I was pretty hyped about Microsoft’s big Windows 11 reveal today. I’m a self-proclaimed Windows fanboy — we exist! — and after the company claimed Windows 10 would be the “last version of Windows,” the news of Windows 11 hit like a nerdy Christmas. So I fully expected my first article of the day to be a straight piece about the new features coming to the OS.
Instead, I’m writing this one. I’ve barely learned anything about Windows 11 yet, because the official livestream was a lagtastic mess.
Soon after the stream began on Microsoft’s event website, the video would buffer every few seconds, until it stopped working altogether. This was true of both the public stream and a separate link created for journalists.
Of course, I thought it might just be me at first, but the rest of the TNW team has been unable to watch the stream either. Journalists around the web are complaining about the connection as well.
hops on twitter to see that the Windows event feed is bad. Welp, back to writing script about things with wheels.
Sorry, y’all.
— Roberto Baldwin (@strngwys) June 24, 2021
I am breaking my twitter silence to complain that the video feed keeps cutting out on the Windows 11 event.
— Lauren Goode (@LaurenGoode) June 24, 2021
Microsoft’s streams are failing hard – YouTube re-streams are much better – https://t.co/ZAKBS0xdgD
— Brad Sams (@bdsams) June 24, 2021
panos go back in time and buy twitch pic.twitter.com/WD1kfF1c44
— alex (@alex) June 24, 2021
Windows 11 livestream not even working in Edge! pic.twitter.com/ePdVf3Hb3r
— Joanna Stern (@JoannaStern) June 24, 2021
Well let’s hope #Windows11 doesn’t require loading as much their live stream does. pic.twitter.com/JOSjJtQFvD
— Ishan Agarwal (@ishanagarwal24) June 24, 2021
After a while, Microsoft instead redirected reporters to watch the livestream on Twitter. Which… well, is not a great look. Why wasn’t there a YouTube stream? Even Apple does that these days.
It should be noted that we’re still in a pandemic and the company would almost certainly have hosted an in-person event otherwise. And of course, the livestream says nothing about the performance of Windows 11 itself.
Still, it’s a shame that what is arguably Microsoft’s biggest software reveal in six years got off to such a clumsy start. It’s kind of baffling that a company worth 2 trillion-dollars couldn’t get a livestream right for such a major event.
Of course, the livestream issues were ultimately fleeting, and those interested can now watch a recording or read the press release instead. But there’s something a little magical about watching a major product announcement live, and that was lost on Windows fans today.
Did you know we have a newsletter all about consumer tech? It’s called Plugged In – and you can subscribe to it right here.