail for more and more important accounts. Constant usage of the VPN. Trying to use the calendar more but still haven’t broken my Google Calendar habits. Proton Drive I use over google; I just need a Linux desktop application. Proton pass, still haven’t given that a go. Comfortable with KeepassXC and managing the backups myself. Proton Docs, it’s OK. Solid start. Hoping that notes partnership/acquisition eventually replaces Google Keep for me as a cloud notes application. I have pretty strong confidence now in the company regardless of the slow Linux developments

Good to see. LibreOffice is solid today. Was passable back in like 2012. Now it’s pretty excellent, at least for most people. Ribbon interface like 5 years ago was pretty rough. Now I think it’s pretty close to great. I thought OnlyOffice and WPS Office had a substantial visual edge but that was me comparing it to like 2020 LibreOffice. 2025 LibreOffice looks pretty good now that I wouldn’t feel worries about newcomers looking at it as a relic of 2003 visual design

Friends with Switchs to play Smash Bros and Mario Party. Occasional Nintendo game but everything else PC. It’s lighter than almost every PC handheld. The Ayaneo Air 1S is lighter but has a 5.5" display

I have a PC handheld but they’re all too heavy in my opinion. The holy grail to me is a Steam Deck that’s about the same weight as a Switch 2 or lighter. 7" display

The first time some coworkers told me the personal things they discussed with other work friends over the internal chat service, I was in shock over the stupidity. Also internal shit talk to other people in the company. Shocked