The console wars just took an unexpected turn into the Twilight Zone. In a desperate attempt to avoid being associated with Elon Musk's recent antics, Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo have jointly announced an emergency update to remove X integration from their gaming platforms.
It all started when leaked DMs showed the eccentric billionaire swapping eggplant emojis and winky faces with members of the Aryan Brotherhood Book Club. "Just a couple of fellas reading Mein Kampf and discussing our favorite phallic emoticons," Musk tweeted unconvincingly. "What's the big deal?"
The big deal, Mr. Musk, is that video game companies would very much like to avoid even a whiff of association with white supremacist sympathizers. "Our consoles are meant to profit off of joy, not bilious hate," said a joint statement from the manufacturers. "The absence of incremental monetization surfaces, coupled with externality vulnerabilities, triggered a reevaluation of the X functionality's efficacy within our monetization paradigm."
While integrating X initially seemed like a fun way for console players to connect with their hype beast squad, the update removing the functionality was rolled out quicker than you can say "busting a civil rights movement." User reaction was mixed, with comments ranging from "Good riddance, that integration was janky anyway" to "Y'all are just virtue signaling pawns of the woke mind virus."
For his part, Musk blamed the "mainstream media" and "bots attacking free speech" for the controversy, then changed his Twitter bio to read "Musk/Shapiro 2024 - We'll Tell It Like It Is (Hint: Everyone Else Are Groomers)". At press time, he was attempting to start an encrypted chat app called "Freething" dedicated to "real free speech for awesome legends only."
So long, X. We hardly batted an eyelash at ye. Perhaps this whole debacle will teach the billionaire tycon a valuable lesson: stop exchanging suggestive emojis with hate groups if you want the cool kids to keep buying your stuff.
