Top 20 PC Games on Windows XP

ApacheVE writes "Voodoo Extreme has up a story called Generation XP: Top 20 Games of the Last Generation. They call out some of the best games released in the Windows XP era, to mark the passing into the 'next generation' of PC gaming this past week. Some favorites include Call of Duty, Unreal Tournament 2004, Civilization IV, World of Warcraft and other titles that helped shape the era." Any titles you see missing from the list? The XP years were truly great, as far as PC titles went; how long do you think it will be before Vista has enough market penetration to make a difference in gaming?

Comments

Understated

[DogDude]

I got a used copy of Halo for my GF's XBox to see what all the hype was all about. Not only was it boring, but the graphics were terrible to the point of not being able to see what the hell you're shooting. The sound was a joke. The controls made me feel like I was perpetually drunk when I was playing, it was so sloppy. Halo was actually the worst FPS I've ever played, and luckily, I was able to return it. I don't know why people bought this piece of shit game. It was truly terrible.

Vista?

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

how long do you think it will be before Vista has enough market penetration to make a difference in gaming?

Is that a trick question?

I'm guessing there is a lot of overlap between the kind of person who buys the latest and greatest games and the kind of person who finds Vista's DRM, signal degradation, product activation, upgrade-unfriendliness and such offensive. Anyone with the dough to buy a system that can run Vista sensibly could use the same money to buy all three of the latest gen consoles, all of the big name titles for each of them, and enough takeaway for several weeks of gaming with the change. Not much of a geek/supergamer market, then.

As far as I can see, the only technical advantage Vista has over XP for most home users is DirectX 10. AFAICS, exactly no current games on the planet are anywhere near using current video hardware and DX9 to their full capabilities yet. Moreover, DirectX as a whole is a nasty vendor lock-in that's never popular with game vendors who also want to support the much larger console market (and may even be considering support for other desktop platforms, given the bad press Vista has been getting). Put that all together, and I can't see DX10 being worth more than the advertising it gives to $500 video cards that no-one can take advantage of, at least not for several years. Meanwhile, numerous compatibility problems are already being reported between big name graphics cards, drivers, and Vista. Doesn't look like the software support is going to drive Vista adoption, either.

And finally, there is simply no compelling reason for most home users to upgrade their hardware any more. Any desktop bought in the past five years is going to cope with your average e-mail, web browsing, word processing, and so on in its sleep, and most will do things like photo editing and video editing for those with digital cameras/camcorders too. In other words, while previous versions of Windows have benefitted from users buying new PCs fairly often and upgrading by default, I don't think that's going to happen to anything like the same extent in future. Games and serious multimedia editing are the only major software that might stretch a current PC (apart from running Vista, of course), and the gamers can more cheaply buy a console, while the multimedia people are probably nervous about the artificial limitations in Vista and giving Apple a renewed interest. That pretty much rules out high uptake through the new hardware channel. Strike three, Microsoft: you're out.

So the short answer is: I doubt Vista will ever have enough penetration into the serious gaming market to make a difference.

(Final amusing anecdote, reported in local press, for the benefit of doubters: our local PC superstore opened two hours early on 30 January, so the gagging hordes could get their Vista upgrades. They sold exactly zero upgrades for Vista all day, and while Vista was supplied preinstalled on their new PCs from that date, there was no significant increase in sales of new PCs that day either.)