Back in December, Microsoft announced that CES 2012 would be their last appearance. Corporate VP for Corporate Communications Frank Shaw reasoned that their product news milestones "generally don't align with the show's January timing."
Shaw did say that they'd continue to participate in CES in the future, but they won't have a keynote or booth after this year. Despite the timing issue, is it really a smart move for a tech giant as big as Microsoft to not have a booth? Michael Pachter of Wedbush Securities seems to think so.
In the latest episode of Pach Attack during a new bit called "Bet or Bust", video game analyst Michael Pachter said it was good that Microsoft was dropping out of CES after this year.
"I think that Microsoft is not really a hardware company. They've always been a software company.," explained Pachter. "I think they're making a big move into media and I don't think this is the right show for them to show off the capability."
Pachter continued, "They haven't launched a new product other than Kinect since 2005."
As for this year, the general consensus seems to be that Microsoft's press conference wasn't very impressive. Aside from a launch date and price reveal for Kinect Windows, Microsoft's press conference was a bit of a let down – especially when rumors of a next-gen console announcement had raised expectations.
