How Mark Cerny Saved Christmas

Everyone in the world liked Videogaming a lot...
But the Mattrick,who worked inside Microsoft, Did NOT!
The Mattrick hated Videogaming! The entire accursed hobby!
Now, please don't ask why. Else you'd get kicked from MS' Lobby.
It could be that the head of the department wasn't feeling all right
It could be, perhaps, that the budget was too tight
But I think that the most likely reason of all,
may have been that his brain was three sizes too small

Whatever the reason, his brain or Ballmer
He stood there before E3, prepping to drop a bomba
Staring down from his office with a stupid, derpy frown
As the messages on his monitor, served to bring him down
For he knew every gamer, be they Alliance or Horde
Were anxiously making predictions across every board
"And they're discussing the specs!" he snarled with a sneer
"Tomorrow is E3! It's practically here!"
Then he farted, his stomach acids were acting up
"I MUST find a way to keep saturating the market with shu'mps."
For tomorrow, their reputation would be sunk and slandered
When their TV box is revealed to be weak beyond standard

And then! Oh, the Games! Oh, the Games!
That's the one thing he hated! The Games!
GAMES! GAMES! GAMES!
Then the Gamers, young and old, would sit down and play!
And they'd play! And they'd play! And they'd PLAY!
PLAY! PLAY! PLAY!
They would play instead of watching TV, like movies or sports
Which was something the Mattrick tried his damnedest to abort!
And THEN They'd do something which made him flew the coop
Every Gamer in the world, the try-hards and the noobs,
Would sit together, with joysticks in hand
Prepping to play a session of Killzone or 3D Land

And then, they have fun! They would have SO MUCH FUN!
FUN! FUN! FUN!
And the more the Mattrick thought of this whole Videogaming,
The more he realized, "I must stop this whole thing!"
"Why, for TWO GENERATIONS, I've put up with it now!"
"I MUST replace Videogames with TV! But HOW?"
Then he got an idea! An awful idea!
THE MATTRICK GOT A WONDERFUL, AWFUL IDEA!

"I know just what to do!" The Mattrick giggled at the dawn
And he made a hat out of money and gave it to Respawn
And he chuckled, and giggled, "What a great little trick!"
"With these exclusives, they'll look past our flicks!"
"All I need is an idiot..." The Mattrick looked around.
But, since they fired Orth, there was none to be found.
Did that stop ol' Mattrick? No! He doubled down even higher,
"If I can't find an idiot, I'll settle for a liar!"
So he called his buddy, Larry and pinned on him a yellow star,
And he christened him Major Nelson, then he got wasted in a bar
THEN he called up the NSA, some telemarketers and old saps
And he took 'em on a tour, to see this cleverly designed trap

Next morning Mattrick said, "Xbox ON!" And the event headed south
While Mehdi was in bed with advertisers and kept running his mouth
And everyone in the room went quiet. Silence filled the air.
All the Gamers who had been dreaming sweet dreams without care.
Felt crushed like the time when Squaresoft ceased to be Square
"This is step number one," the empty suit Mattrick hissed,
And he climbed on the stage, TV Remote in his fist.
He showed them NFL matches and UFC fights,
before using snap features on The Price is Right
Sure the Xbox stuttered, for a moment or two.
But that's because the Cloud was a pile of poo.
Then dropped the bombshell, neatly tied in a little bow
"These features," he grinned, "are the first things to go!"
Then he slithered and slunk, with a smile most unpleasant,
And everyone in the room could not believe they were present
Used games! Netflix! Singleplayer! Offline!
Ownership! Skype! Party Chat! Always online!
He hid them all behind paywalls, Mattrick, quite simply,
Pissed the concept of gaming down the proverbial chimney
Then he got off-stage, as he reveled in the horror
Like a gleeful little troll with a questionable disorder
He smiled as men from EA, nodded in satisfaction
And the rest of the Developers were too gutless to take action
Then he clicked his heels happily, his chest swelled with glee
"And NOW!" Mattrick said to the audience, "EFF YOU TO THEE!"

Then the Mattrick pushed his weight around, and he started to shove,
When he heard a small sound like the coo of a dove.
He turned around fast, and then he saw someone! But WHO?!
Why, it was little Mark Cerny who worked on the PS2
Mattrick was taken aback by this lone dissenting voice,
Who refused to rob Gamers, their right to have a choice
He stared at him grimly and he merely asked, "Why?”
"Why are you destroying Gaming? Why?"
But, you know, ol' Matrrick was neither smart nor slick,
He had to think of a lie and he had to think of it quick!
"Why, my dear friend," Mattrick smiled and looked ditzy
"We've given a choice to the Gamers, it's called Xbox 360!"
"For used games are hurting us and killing the industry."
"Just ask a third party, like our very own Cliffy B!"
And he thought he fooled the man and patted his head
And he ran away as the audience were still paralyzed with dread

Later on, Mattrick celebrated with the rest of the suits
Thinking they've crushed gamers under the sole of their boots
"And then I said," he cackled, "it ain't Microtransactions--"
"It's just giving us your money so we can hire Peter Jackson."
"Poohpooh to gamers," he was fiendishly humming.
To the Zynga Executive he was furiously humping
"They're finding out that Sony is doing the same thing too!"
"They're starting their conference now, I know that's what they'll do!"
"Then they will have to accept our iron rule as they cry, Boohoo!"
"That's a sound," the Mattrick thought, "I simply must hear!"
So he closed his eyes and he went deep in thought
And he imagined what sort of misery his actions would wrought

On the First Day of E3,
Microsoft gave to me
Twelve PR Disasters
Eleven Features Behind a Paywall
Ten Microtranscations
Nine Offensive Tweets
Eight Gigs of DDR3
Seven Reversals and 180s
Six Kinectless Games
Five Mediocre Exclusives
Four Lying Executives
Three Employee Firings
Two Directional Microphone
And a Console that is (Not) DRM-Free

That's the sound he imagined, that's the sound of fear
So he went to Sony's conference hall, hoping that's what he'd hear
But the sound he'd heard wasn't sad! Why, this sound sounded merry!
It couldn't be so! But it WAS merry! VERY!
He peeked inside the hall The Mattrick popped his eyes!
Then he shook! What he saw was a shocking surprise!
Every Gamer in the hall, the tall and the small,
Were screaming and cheering! With no exclusives at all!
The Xbox One couldn't crush gamers, gamers CRUSHED IT!
One way or another, it was destined to lose

And the Mattrick, with his bowels emptied at the end of this show,
Stood puzzling and puzzling asking "How could it be so?"
"PS4 won without a camera! It won without Kinect!"
"It won without Hollywood, TV or lack of respect!"
And he puzzled for hours, till his puzzler was sore.
Then Mark Cerny told him of something he hadn't known before!
"Maybe Gaming," he smiled, "doesn't come from a digital store."
"Maybe Gaming...perhaps...means a little bit more!"

And what happened then? Well...in the Internet they say,
That the Xbox Division was downsized by one person that day!
But you can still hear of the exploits of stingy old Mattrick
Wrecking havoc in Zynga, still up to his old bad tricks
Meanwhile, one person deserving of praising the most
Mark Cerny, HIMSELF, saved gaming from being toast.

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Disclaimer: MightNoX admits to using a rhyming dictionary to figure out what rhymes with the word 'hobby', stupidly getting stuck with that one. Merry Christmas to all and a happy new year!