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How 'Games for Windows' Will Change PC Gaming
Joystiq has a short piece up talking with Windows (GFW) Marketing Director Kevin Unangst and PR Manager Michael Wolf about the future of the 'Games for Windows' initiative. With the launch of Vista, Microsoft is making a big push to turn PC games into a 'console-like' cohesive brand. Instead of relying on the good name of individual publishers to sell titles, Redmond is requiring that all titles use similar packaging and a distinctive logo. Along with the new gamer-centric features in Vista, and the tie-in to Xbox 360 with 'Live Anywhere', this is meant to reinvigorate the PC games market for the sometimes not-so-savvy consumer. From the article: "By making gaming a priority in the Vista experience, Microsoft is molding a powerful pairing of the Games for Windows and Xbox 360 brands. To some extent, this is based on a hope that Live Anywhere will be embraced by GFW developers and publishers, pulling Xbox Live (and your Gamertag) outside of the 'Box, in turn encouraging an unrivaled virtual community. But there are simpler touches that also spark our interest. For example, start up Vista's Minesweeper, connect your 360 controller, and enjoy a subtle rumble each time you slip up. It's the melding with the familiar that will drive new and lost consumers to the Games for Windows brand."
Forget Minesweeper, I want multiplayer solitaire with voice chat.
But ultimately that would just turn PC gaming into second-rate consoles.
Personally I'd like to see the exact opposite -- PC gaming that is more appropriate for a PC. For instance windowed gaming: There are a tremendous number of games that can only play in fullscreen mode, yet I like the ability to hop between applications without a time sucking, crash-inducing schism, not to mention that I like to see all of my other windows.
"Trust us."
This is yet another tactic from Microsoft to discourage the development of multi-platform titles by tying games to Windows even more.
Part of the hardcore faithful who believed in Apple long before it was cool again to do so
Of course MS wants to emphasize gaming on their OS. Many people, myself included, would never touch Windows again if it weren't for the games... But I find this stupid: "To earn the GFW brand, a title must comply with certain Microsoft-tested specifications, including ... compatibility with the Xbox 360 controller."
Another example of MS bullying game publishers to adopt its standards. Do all PC gamers have an Xbox or like its controller? Why not other PC-only gamepads that might work better? Besides, what true gamer would limit their FPS experience with a friggn' console controller?
But simplifying install (and uninstall) and system reqs makes sense. Too bad it took so damn long.
This is your wake up call. MS intends to leverage their OS monopoly to give themselves and advantage in the gaming console market. This also provides another layer of defense around their core, OS monopoly. This is bad news for all of you, Nintendo, Sony, and Apple. They're also trying to build out DirectX tools to make the PC and Xbox a one stop shop. This is their classic strategy and it works, unless the existing players form a good, open standards based partnership. You're all influential OpenGL houses. You all have a vested interest here. Sony has already moved towards making OpenGL models key to their gaming platform. Now is the time for all of you to abandon trying to build lock-in strategies in this field and start making a concerted effort to interoperate. Build a game development toolset that makes OpenGL games on Windows, PS3, Wii, and the Mac a single entity. Beat MS at their own game. Give Blizzard and Id a call. You've got one shot at this guys, and if you fail your media enterprises are going to be easy targets. Get to it!
Maybe a Wimote shaped like a small chair? A least Balmer would have something to throw around while he's playing.
They're not talking about those people.
Most likely, they're talking about the rapidly-growing "casual gamers" crowd.
They want a super-smooth and polished purchase, install, and play path for casual gamers. They want an experience as reliable and smooth as that of purchasing a game for a console, but for a computer with Windows installed.
On a console, the hardware is basically identical. The OS software is basically identical. The controllers are standardized, and perfectly regular.
There is never any ambiguity, in a Nintendo Wii game, about what the "(A)" button refers to, and what the "[B]" button refers to. The same on a PS2 controller, with an X, a triangle, and so on. The game developers know exactly how everything is laid out.
There are never install problems, you just put the disk in, and it works. If it doesn't work, it's because the disk is bad. There are very simple decision trees at work here.
When you're in the store, looking for the Wii games, there's no difficulty finding them. Not only are the sectioned, but all the titles have the same look and feel. Hoards of consumer psychologists have found out that Brands Work.
They want to make it possible for there to be "Windows Games," which work on Windows just like N64 games work on an N64. Platform, platform, platform.
It's a sensible strategy.
They're not talking about games that hard core gamers play. They're not talking about your community. They are talking about a super-fast growing market segment. Businesses love super-fast growing markets, it's where all the action in determining what the landscape will look like is. Things that don't grow are basically set in their patterns, and change is only made very slowly, unless the market is being torn apart by some obsoleting force.
Seriously? Yes, I'm a Microsoft MVP, yes I'm a software architect who specializes in Microsoft .NET technologies, yes I'm a big Windows gamer, I also have an Xbox and an Xbox 360, I'm an Xbox Live subscriber, so yes, you can call me a fanboi.
But it amazes me to see that in the eyes of so many readers here, Microsoft can do no right. Whatever they do, you'll see the glass half-empty. Sure they tried gaming on Windows before and the MPC spec too, and it did not work. It does not mean the idea is bad, it means the implementation is. Look at pen computing: since the late 80's many companies (other than Microsoft) tried to push for pen computing and failed utterly, whereas Microsoft decided to take a crack at it and was very successful with the Tablet PC. Sometimes the approach has to change, not the idea. Ask any entrepreneur, they know.
I'm happy this is coming to Games for Windows. do not need a nice box and I can easily read specs, but I also recognize that common folks (not everyone is a geek like us guys) will find it useful, and the extra testing will only help quality. And so what if Microsoft uses their Windows dominance to help the Xbox? Look at Sony... 70% of the console market and they cannot innovate beyond a faster CPU and they have such an arrogant attitude. And if Linux is supposed to be an alternative to Windows, then it needs to have what it takes. If you say "I only play on Windows because Linux has no hardware drivers and no games, it means there is no market for these. Linux still has to get a lot better for it to be used by average folks at home on their desktops. It is a great server OS, but it just does not cut it for desktops, and to beat Microsoft, you have to build something better, no destroy Redmond.
I'm open to a discussion here, but please ask yourself, is there anything that Microsoft could do as a business that would ever please you? Honestly?
If they want to pull this off, one thing they will absolutely have to do is make available for download some sort of non-geek friendly equivalent of 3DMark so that people who don't know the make and model of every component in their PC can just run a quick test and get a list of all the games they can currently run and possibly what they need in order to run LatestKillerGame 2008 or whatever, as well as hardware compatibility testing and a guided, centralized driver, BIOS, etc. upgrade system. So long as you have to know a dozen different numbers, from GPU to RAM speed to Processor family to Driver Version, as well as digging through archaic hardware manufacturer support sites and mysterious newsgroups to make sure that you don't end up with a dud even though your hardware exceeds the spec (Ubisoft / NVidia, I'm looking at you) because drivers are clashing and all involved parties are sitting on one hand and using the other to point a finger at somebody else instead of fixing it, PC gaming will simply never compare to console. Granted, I use a console maybe twice a month compared to gaming on PC nearly daily, but there's just no way in hell most of my console-gamer friends could hope to sift through the mess.
Unpleasantries.
You've nailed it right on the head. The reason why I don't even bother with PC games even though I DO have a decent graphics card is that it requires way too much tweaking and jumping through hoops to get a decent play experience. You either have to spend $500+ on a video card or wait until decent video cards are cheap before running a game well than came out 6 months ago. What developers really need to do is to make their games AWARE of the state of the computer. If a game is only running at 25FPS because HDR is on, give a cue to turn it off. What would be really nice is a to have a playtest of your system for 5 minutes or so and then have the game figure out what settings would be best to maintain 30FPS (for eye-candy) or 60FPS (for smooth framerates).