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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."
Seeing as how Vista appears to be to XP what ME was to 98, I am not surprised that Microsoft is trying to hype Vista more.
Hoist Number One and Number Six.
When you find that a success in one sector of your business hurts another sector of your business.....
Monstar L
I suspect Microsoft's war on OpenGL might have contributed a bit as well.
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?
The XBoX has been killing PC gaming. People are playing Halo instead of Counter-Strike. I remember when some people only had one argument against switching to Linux, and that was "there are no games". Well, thanks to MS that's no longer an issue. Personally I dual-boot, but my XP partition is very small and only contains Steam. It doesn't get very much use either, and probably wont anytime soon thanks to Advance Wars: DS.
Let's see if MS actually makes some quality PC games or just brings some XBoX 360 games over that will only run on Vista. I mean, for a gamer there is really no reason to upgrade to Vista. So MS has to go out and make one.
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
"put the game back into Windows"
I keep my machine running well, so I don't get to play any of their classic games on my home PC anymore. Although whenever I'm visiting relatives I hop on their pc and play that built-in game of Spyware vs. Spyware.
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.
The upside potential to be gained from Xbox far outweighs the upside potential from increased PC gaming.
This is a half-baked effort to make nice with the only segment of the hardware business that has legs. (Gamer's always demand the latest and greatest).
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Does this mean that I actually have to root for Microsoft now?
*sitting down in the shower, screaming in anguish*
The dirt! It won't come off!
Technoli
"We're putting the 'game' back in Windows," explained group manager Chris Donohue.
Start with Halo 2 Jackasses. The loss of the first one for 3 yrs was a bitch. The second feels like its never coming.
"We're over the hump with Xbox 360 so now ready to build Windows as a platform."
What the hell was it before you started humping the 360?
OSGGFG - Open Source Gamers Guide to Free Games
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
Because game engines can usually be ported from one platform to another with opengl.
Do you know of any DirectX support in linux/bsd/os9/osx/any other OS other than windows?
It's hard to reconcile Microsofts statements about "saving" PC gaming with their statements about the future of DirectX.
Initially, Microsoft said that DirectX 9.1 would be the last major version of DirectX, and that it would be replaced by Windows Graphics Foundation (essentially putting app and game graphics development under the same umbrella).
But then they've recently announced that the WGF concept is dead, and there will be, in fact, DirectX 10.
Incredibly, they've further announced that DirectX 10 will not be backwards compatible with directx 7, 8, or even directx 9.1 !!! Apparently the legacy directx API will run in a software compatibility layer and/or emulation, which means that Directx 9.1 games will run slower after you install DirectX 10.
Now, the article is from the inquirer so it could be bogus, but I've read this other places as well. I'm hoping someone here can show that it *is* bogus and/or misquoted, because if it's true I fail to see how this is going to do anything but hasten the death of PC gaming regardless of what Microsoft's marketing department does.
the gaming industry first. Microsoft hasn't being killing PC gaming, the industry has. Lack of innovation, a sequel based mentality of game development, and the cross-platform release requirement imposed on most titles has screwed the industry. Remember when a group of ten guys could spend a year making a game that would keep you up for weeks, like X-Com? Or an independent developer could release a game like Intelligent Qube and still turn a profit? Now you have 60-100 people trying to make a pretty game that just fun enough for the first three levels, because that's all most of the market will play.
It's not that they provided a competing proprietary standard, but that they only provided a broken implementation of the open one.
With openGL Microsoft did basically the same thing they did/are doing with Java (they shipped a broken VM and then now are trying to replace Java with C#).
Microsoft only supports the very first version of the standard, which is from 1992. Most openGL applications require a newer version or extensions that are not present in the version that comes with windows. This paved the way nicely for DirectX which came out 3 years after openGL.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opengl#History
Solitaire II and Minesweeper: The Revenge!!!
Exclusively for MS Vista!
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I think PC gaming is killing the alternate operating system market.
[20:36] wwwdot/.dotorg