Microsoft Plots Future of Xbox and PC Gaming

Next Generation continues to report on the DICE event, where another session with MS VP Peter Moore talked about the future of PC and Xbox gaming. He reiterated an earlier statement the company had made saying they were culpable in the decline of PC gaming. In response to that, Moore says the company is planning a PC gaming renaissance through the Vista Operating System. He also talked about the success of the Xbox Live system. From that article: "He said there have been 4 million pieces of content downloaded from Xbox Live since launch. He talked about Xbox Live Arcade and the success of the try-before-you-buy model. He used the example of Geometry Wars (pictured), for which 36 percent of consumers who downloaded the demo bought the game. The average Xbox Live Arcade conversion is 20 percent, with the lowest conversion rate for a game being 10 percent."

Comments

One picture is worth 1000 words

[serutan]

Wow, take a look at Peter Moore's photo in the article. Obviously a free-wheeling, devil-may-care kind of guy who knows how to put the FUN back in Accounts Receivable! With him behind the joystick I bet we can expect an average 23.6% net gain in player satisfaction over the next fiscal biennium (inflation adjusted).

Wait...

[Golias]

Vista is just the next version of Windows, right?

How is a new version of windows going to make the all the non-Madden EA games not suck?

How is a new version of windoes going to result in a new FPS that is anything other than an even-more-prettied-up revision of Quake?

How is a new version of windows going to do away with level grind and moster farming in MMORPGs?

Shenanigans! Shenanigans!

Re:Wait...

[drinkypoo]

You keep your modem in the wall? How do you see das blinkenlichten?

Re:Wait...

[Osty]

But hey, you need the HDTV graphics, fast processor, and expensive components for... what was that successful launch title again? Oh yeah, Geometry Wars

For what it's worth, Geometry Wars is deceptively complex. The background consists of 60,000 nodes in a weak gravitational balance, the calculations for which consume an entire core. The total number of enemies on screen can be enormous, and though they're relatively simple both in geometry and AI the sheer number of them is quite impressive. And that's not even counting all of the particles the game spawns and tracks.

You might say to yourself, "I can write that," and you probably can. But you'll quickly find out that it can take a really beefy PC to do what looks so simple on the 360. HGEWars only models some 10,000 nodes for the background grid, doesn't have all of the various enemy types, AI, and particles modelled yet (gravity wells will be a huge performance hit, given their interaction with the grid nodes), and is still very performance-intensive. Surely that's due in part to being very early in development, but then GW:RE apparently only took some 3 months to write in the first place.

Upgrades, schmupgrades

[garrett714]

From TFA: "He said that Vista would drive PC upgrades..."

This is just what we need, an OS that forces you to upgrade your hardware for it to run efficiently. Great job Microsoft!

...which would help game sales (Windows game sales), and gave an impressive demonstration of how Vista improves the gaming experience through better file organization.

They plan on improving the gaming experience through better file organization? What?

Re:Upgrades, schmupgrades

[oldwolf13]

If you will recall, when windows 95 came out, it's requirements drove people to upgrade their hardware, which in turn sent the prices down a lot (especially RAM). Although this sucked when you HAD to upgrade to get it to run decently, in the long run, it benefited all of us. I don't know if you remember RAM prices before that, but it was huge. I remember paying $400 for 16 megs.

Nowadays though, I don't think it can knock prices down as much of course (if at all). I will fight this upgrade as long as I can, just like I did XP, until games finally won me over (they seem to run better under XP).

Then again, maybe it'll knock down the ridiculously high price required to purchase video cards capable of running 3D games at a decent resolution/framerate. The last nvidia card (I got burned on) I bought for around $200 (CND) was such a piece of shit and couldn't run anything (Geforce 5600 XT). Part of that was my fault though, as I assumed XT was a higher version then just plain 5600. Although I am still mad at nvidia for their fucked up naming conventions. The card I had before this was a ti4200 8x, which was a hell of a card for the time, at basically the same price. Incidently, the ti4200 outperforms the 5600xt by quite a margin.

I do have a radeon 9800 Pro as well, which cost me a small fortune ($400 CND), which is now showing it's age, and I have no idea which way I'd go to get better performance without costing an arm and a leg. I think both Nvidia and ATI are releasing too many products these days, with too many different naming conventions intentionally so they can confuse the buyers.

anyways, hopefully vista will make better video cards come out cheaper.

Re:MSN, Xbox, PC Gaming Timeline

[sexyrexy]

Console market for the most part rejects the Xbox It's not nearly as popular as the Playstation, but I fail to see how a rougly 25-30% market share equals "market rejection". Second place worldwide in overall units sold is not "market rejection" either. I'm not saying the Xbox is the greatest thing ever, but one ought to give credit where it's due. [http://www.gamespot.com/news/2004/05/26/news_6099 369.html?new_theme=standard_alt&sid=6099369%5D