Slashdot Mirror
The Future of PC Games, According to Microsoft
Geaty writes "Gamespot has an article up about Microsoft's big PC plans. Topics covered include why DirectX 9 will be the last DX for a while, the increased game support in Longhorn, and a 'standard' PC controller. Looks to this ignorant reader like Microsoft is trying to tackle the games market (again?), cornering matchmaking and patching. The controller issue seems like an attempt to bring to the PC platform some of the uniformity that consoles have."
I can't see the keyboard mouse combo going anywhere anytime soon..
Try playing Street Fighter II with a keyboard and mouse. Watch me whip you with a PS1 controller connected to the PC through an EMS USB2 adapter.
Try connecting more than one keyboard and mouse to one computer. One computer per player is much too expensive.
Will I retire or break 10K?
No, it's not just you.
FPS games (which get the majority of my time) almost require a keyboard and mouse to play properly. While games such as Goldeneye may be perfectly playable on a console for most people, purists like myself want to vomit at the lack of control. Likewise, the additional buttons on the keyboard and pointing precision of the mouse make them a much better choice for RPG and RTS games.
On the other hand, sports, fighting, and driving games are better suited to console controllers. This is especially true in that these sort of games are often best experienced with a buddy or two playing next to you. Sharing a keyboard with your opponent is just no fun, as players of earlier PC sports games will be glad to tell you.
A platform with both options is well on its way to the perfect game machine. A PC with a standardized control pad is rather close to an Xbox. Funny, that. Good move on Microsoft's part.
Game... blouses.
Ignore the Microsoft connection and look at what they are basically pitching: An operating system designed with a set of standards that will make it easy for developers to design games. Right down to the controller.
:)
The only drawback I can find is that it's a "super console plus!" situation. I'm a gamer, and I'm fine with that.
I've often speculated that a distribution of Linux should be made that is specifically geared toward gaming. Coordinate hardware support with the major vendors so their product works with ease, and build the OS specifically to deliver fast processing for gaming. Anything that has nothing to do with playing games is cut out of it.
Keep it free. Let game distributors bundle it with the games they sell. If the OS was good enough to deliver DoomIII on the day of retail, and you were able to tie down some major title support, it could work. Suddenly every gamer out there is running a Linux distribution to play their games. Suddenly every major developer is developing games just for Linux. Why? Because the OS functions well as a gaming OS (by design), and because it's free so everyone can have it.
In effect, you create a Linux standard for gaming, that can run top quality games, and is free.
Many of us have Windows because the best games work on it. Games are designed to work on Windows because most of us have Windows. Circular, but true.
If Doom III, GTA IV, and EverQuest 2 all came out for Mac and Mac alone, I'd be typing this on a blue keyboard right now. If they all came from Linux, I'd be typing this in a Mozilla window.
Mind you, I'd try this myself, but I can't code myself out of a 486 and have to feed my kids so I can't go urchin and skip on the rest of my life.
Grimwell - old, cranky, mean, obsessive
I don't want to be forced to use a single console for a game, on a standarised system, playing games that can't be modded (Palladium), written using proprietary medium formats (DVD+/-), and using a single, specific OS. The computer is the Nascar of electronic gaming; in my opinion, consoles are just "street legals."
Condemnant quod non intellegunt.
A) How can you patch a game that isn't installed? Seriously, this doesn't seem possible.
B) Microsoft wants to certify certain hardware for Windows, and now Microsoft wants to create PCs built to a certain specification... does this strangely sound like Microsoft telling a lot of hardware vendors that they will either have to make clones of other pieces of hardware (and face the patent and copyright police) or to stop producing for the PC?
C) Microsoft, with its' Microsoft Messenger Matchmaker, is going to severly harm or kill match making software such as GameSpy. All your patches will come through something very similar to Windows Update and most everything will be in a Microsoft sounding "My Games" area. This company wasn't split because the US Govt. thought that they were not a monopoly?
D) One controller, for all games... doesn't this sound like Microsoft needing to give permission to people like Logitech if they want to invent something new (like, force feedback back before it was invented)?
One last thing, with you needing to go through all of these Microsoft services, running all of this Microsoft signed equiptment, and alike... I fear that privacy will be hard to enforce, at best...
Also, try to tell all the Overclockers and other insane computer people buying the latest hardware to speed up their machine that it won't be possible to do that anymore, instead they will need to go for a package deal and run at Microsoft specs... will this elite group of hardcore shoppers (willing to spend tons of money) stick around for these new terms? Somehow, I don't think so.