According to PCWorld, Microsoft’s 2025 was a year largely defined by failures and frustrations rather than clear successes. The most consequential move was a 50% price hike for Xbox Game Pass Ultimate on October 1, jumping from $19.99 to $29.99 per month, which sparked major fan backlash. Internally, the company faced significant political fire, with employee protests and sit-ins at events like the Build conference and the 50th-anniversary celebration over its AI contracts, leading to firings in August. Technologically, the year was marked by “AI exhaustion” as Copilot was aggressively injected into everything from Office apps to Notepad, while the controversial Recall feature faced major privacy delays and a limited rollout. Even the Windows Insider program was described as a “mess,” with a confusing four-channel system and the departure of key team members, casting doubt on the development pipeline for Windows 12.
A Year of Alienating Its Base
Look, making money isn’t a strategy. It’s an outcome. And PCWorld’s big takeaway—that Microsoft‘s main victory was just raking in cash—is a brutal indictment. When your most loyal customers, your Xbox gamers, are swearing off your service because of a sudden 50% price increase, you’ve got a fundamental problem. That’s not growth; that’s squeezing a captive audience until they squeak. It feels like a company that’s decided its existing users are just a revenue stream to be tapped, not a community to be nurtured. Combine that with the gutting of programs like Microsoft Rewards back in 2023, and a pattern emerges. They’re removing value while increasing cost. That’s a dangerous game.
The AI Hammer Looking for Nails
Here’s the thing about Copilot everywhere: it reeks of desperation. Microsoft made a massive bet on AI, and in 2025, it seemed like the entire company’s mission was to justify that investment by force-feeding it to users. Do we need Copilot typing letter-by-letter in Notepad? Who asked for an AI agent to shop for them? Probably nobody. This “AI exhaustion” is real. It’s the tech equivalent of a friend who won’t stop talking about their new hobby. You’re happy for them, but you wish they’d read the room. The push made features like Recall, which had genuine privacy concerns, dead on arrival. By the time it finally rolled out beyond just Snapdragon chips, the trust was gone. The public was already suspicious, and an authoritarian government coming to power, as PCWorld notes, only heightened those fears. When a tech journalist is writing a guide on how to *turn off* your core new technology, you’ve misjudged the market.
Operational Mess and Missing Vision
The state of the Windows Insider program is maybe the most telling failure. It’s not a consumer-facing product, but it’s the engine room for the entire Windows ecosystem. When that’s described as a “mess” and you learn the whole original team has moved on, what does that say? It signals a lack of internal priority and care for the foundational feedback loop with your most dedicated users. If you can’t manage your beta program, how can we trust the stability of your main releases? And this confusion bleeds into everything. Windows 11’s 24H2 and 25H2 updates were confusingly similar, filled with “largely forgettable” tweaks. The Copilot+ PC branding flopped because the AI features weren’t compelling or exclusive. They were solutions desperately seeking a problem.
The One Silver Lining
PCWorld did grant one win: the managed transition from Windows 10. And honestly, it’s a win by default—because the alternative would have been a PR disaster. By offering extensions, paid options, and bowing to EU pressure, Microsoft avoided forcing a hated upgrade on millions. But that’s damning with faint praise. It basically translates to: “Your biggest success was not making people use your new product.” When that’s your highlight, you know it’s been a rough year. It underscores a broader truth from 2025: Microsoft’s software and services felt less like tools designed to empower users and more like vehicles for corporate goals, whether that’s AI adoption or revenue extraction. For a company that wants to be essential, that’s a precarious place to be.
