Why Is Microsoft so Bad at Hardware?

Steve Jobs loved to quote Alan Kay's famous line, “People who are really serious about software should build their own hardware,” and you could almost say that the Apple empire was built on that philosophy – to great effect.

And yet, when a small company known as Microcomputer Software (Microsoft) tried to follow this advice, it failed almost every time. It has always baffled me that Bill Gates and his successors rarely make any moves in the hardware business despite their resources, and what baffles me even more is that they keep trying.

Microsoft's obsession with hardware

I mentioned Apple mainly because I think Microsoft has often tried to emulate the success of devices like the iPod, iPad, and iPhone, which excel due to the tight integration of their entire hardware and software stack.

Credit: Dylanhatfield / Shutterstock.com

I think most of the time Microsoft failed because they wanted it to go both ways. The company wanted to create software and hardware, but didn't want to give up the openness that had been the hallmark of its own success in Compatible with IBM PC market.

That's why we ended up with half-baked devices like the Windows Phone series, which also relied on third-party manufacturers to create the hardware, and the Surface line, which was really just a demo for the whole 2-in-1 concept.

Microsoft's approach to hardware seems to lack the cohesiveness of companies like Sony or Apple, which understand how to create a complete, end-user consumer product. Instead, Microsoft products tend to be prototypes or concepts in the testing phase that somehow end up on store shelves by accident, where they often remain.

Long trail of dead devices

The end result is a dead food history that rivals the legendary Google cemetery.

Remember Zun? Relative? Superficial RT? Microsoft Band? Microsoft has dipped its toe into almost every product category, but hasn't been able to follow through. Imagine if Apple looked at the Newton's failure and never tried to make a tablet computer again?

The Zune was too little, too late compared to the iPod, and Microsoft completely failed to market it in a way that helped the average person understand why they should care. Kin was a social phone that launched without social media. The Surface RT was a Windows tablet that couldn't run Windows apps.

To be fair, while the Surface RT died a well-deserved death, the modern line of Surface tablets and laptops performs fine, although I think this has more to do with Microsoft's bacon being saved by better, more power-efficient x86 hardware while its Prism translation level is still nowhere near as good as the Rosetta II from Apple.

Microsoft also seems to be following the same formula: flashy launch, confused audience, and quiet release. The company seems to focus on about two fiscal quarters and then move on without learning or trying to iterate.

Xbox: the success that never happened

Leaderboard with Xbox One in the center and Xbox Series and original Xbox blurred in the background.

The worst example is the Xbox series of consoles. Not because it was short-lived or doomed to fail, but because Microsoft was on its way to market dominance and threw it away completely, to its complete detriment.

The original Xbox was a brilliant idea dreamed up by a group of Microsoft mavericks. Take Windows, strip it down to the kernel, take the Microsoft DirectX API, and then stick it into a console made up of mostly off-the-shelf PC components. This made it easier for developers already familiar with PC development to create games, and the addition of a hard drive as standard opened up all sorts of possibilities.

The original Xbox was a visionary system and set the pattern that current-gen consoles have followed, as the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series consoles are simply consolidated PCs.

The Xbox 360 changed things up a bit, switching to PowerPC architecture and eliminating the required hard drive, but despite a massive hardware recall due to a design flaw, Xbox 360 was the best console of its generation. The console is easier to develop than the much more expensive PlayStation 3, and it took Sony until the end of the generation to match and then slightly exceed the sales volume of the Xbox 360.

So, after working hard over two generations, Microsoft managed to enter the next generation of consoles on an equal footing with Sony. All you had to do was change Nothing about its formula, and most likely it would have continued to be an equal participant or even overtake Sony. However, a series of ill-considered decisions to focus on TV integration, make Kinect mandatory, and impose strict DRM restrictions on online games failed in the company's face.

Sony pounced without hesitation, and it’s a fiasco (even rolling back these decisions) Xbox heavily sank. Unfortunately, this was the worst generation for it as people built their first digital libraries of forward compatible games. As a result, the PlayStation 5 has significantly outsold the Xbox Series console, regardless of hardware quality.

Now Microsoft is changing direction. Apparently he wants make Xbox a PC gaming brandstarting from ASUS ROG Xbox Ally portable PCs. While I don't know what the future holds for Xbox, it looks like it will be yet another Microsoft hardware project that will crash and burn without any help from Microsoft's competitors.

Infinite reboot

Those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it, and Microsoft is now far from being a capable student. I see this whole pattern playing out again with the advent of Copilot and the dedicated Copilot key on Surface laptops.

The clunky release of Xbox Ally and its half-baked software is also pretty on-brand, but I give credit where credit is due. Microsoft is pretty good at making peripherals. His keyboard and Intellimus magnificent. The Xbox controller has been an unqualified success and has also been used to make some great joysticks. Everything else? It's going straight to the dustbin of history.