Before Satya Nadella took over the job of Microsoft's chief executive officer back in 2014, American businessman Steve Ballmer had held the role since all the way back in 2000, prior to the launch of the original Xbox.
And so, his name conjured up plenty of mentions on social media last night when it was reported that Ballmer, now owner of NBA team the LA Clippers, had seemingly bought his players PS5s prior to their season opener.
As you can imagine, Twitter was flooded with comments pointing out the irony of Ballmer buying PlayStation 5 consoles for the team rather than Xbox Series Xs, which certainly left many bemused!
It's obviously not something to take too seriously though, and who knows - maybe Ballmer has bought his players the new Xboxes already? Perhaps the gift helped, too, as the Clippers went on to beat the LA Lakers 116-109!
What do you make of this? Give us your thoughts in the comments below.
Comments 14
Steve Ballmer don’t even start with that guy! 😂
(They couldn’t afford to buy their own?)
And yet people wonder why the Clippers choke every year in the playoffs 😂
Ballmer, now there’s a walking disaster 😂 didn’t do much for Microsoft..
@S1ayeR74 yeah he did. He repeatedly killed promising programs and thought Microsoft should compete with Apple in the smartphone industry. I bought my Microsoft stocks right as he was leaving. It was obvious he didn't see Microsoft's strengths as long term strategies.
It always irks me that the elite are given free gear. It would have been so much better had these been given to local children’s charities instead of wealthy stars that can easily afford their own.
@RedShirtRod Aow man you got in there at the perfect time! Cheap stock and a CEO that knows what they are doing replacing one who doesn’t..
I’d imagine Xbox would be closed if Ballmer was still in charge now.
@S1ayeR74 absolutely. It's clear Ballmer was a hardware guy. Don't think he fully understood the potential of Saas. Satya fully embraces it. It's why gamepass and office 365 are so effective.
Ballmer thought to be the best you needed to do what the competition is doing but better. There is no way that Xbox could have competed with Playstation by playing Playstation's game. It would have dwindled, died out, and been replaced by Google or Amazon.
@Xiovanni I won't argue that the 360 did very well. It gave Microsoft the confidence that Xbox was a viable division. The thing I was discussing was the long term strategy. Selling a bunch of consoles doesn't mean much when revenue only lasts 7 years. It has to be consistent. Companies don't care about the money they made yesterday. They stay in business by the money made today. Ballmer's strategy led to drop of revenue after xbox one. Satya's Saas will prevent the same for series s/x.
@Xiovanni
No, it didn’t. Sony did what Microsoft did this last generation & shot themselves in the foot right from the get go with the $600 “get a 2nd job” PS3.
And the 360 had a full year head start too.
@Kefka2589
Exactly. Mattrick’s vision, after he took over, was to pump out Halo, Gears, Fable, & Forza games & rely on 2nd party for exclusives. And like you said, he wanted the Kinect to be huge bc he wanted some of that Wii $$$.
Unfortunately, he was an idiot & didn’t foresee the motion control gaming being a fad on consoles & played it like a long term strategy.
Instead of investing in 1st party studios, they bought 3rd party exclusives. Oh and as we all know as Xbox fans, he almost killed off the entire brand.
Thankfully, Phil Spencer has fixed that idiot’s mistakes. But it’s taken many years to undo the damage.
@Kefka2589
Exactly. And when I was a PS3 owner, I ripped Sony for putting out a half-@$$ product like the PS Move, just to try to copy the Wii. And, of course, they abandoned it leaving the people who paid for it screwed over.
And don’t get me started on their idiotic & hideous treatment of the Vita. 😡
However, in hindsight, they didn’t go “all in” like Microsoft did with the Kinect & it was a smart move in the long term.
I do still find it funny that they got PlayStation fans to buy up a bunch of the old PS Move stock to use on their PSVR. 😂
@Kefka2589
Well said about the Vita.
I had one & absolutely loved it. And I am not even a handheld gamer guy. It was an amazing handheld with great tech. But Sony’s idiotic memory card prices killed it.
Once it didn’t sell well, initially, Sony abandoned by the side of the road like an animal carcass.
They called it a “legacy console” only 2 yrs after launch. It had some amazing games too! But once they stopped 1st party support of it, it was over. It’s still the main reason I’ll never buy a Sony product ever again.
Such a shame. And it even had a great add-on with the Vita TV, where you could play the games on your TV from your couch. Gee.....does that sound familiar?
Switch anyone? Lol.
@Xiovanni
The Switch is, basically, if you combine the Vita & the Vita TV into one console. Obviously, the Switch went further with the idea & has some ideas of it’s own.
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