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Microsoft: We've Been Killing PC Gaming
MCV has an article up discussing a new intitiative that Microsoft will be launching soon to re-establish the Windows PC as a gaming platform, ahead of the launch of Vista. From the article: "Microsoft has pledged to 'put the game back into Windows', admitting that its lack of investment in PC has been 'killing' the platform.
The firm has outlined to MCV details of an 18-month drive to establish Games For Windows as a platform with the credibility of PlayStation and Xbox, ahead of the launch of the Vista operating system."
Is this plan B, in case the XBox 360 fizzles out?
Ok, just so this doesn't sound like a total troll, isn't DirectX set to be replaced by the "Windows Graphic Foundation" when Vista ships? How will this make the job easier for developers, seeing as they've been riding the DirectX bandwagon since Windows 98 (or before - I'm not sure when it started).
Or are the two really that similar that they won't be causing problems for game developers and hardware vendors?
Notwithstanding the efforts by various developers to have linux ports of their games, or the efforts of those trying to get Windows games to work on linux -- I simply wish developers would package both types of binaries on their game CDs. Granted there would be an awful lot of extra work to get two versions of games out there, but once big-time games get to linux, it will be all but over for the Windows Desktop.
It would be good for the developers anyway because they won't be paying out the nose to MS in dev tools, and they won't have to deal with Windows APIs that always get in the way.
Ok I know it's a wish for the impossible and maybe it doesn't make a lot of business sense for the devs. However, MS has proven that by ignoring the Windows game devs the past few years that they can't be trusted to help the PC gaming cause anyway. Especially not with a glorified marketing campaign like this.
PC gaming isn't dead yet, Jim, but it needs resusitated, and linux is the perfect platform to do that.
Sounds to me like M$ is setting itself up to be a direct competitor of itself.
Windows VS Xbox360.
A strange but inevitable scenario.
Not really, no games for Windows would mean a reason less to use Windows over Linux. Productivity apps are a lot easier for opensource to create than games. That way you'd have the choice between the most limited OS out there (seriously, what other OS comes with that few apps out of the box? Not a single programming language, no serious text processor and no other office apps at all?) or any of the alternatives without there being large differences in software support.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
I strongly agree, and I'll go even further. I'd suggest that he Xbox represents the way Microsoft can slowly but surely enter the hardware market.
As game consoles have become more powerful, they have become a more important target, perhaps even than the PC. Microsoft seems to be betting that if they control the software and the hardware, they'll not have any pesky problems of getting things like DRM into the PC chipset. Suddenly you'll find the next generation game machines with a keyboard, mouse, hard drive, removable media, and network card, all comparable to a low-end desktop PC (how close are they already?). When do you suppose we'll start seeing productivity applications (email, word processing, spreadsheet, etc.) for these so-called "gaming" platforms like Xbox? We know that most consumers already need only a mere fraction of what current PCs provide; they do want something that "just works" (think TiVo) and is moderately priced.
My suspicion has been, for quite some time, that Microsoft has very-long-term plans to abandon the OS as a product and focus entirely on what we now call "gaming" platforms.
This initiative is really about saving Windows. People aren't going to buy a new home PC in order to run the latest version of Microsoft Office, but they might if there are games they want and cannot mentally justify buying a games console, afterall a PC can do more than just play games, right? So when Jane buys that PC at Best Buy and a bunch of games (and Quicken of course), Microsoft gets its cut of the action via the copy of Windows that is preinstalled on the new PC.
Granted, PC sales these days don't compare to console sales, but MS needs to keep Windows in play. And if they do a good job with their XNA development platform, they can keep games coming from the PC to the Xbox 360. In a sense, Microsoft really needs to keep the PC out there as a viable game platform to farm new talent and properties. Games are also a strong hedge for them against defections to Macintosh or Linux for most PC users.
To the making of books there is no end, so let's get started