Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Microsoft: We've Been Killing PC Gaming

Posted by Zonk on from the nice-of-them-to-notice dept.

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."

18 of 113 comments (clear)

  1. No surprised there by Stargoat · · Score: 3, Funny

    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.
  2. Sign your company is way to big #67 by antifoidulus · · Score: 5, Insightful

    When you find that a success in one sector of your business hurts another sector of your business.....

    --
    Monstar L
  3. Its lack of investment in PC has been killing it? by dtfinch · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I suspect Microsoft's war on OpenGL might have contributed a bit as well.

  4. What? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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?

    1. Re:What? by Scherf · · Score: 3, Interesting

      My guess is that WGF will just be DirectX 10 with a new name which happens to be the API for the xbox 360 too. Perhaps they will break more backwards compatibility than usual but it won't make a that big difference.
      Probalby it's going to be something like what .NET was for the Windows API, just way less different.

  5. Ah no by Apreche · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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!
  6. Quote by RealityMogul · · Score: 4, Funny

    "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.

  7. Wishing for "Games for Linux" by craters · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

    1. Re:Wishing for "Games for Linux" by QuantumRiff · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Remember the good old days of building special dos boot floppies for your games to make them run better/faster? Wouldn't it be damn sweet to have a game come on a DVD with knoppix on it? Install it into windows or linux and run it, or boot from the DVD to really make it fly!?

      --

      What are we going to do tonight Brain?
    2. Re:Wishing for "Games for Linux" by DrMorris · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Those days weren't good. I had no special floppies but about 6-8 boot configurations with different memory managers, each with it's own settings. I don't think that DOS gaming was comfortable. But I don't think gaming on anything other than a device (I'm speaking of the console of your choice) built for gaming is comfortable to deal with (if you _only_ want to play games).

    3. Re:Wishing for "Games for Linux" by tepples · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Remember the good old days of building special dos boot floppies for your games to make them run better/faster?

      Back then, every video card implemented the same VGA register set.

      Wouldn't it be damn sweet to have a game come on a DVD with knoppix on it?

      Today, different machines use different hardware registers for accelerated 3D graphics. You'll need to have drivers for every 3D card in existence because they're all different. If games came on a DVD, and you tried to play them on your new computer with a new video card model that your old game does not support, then you'd get slow-ass software rendering.

  8. Microsoft would *love* to kill PC gaming by popo · · Score: 3, Insightful


    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).

    --
    ------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
    1. Re:Microsoft would *love* to kill PC gaming by KDR_11k · · Score: 4, Interesting

      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.
  9. Oh god! by Conspiracy_Of_Doves · · Score: 4, Funny

    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
  10. Re:Its lack of investment in PC has been killing i by Gogo0 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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?

  11. They certainly aren't helping w/ DirectX roadmap. by nobodyman · · Score: 3, Insightful



    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.

  12. Have to save.... by 787style · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

  13. Re:Its lack of investment in PC has been killing i by shadow_slicer · · Score: 3, Informative

    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