Microsoft Plans To Make Windows 10, Xbox One Game "Crossbuys" A Habit (pcworld.com)

Gamers who preorder Remedy's upcoming Xbox One game, Quantum Break, will receive a free digital copy for Windows 10 PCs -- a "crossbuy" strategy that Microsoft's Xbox chief plans to make a "platform feature" of the gaming console.

Behind the scenes, Microsoft has worked to tie its Windows 10 and Xbox One operating systems closer together, sharing features and data. The Xbox One includes versions of Skype and Microsoft Edge, and Microsoft has said that universal apps written for Windows 10 can theoretically run on the Xbox One, as well as Windows 10 PCs and Windows 10 Mobile phones. Eventually, Microsoft envisions a world where PC and Xbox One gamers will drift between platforms, and where gamers on each platform will be able to compete with one another.

Comments

In related news: Steam

[blind biker]

I bet the news will motivate Steam to port even more games to Linux. And who knows, we might see some Linux-only blockbuster exclusives soon.

Re:In related news: Steam

[Anonymous Coward]

A game can't be a blockbuster and Linux exclusive. The simple fact of tiny marketshare ensures this is simply not a possibility at the moment and the only way a company would do this is if Steam gave them massive funding (10's of millions) which I doubt is on the cards given how poorly steamboxes have done.

Re:In related news: Steam

[Dutch Gun]

You know, even as a Windows user, I'm happy Linux is getting more games, but let's please not kid ourselves. A Linux-only blockbuster exclusive is right up there with "year of the desktop" wishful thinking. Windows still has 95% of the desktop market, or something thereabouts. Its only real competition is other platforms which are eating up previously desktop-exclusive functions. The closest we'll get to a Linux-exclusive AAA game in the near future is if it's released exclusively on Android.

Anyhow, the notion of different platforms competing against each other ignores a pretty obvious issue that gamers and most game designers have known forever. It's not a technical limitation that restricts PC games and console gamers from playing together. It's a difference in control hardware, which ends up making console and PC games very different games with respect to control schemes, and thus game design. For instance, pit a PC FPS player against a console player, and everyone knows who's going to generally have a huge advantage. Same thing with a RTS. It's not a knock against consoles - it's just a reality that a mouse and keyboard is a far more precise and flexible input device, so has a massive advantage in most cross-platform play that's geared to those devices.

And as far as making cross-platform games... again, the biggest hurdle is not really technical, assuming you're working with a decently designed game engine. It's one of adapting the game design to different form factors and control schemes. My game engine is written in *very* portable C++, with just a very thin layer for OS-specific stuff. It's actually pretty straightforward to port it to new platforms, so long as they have comparable APIs for rendering video and audio, etc.

Don't get me wrong, I like the idea of cross-buying games across platforms. Many Steam games already do this, so I'm glad they're joining the party.

Re:In related news: Steam

[blind biker]

A game can't be a blockbuster and Linux exclusive.

At the moment.
Sure, if I had to bet, I'd bet on Windows becoming the de-facto software marketplace, and Microsoft eventually crushing Steam and all the non-Windows game development. But still, Steam and Linux have a chance. Not an insignificant one, either.

Re:In related news: Steam

[Blaskowicz]

What about a linux game that ships with compatibility libraries for Windows :). We could even inflict things like a version of Pulseaudio on Windows. Linux users who can't run the linux version on linux will be able to try to run that mess in Wine.

Re:In related news: Steam

[Woldscum]

I wish but it will not. This is only a move to sell more Xbox Ones. The sale numbers are more than in the toilet. Destiny is the only must have game on the Xbox and it is also on PS4.

Re:In related news: Steam

[interval1066]

I hope that happens, I would love to be able to play name brand games on Linux, Windows 10 isn't a habit, its a necessity for most games. A habit I'm loath to have, but there it is.

Re:In related news: Steam

[interval1066]

The sale numbers are more than in the toilet.

Are they? I know they were low but I figured the numbers would pick up over time.

Re: In related news: Steam

[tysonedwards]

Here's what people need to remember... If a studio releases a title for PlayStation 4, they're basically there on a Linux port. They just need a market to justify the QA effort and an assertion that engaging in that QA effort would lead to increased sales over remaining on a more limited number of platforms.

Re: In related news: Steam

[Pseudonym]

If a studio releases a title for PlayStation 4, they're basically there on a Linux port.

Not really, no. The PS4 runs a variant of FreeBSD, but that's not the most important distinction. The most important difference between PS4 and Linux is that on the PS4 you can be sure that all the drivers are well-supported.

Re: In related news: Steam

[Anonymous Coward]

According to most they are above the 360s at the same point in time. They just look bad next to the ps4 and its super high sales.

Re:In related news: Steam

[dimko]

And there is a very good chance it(DX12) won't become one. Vulkan can do pretty much same thing, but also works on Mac, Linux, Android, Iphone, and PS4 and others. It will be released very soon and some big players are already developing engines on it or said will do it as soon as it's released.(any week now it will be released) A few years ago people were sceptical about Linux gaming, now I play Grid Autosport on Steam Controller, and ALL OF THAT is native. And oh boy I like steam controller, and I am a PC gamer! No words can explain how sceptical I was at start.

Re:In related news: Steam

[Anonymous Coward]

Curb your enthusiasm. Microsoft will figure out a way to crush non-Windows gaming. They have essentially unlimited resources and will use any means available to protect their revenue stream.

They've done it in the past and will do it again. It's in their DNA (and shareholder's interest).

Captcha: pummel

Re:In related news: Steam

[Woldscum]

Last holiday 2015. PS4 sold 35M. Xbox did 15M. I read some where it is 2 to 1 on total sales. PS4 has games people want to plan. Xbox not so much. Halo 5 was a flop.

Re: In related news: Steam

[scdeimos]

I'll let you in on a little secret: what host operating system is used is not a pressing issue for most game developers.

File system access APIs are probably the least critical item on the road map. The biggest problem is the graphics API. Windows favours DirectX, most linuxes favour OpenGL, OS X tends towards OpenGL as well. PlayStation 4, on the other hand, uses Sony's proprietary GNM and GNMX APIs to get access to the custom silicon in the GPU. While PS4's use of GDDR5 is great for on-GPU operations the bandwidth between the system and GPU is atrocious and leads to a whole slew of different performance tuning issues and considerations than you'd see on desktop system. Once you have your engines nailed down on each platform most work goes into tweaking assets to keep graphics performance consistent.

Re:In related news: Steam

[kuzb]

Not until open source devs start taking he general market seriously enough to up their game. They're still making the shittiest most unfriendly UIs out of all the OSes. Even android, arguably the most user friendly Linux distro, had to be made from the ground up with a strong focus on UI.

That's really the problem though. Linux users want to rule the desktop world, but they don't want to "dumb down" the OS so it's usable by regular people. Make a decision, you can't have it both ways.

Re:In related news: Steam

[kuzb]

If it runs like shit on Windows, the game will fail. End of story.

You need to stop thinking like a clueless zealot and start coming to terms with the fact that the average gamer runs Windows and will likely never switch because there is no reason to. He doesn't give a hot shit about your ranting, he just wants his games to run well.

If Linux wants the gamer market they need to have a compelling reason to get people to want to use it. Features or performance gamers can't live without. So far, Linux has none of these things while at the same time creating a high barrier to entry via an unfriendly community and an OS that is a pain in the ass to make work the way you want it to.

Re:In related news: Steam

[kuzb]

They aren't. He's just a clueless idiot that wishes something Microsoft-made would fail.

Re:In related news: Steam

[Anonymous Coward]

For instance, pit a PC FPS player against a console player, and everyone knows who's going to generally have a huge advantage. Same thing with a RTS. It's not a knock against consoles - it's just a reality that a mouse and keyboard is a far more precise and flexible input device, so has a massive advantage in most cross-platform play that's geared to those devices.

Now you've done it. Let's see how long it takes an idiot ignorant of skill ceiling and skill floor to come in and start ranting about kbm being 'easy mode.'

Re:In related news: Steam

[Anonymous Coward]

Not until GNOME devs start taking he general market seriously enough to up their game. They're still making the shittiest most unfriendly UIs out of all the OSes.

Fixed that for you. KDE seems pretty usable. Lately though Linux and GNU seem to just have a bunch of junk nobody wants, or needs, or even really has the time to wade through.

Re:In related news: Steam

[Anonymous Coward]

Curb your enthusiasm. Microsoft will figure out a way to crush non-Windows gaming. They have essentially unlimited resources and will use any means available to protect their revenue stream.

They've done it in the past and will do it again. It's in their DNA (and shareholder's interest).

Captcha: pummel

There's still Sony and Nintendo consoles. And if the day ever comes that all non-Windows gaming is gone, then either Microsoft will have completely walked back their privacy invasions of Windows 10, complete with the removal of everyone in the company who worked on that or approved that, or I will walk away from gaming forever. Freedom is more important than a telescreen, comrade.

Re:In related news: Steam

[antdude]

Yeah, Portal 3 and Half-Life 3 for Linux first. Imagine that.

Re:In related news: Steam

[Anonymous Coward]

Uhh, Android is the most widely used OS in the world. Guess what? It's Linux.

Re: In related news: Steam

[Anonymous Coward]

Lol, you actually think customers want freedom.

So cute.

Wake me up when people stop buying i things and consoles.

Re:In related news: Steam

[Anonymous Coward]

A game can't be a blockbuster and Linux exclusive.

Sure it can.

Three words:

Half
Life
Three.

Re:In related news: Steam

[CronoCloud]

Mouse aiming IS easy mode. The guys who played pre-mouse-aming FPS games called it that themselves.

Re:In related news: Steam

[CronoCloud]

It's not a technical limitation that restricts PC games and console gamers from playing together. It's a difference in control hardware, which ends up making console and PC games very different games with respect to control schemes, and thus game design.

I think you're referring to "competitive FPS games" because PC and console players DO play together already in other genres. Besides, there's nothing stopping a console game from supporting multiple methods of control and I have several console games that DO.

For instance, pit a PC FPS player against a console player, and everyone knows who's going to generally have a huge advantage.

Yeah in a "headshot from a mile away centric" FPS, but there are multiple types of FPS. But I'd take analog movement over WASD any day of the week, so I like hybrid control methods and prefer using them when supported. In that instance you use an an analog stick to move, but a mouse to aim.

But then again, in a vehicle game...well the WASD players are going to have trouble.

Same thing with a RTS

Which is funny, because the first RTS was a console game.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

That was the game that inspired Westwood's Dune II...which was also released on the Genesis..

  RTS as a genre was invented to create a faster paced strategy game that would appeal to more console players than the turned based Romance of the Three Kingdoms style games. Base-centric RTS where you don't need to micromanage every individual unit work fairly well on consoles. However recent RTS go for APM obsessed actiony micromanage-y RTS game market instead.

Though every console RTS I own has mouse support as an option.

 

Re:In related news: Steam

[malditaenvidia]

Sure, if I had to bet, I'd bet on Windows becoming the de-facto software marketplace, and Microsoft eventually crushing Steam and all the non-Windows game development.

It's worth mentioning that this strategy they're trying to pull with Quantum Break (console and Windows 10 exclusive, not available on other versions) is something they've already tried. Halo 2 for Windows Vista had its fair share of issues, but it certainly didn't help promote the platform, or gained any sympathizers. I wonder what possessed them to try the same strategy again,

Re:In related news: Steam

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean just like how they figured out the smartphone business and ended up losing over 10 Billion?

Microsoft isn't relevant anymore and the days of Microsoft "figuring" something out are long over.

Re:In related news: Steam

[Anonymous Coward]

*GNU/Linux

Re: In related news: Steam

[Anonymous Coward]

If PS4 is a FreeBSD variant and Mac OSX is a FreeBSD variant, maybe the two should unite to counter this Microsoft move. Imagine a PS4 (or PS5) that can run OSX (or some future version) or at least tightly integrates with some of the Apple ecosystem.

* Better games for the Apple ecosystem.
* Garageband and other Apple apps on the Playstation.
* Playstation store on Apple devices.
* Apple store/iTunes on Playstation.
* Maybe tighter integration to play/stream Playstation games to the iPad/iPhone.

I'm sure /. can come up with other ideas.

Re:In related news: Steam

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you have the terms "blockbuster" and "vaporware" mixed up.

Re:In related news: Steam

[JohnStock]

"but also works on Mac, Linux, Android, Iphone, and PS4 and others" Sounds nice, but in reality the numbers will still be substantially less than Windows PCs and XBONE running DX12. It's only the the Linux crowd that gives a shit about Vulcan who are desperately to stay relevant.

Re:In related news: Steam

[dimko]

ROFL, you don't know what you are talking about. So wrong on so many levels, pls troll someone who doesn't have a clue ;)

Re:In related news: Steam

[Anonymous Coward]

I guessed you missed the fact that Valve, the world's largest PC games company, is backing Linux.

Where Steam goes, gamers go.

Re: In related news: Steam

[Blaskowicz]

That's like suggesting that Gnome 3 and Android should unite because they run on top of some linux.

* Better games for Gnome 3
* Gnome Clocks, Gedit 3 and other Gnome applications on Android
* Google store on Gnome 3
* Systemd on Android
* Maybe tighter integration of Candy Crush clones to Gnome 3's dconf-editor.

I am not fundamentally opposed to it.

Re:In related news: Steam

[Ranbot]

I bet the news will motivate Steam to port even more games to Linux. And who knows, we might see some Linux-only blockbuster exclusives soon.

Slashdot's starry-eyed Linux users are so cute.

Instead of developing games for a nearly insignificant fraction of the market, it's more likely this would motivate Valve/Steam to develop console-like devices so people can play PC games on their living room TVs. Oh wait, they are already doing that!

Re:In related news: Steam

[Onuma]

And oh boy I like steam controller, and I am a PC gamer! No words can explain how sceptical I was at start.

Likewise. I really enjoy the steam controller for a variety of games. As an alternative, I run it through a Steam Link so as to play it on my den's TV. My entire playthrough of Fallout 4 was using this controller, along with a bunch of other recent games. Once you get used to it, it's quite nice to have the option of reprogramming everything precisely the way you want it.

I'm still mixed about the Steam Link, as it tends to eat into the performance of the linked PC, so you need a more robust machine to remotely play a graphically-demanding game, and you can't set the screen saver to not time out while viewing videos via the web browser (a la watching Netflix)...but for $50, I can't really say it was a bad purchase. That's less than an annual subscription for XBLG,which I would primarily use to watch Netflix or Amazon Prime anyway.

The other controller I would like to try is the XB1 Elite. From all accounts, they made a really solid, precise, customizeable controller which may actually be worth its asking price, if it has the durability it seems to have.

Too much gathering and sharing "data"

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft has worked to tie its Windows 10 and Xbox One operating systems closer together, sharing features and data.

I don't see that as a feature. Microsoft to me has become a house guest who's overstayed his welcome, and surreptitiously bugged my home while he was staying there. I'm kicking him to the curb.

Re: Too much gathering and sharing "data"

[corychristison]

I switched to Linux in the early 2000's. Never looked back.

I understand there are hurdles for the average user to understand the differences in operating systems, but I've yet to find a situation that I can't do a specific task under Linux, and would requir Windows. I do consider myself a power user, possibly more as I also develop software with open source technologies.

Linux really has come a long way. I suggest trying Linux Mint if you haven't recently.

Re: Too much gathering and sharing "data"

[bloodhawk]

I use both Linux and Windows at home. Linux really is not an option for gamers, at least not yet.

Re: Too much gathering and sharing "data"

[blind biker]

I have no problems using Linux. I've been a Linux user since 1995. The problem is applications. Without Word, Solidworks and a few others, I am dead in the water.

Re: Too much gathering and sharing "data"

[Anonymous Coward]

specific task? try "play the latest games"

Re: Too much gathering and sharing "data"

[Anonymous Coward]

strange post given we are talking about gaming which is one of the specific tasks that still sucks donkey balls on Linux.

Re: Too much gathering and sharing "data"

[Opportunist]

It actually depends on your taste in games.

If you're after the latest games in terms of graphics and AAA-titles, then yes. Since I myself am more an indie-gamer, Linux is definitely becoming more of an option.

Re: Too much gathering and sharing "data"

[Dutch Gun]

You know, every time I try to seriously use Linux, I end up hitting a brick wall of some sort. A few years ago, it was a driver issue that accelerated my laptop's pointer to about 10x faster than I could control, and this was on the lowest setting. Could never figure it out after half a day's research and tinkering, and that was enough for me. Off it went.

My latest attempt was with Linux Mint (which I really like, btw) in a VM. The most up-to-date version w/ Cinnamon crashes immediately on startup, so I have to use an older version (not a confidence-inspiring start). Initially, my machine connected to my NAS share fine using Samba. Unfortunately, Mercurial can't actually seem to lock files (Windows and Mac have no issues), so I can't push patches to the NAS shared repository, which I use to sync my development machines. Setting up an actual web-based repository - the recommended approach - doesn't look trivial for a Linux noob. Then, my network connection to my NAS disappeared (maybe after an update? not sure), and it won't come back for anything. It's just gone, and a few hours of research and tinkering hasn't brought it back. I looked at trying an alternative protocol (NFS), but had no luck figuring out how to get that to work either. Very frustrating.

This is how my experience with Linux goes. Every few years I get a hankering to try it, get beaten back by glitches, and think "ok, maybe I'll try again in a few years."

Re: Too much gathering and sharing "data"

[joseph.m.mcgrath]

AutoCAD. Solid Works. Good CAM software. Quick Books. Games.

Re: Too much gathering and sharing "data"

[Anonymous Coward]

There are quite a few games on Linux these days but for a traditional PC gamer it's still not a serious option.

You are limiting yourself to a tiny subset of the games that can run on the same hardware. Nobody who cares about games more than the OS that runs them is going to put up with that crap. Quality is a huge issue too. My steam library has over 100 Linux-compatible games and yet less than a handful actually run without glitches or crashes.

Re: Too much gathering and sharing "data"

[Anonymous Coward]

Telemetry. Keyloggers. Spyware. Good viruses. Blue screens.

Re: Too much gathering and sharing "data"

[Ol Olsoc]

I switched to Linux in the early 2000's. Never looked back.

I understand there are hurdles for the average user to understand the differences in operating systems, but I've yet to find a situation that I can't do a specific task under Linux, and would requir Windows.

I have exactly one program that requires Windows. SmartSDR, which controls a Software defined radio that I have. So I run Windows 7 in bootcamp, and have a W10 computer I'm testing.

The exciting thing is there is some software in beta for the radio on OSX that I'm testing. I managed 4 years Windows free and loving it. I'll raise a glass of Patron if I can kick it again soon. Now if a Linux version comes out, I'll drain the bottle.

Re: Too much gathering and sharing "data"

[Ol Olsoc]

I have no problems using Linux. I've been a Linux user since 1995. The problem is applications. Without Word, Solidworks and a few others, I am dead in the water.

I needed cross platform compatibility, so that makes Word a non-starter. If a document prepared in word on a Windows machine breaks when you take it to Mac - it's a big fail

Re: Too much gathering and sharing "data"

[joseph.m.mcgrath]

Yeah there is shitty stuff too. Don't see what your you're trying to say.

Re: Too much gathering and sharing "data"

[Jack Griffin]

Very frustrating.

This is how my experience with Linux goes. Every few years I get a hankering to try it, get beaten back by glitches, and think "ok, maybe I'll try again in a few years."

This is me too. I'm typing this on my Linux Mint laptop which I find a bit of a pig. It works ok as a web/email machine but even youtube makes it fall over (it used to be Win7 and never had a problem).
I've been using Linux on and off since it was invented. It's good for servers where you can customise it down to app specific functions only so make it efficient and secure, but for the desktop uniformity is a big plus, which Linux on the desktop will never have. There's too many distros, too many variations of each distro, too many interfaces and apps that all do similar things but not quite, and there's no consistency across any of it.

Re: Too much gathering and sharing "data"

[Anonymous Coward]

in gaming for Linux to fulfill your needs you need to be into old stuff or be a pretty niche gamer. Linux is NOT becoming more of an option, it is still a complete non option for any serious gamer.

Re: Too much gathering and sharing "data"

[Billly Gates]

You know, every time I try to seriously use Linux, I end up hitting a brick wall of some sort. A few years ago, it was a driver issue that accelerated my laptop's pointer to about 10x faster than I could control, and this was on the lowest setting. Could never figure it out after half a day's research and tinkering, and that was enough for me. Off it went.

My latest attempt was with Linux Mint (which I really like, btw) in a VM. The most up-to-date version w/ Cinnamon crashes immediately on startup, so I have to use an older version (not a confidence-inspiring start). Initially, my machine connected to my NAS share fine using Samba. Unfortunately, Mercurial can't actually seem to lock files (Windows and Mac have no issues), so I can't push patches to the NAS shared repository, which I use to sync my development machines. Setting up an actual web-based repository - the recommended approach - doesn't look trivial for a Linux noob. Then, my network connection to my NAS disappeared (maybe after an update? not sure), and it won't come back for anything. It's just gone, and a few hours of research and tinkering hasn't brought it back. I looked at trying an alternative protocol (NFS), but had no luck figuring out how to get that to work either. Very frustrating.

This is how my experience with Linux goes. Every few years I get a hankering to try it, get beaten back by glitches, and think "ok, maybe I'll try again in a few years."

Here here.

The rapid anti Windows 10/8 on slashdot has many users screaming the world is coming to an end and I am switching to LINUX!

In reality I experienced the opposite by 2011 and gave up. Back then Windows 7 was amazing and aero was everything I wished gnome 2 would turn into when gnome3 came out :-( At the time I never had the wildest claim that MS would ever release a bad GUI so Windows fanboy I became after years and years of anti MS hatred.

What the changed me was my exwife. She said get this garbage off your system and go get a better job. I said excuse me?? She said her Vista works just fine but funny how I can't ever get Linux to just work. I went on saying WINDOWS SUX LINUX RUX etc etc. She claimed well how is it that you re-install that OS each time an update comes and xorg breaks? How about that time you tried to get ngnix working and forget how to fix it? Sigh

She was right. I was a freebsd fan at 1st and felt Linux to be more grown than designed and after 10 years gave up on Linux.

Folks I know this is a pro Linux website and I am serious not a troll as I read my posts from 2002 threatening to leave IT forever if Windows Server takes :-) ... but, let's face it. Why do people need to be liberated? Windows most of the time is reliable and works thanks to NT/XP replacing 98. The 1990s are long long over and MS is not based on DOS anymore people! If you haven't ran Windows in 15 years this maybe surprising but for gamers like my exwife she wants ventrillo and World of warcraft to always work and not have an update break something or use a hack in WINE.

The only arguments I hear is spyware (but you all run smart TV's and use Android phones and Chrome) , reliability (Windows is more reliable on the desktop for about 10 years now), GUI (Windows 10 is fine and it is fear of change and familiarity). It is the same start menu but the icons now are more animated. OMG END OF THE WORLD. So take the tiles off and bam you got XP style start menu again.

I love FreeBSD and yes Linux. No really it has it's use as VM for development work and for certain servers. But I hate it on the desktop. I prefer Windows or MacOSX for the desktop and Unix for the Vm's. Let's face it who the hell wants to replace Excel, Witchers 3, and Photoshop for OpenOffice, TuxRacer, and the Gimp or kIllustrator? You love screwdrivers and that is fine. But hammers are needed too

Re: Too much gathering and sharing "data"

[Billly Gates]

Yeah there is shitty stuff too. Don't see what your you're trying to say.

What do you want to make a bet that AC has an Android phone and typed that from Chrome :-)

Viruses and bsod are so last decade since Windows is NT based now. But I suppose if you have not run Windows since 1999 you think Win98SE which is a dos shell based is how the world still runs where people need to re-image every 6 months and crashes 3 times a day because that is what they remember.

Re: Too much gathering and sharing "data"

[Kjella]

Usually it's because they're rebuilding the plane while it's airborne, some major subsystem or critical application is always in massive change with regressions. The distros try but with tens of thousands of packages it's pretty hopeless to cherry pick stable versions of everything. It's not going anywhere until they manage to take over the apps though. For example I've heard it said many times here that Office/Outlook was pretty much "done" around 97/2003 and yet here we are in 2016 and they still dominate the business world. Say what you want about the number of games on Steam, the number of gamers is 0.95% (-0.01%) on the last survey. It was cool to see same day support for XCOM 2 though I'm on Windows now, gives me hope at least. Now if only someone could get GTA V working under WINE maybe I'd care to try again.

Re: Too much gathering and sharing "data"

[Anonymous Coward]

Linux is massively overrated and that's why I stopped using it. But defending the Windows 10 GUI? If I don't like it, it's fear of change? OK.

I just swapped your car's pedals and inverted the dashboard, and the fuel cap is now under the left wheel. Quit being afraid of change and adapt.

Re: Too much gathering and sharing "data"

[corychristison]

I don't play video games.

I go outside. You know, that place that has higher than 4K resolution graphics everywhere, and you can physically interact with people?

Re: Too much gathering and sharing "data"

[Anonymous Coward]

Re. Linux Mint in VM: I had Cinnamon crashes too. The MATE DE works fine, though, with the current version of Mint. This is in Virtualbox, on both an older Win7 desktop (Core2) and a Win10 laptop (old i5). I'm not expecting much, though, because on the laptop at least I can only give the VM 1.75 GB of RAM. Since there are alternative DEs, Mint apparently doesn't feel the need to puzzle out what's happening with Cinnamon, at least not quickly. So far, it looks interesting, but I'll probably upgrade to Win10 on the computers in regular use anyway keeping the VMs for odd stuff and continuing to mess with Linux - too many things (games and otherwise) that are Windows-only (no fully functional alternative) and so far haven't been proven to work in Wine.

So, as usual, Linux is interesting, promising, works for many things, but not ready for prime time on the desktop due to Windows lock-in for certain applications and games. Too bad. Feels like the old line about fusion power being 20 years out, and has been for the last 50 years; Linux on the desktop is still not for Ordinary Users.

Re: Too much gathering and sharing "data"

[Anonymous Coward]

LibreOffice is actually a very good substitute for MS Office in a non-big-business environment. Very compatible with MS, in fact in some ways MORE compatible than MS. And oh yes it runs very nicely in Windows as well as Linux, and is usually available in a more current version for Windows than for Linux unless you're building things yourself. But for those who need absolute compatibility in every way for current and very recent versions, there is no substitute for real MS Office in Windows.

Your note about Win10 -> XP start menu. Not quite, but close. I have it locked down (in a tester machine) to where it looks and works like Win7 without the power management and networking crashes. Generally acceptable, with the proviso that you do have to be prepared to watch it carefully and revisit your settings periodically, as some updates seem to change things back to defaults without telling you about it. But then with the current push for Win10 upgrades those who want to stick with Win7 and (why??) Win8 have similar issues. And Linux seems to have updates that break things more often, in some ways, than Windows these days.

So as you say, horses for courses. Linux for the desktop is tempting, but Windows is still just that little bit better from a non-tech user perspective. But even MS has been said to use Linux for backend servers in some cases.

Re: Too much gathering and sharing "data"

[Anonymous Coward]

The distros try but with tens of thousands of packages it's pretty hopeless to cherry pick stable versions of everything.

Mint is based on Ubuntu and if my memory serves me right I used Ubuntu for a year for the single reason that it would have "current" packages when Debian stable "only" provided 2 year old versions with security patches. Turns out it is quite a bit harder to cherry pick stable software when you spend only minimal time testing it. Now back on Debian Sid ( a.k.a. untested ) since I already know how to fix a half broken Linux system anyway.

Re: Too much gathering and sharing "data"

[bingoUV]

The only arguments I hear is spyware (but you all run smart TV's and use Android phones and Chrome) , reliability (Windows is more reliable on the desktop for about 10 years now), GUI (Windows 10 is fine and it is fear of change and familiarity). It is the same start menu but the icons now are more animated. OMG END OF THE WORLD. So take the tiles off and bam you got XP style start menu again.

1. Spyware : Why would people cribbing about spyware in Windows use smart TVs? Android phones run cyanogenmod with Xprivacy nicely - and Google's shit can be culled once and for-all, and important security updates on cyanogenmod don't reinstall Google's shit unless you block 153 Google hostnames / IP addresses. Firefox still beats Chrome in privacy enhancement and tree-style-tabs add-ons - and on Linux the performance problems of Firefox are nearly non-existent.

2. Reliability : Does it yet shut down unmounting all file-systems reliably in 3 seconds, without different applications calling attention to themselves when you are trying to shut down your computer. Does it have reliable update mechanism for most of the applications one is likely to use - and doesn't depend on the application having write permission on its own executable? Because that is a horrible security escalation risk. Hell - is the alt-tab behaviour reliable yet where windows are ordered in last used order - or Microsoft reorders your windows according to its own whims every few minutes?

Do I sense the reliability of snapshotting filesystems on Windows yet? Or the reliability of simple file copy backups without other programs that opened the files prevent simple applications from copying the files at all?

3. GUI : Does Windows give you choice of changing GUI every day vs. stable GUI since 1995 (FVWM) according to your tastes? In spite of getting security updates, which are really security updates rather than "telemetry" ? Does it give you the right to fear and avoid change vs welcome change in your daily work flow without annoying pop-ups to update your work-flow to suit Microsoft?

Re: Too much gathering and sharing "data"

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't play video games.

I go outside. You know, that place that has higher than 4K resolution graphics everywhere, and you can physically interact with people?

Get over yourself. So you don't play video games, congratulations. You still have some geeky interests or you wouldn't be on Slashdot in the first place.

Besides, what makes any other hobby or pastime any better or worse than video games?

"I don't program computers. I go outside"
"I don't read books. I go outside"
"I don't play cards. I go outside"
"I don't work on cars. I go outside"
"I don't play piano. I go outside"
"I don't research my family's genealogy. I go outside"

Looking down on someone because they choose to spend their free time differently than you do just makes you an asshole. So, please, go outside, get some fresh air, and maybe get a little perspective while you're out there.

Re: Too much gathering and sharing "data"

[HalAtWork]

That's funny, whenever I try to use Windows I have a similar problem. My printer doesn't work, 7.1 surround sound card w/optical out doesn't work, TV tuner doesn't allow me to capture in as high a resolution and I get sync problems when recording with the Windows software, and on my laptop every time I want to shut down it takes half an hour for the patches to install before I can close the lid. Found this out because one day I went to use it and when I opened it up I was greeted by a message that Windows was going to shut down soon but still had 10 patches left to install. I don't want to just leave it open, I want to put it away so my kid can't get at it. It also just boots and runs more slowly in general, and all the apps I want to use are already on Linux.
 
Every once in a while I get tempted to try some game or emulator on Windows but it's just not worth the pain of hunting for drivers, finding decent apps that fill missing functionality in Windows (like proper image/video viewers, proper text file editor, proper sound recorder, etc etc), and then keeping all those apps up to date so I don't run into security issues is a pain because each has their own updater and of course doesn't update through Windows Update. Even installing some basic apps is a pain, I have to dodge the right check boxes and make sure there was nothing stealth installed or my home page wasn't changed or other *completely unrelated* crap doesn't happen.
 
This is how my Windows experience goes. Every few years I get a hankering to try it, get beaten back by glitches, and think "why did I even bother, it was just a stupid game and I have a console anyway."

Re: Too much gathering and sharing "data"

[Anonymous Coward]

She claimed well how is it that you re-install that OS each time an update comes and xorg breaks?

Because you're a moron? I haven't yet needed to reinstall my Linux system, neither for updates, nor the usual "registry slowdowns", that keeps plaguing Windows.

Originally it was a dual boot Linux / Windows 98, but I got rid of the Windows partition because I never used it. Just how many times would I have needed to reinstall Windows, if I have used that?

Re: Too much gathering and sharing "data"

[basscomm]

Linux is massively overrated and that's why I stopped using it. But defending the Windows 10 GUI? If I don't like it, it's fear of change? OK.

I just swapped your car's pedals and inverted the dashboard, and the fuel cap is now under the left wheel. Quit being afraid of change and adapt.

So, Linux is overrated because it's not Windows?

Re: Too much gathering and sharing "data"

[mattventura]

I've seen the same thing myself, although not necessarily with my own experiences. If someone installs a distro, chances are it's either going to be Unity or Gnome 3, both of which are completely awful. It just doesn't make for a good user experience to have that thrown in their face. We're at a time when most of the user-facing bugs have been/are getting ironed out, yet the popular GUIs went down the tubes. Oh well.

Re: Too much gathering and sharing "data"

[Billly Gates]

For what average Mom, teenage girl, and Joe six do not care if it reliably unmount all file systems in 3 seconds. An SSD with sleep is good enough. People do not root their phones. Your comment on telemetry is incorrect. Most are bug and security fixes and MS has been doing anonymous telemetry and so does Firefox, Chrome, and most win32 apps for half a decade now. Security? Windows 7 has ASLR, DEP, and other techiques, that Linux is playing catch up on. As MS really did suck I give Bill Gates credit for the security memo. MS has a security buddy for each project and Windows 7 and later have kernel level sandboxing and other features.

They do not want Killustrator knock offs, drivers breaking due to the lack of an ABI due to ideological reasons from Stallman, and a really stale GUI of FVWM.

They want to turn their pc on and get to work, play a game of wow, print some photos from a vacation, and go over a presentation for next week at all while it works without change for year after year reliable and consistently. Shoot you saw the XP die hards crying. Linux changed its guis many times over the same time frame.

Windows works. Sorry MS won the war before Linux became popular and Steve Jobs even admitted Microsoft won and the Mac lost hence the push for ipods, then iphones later on.

FreeBSD and Linux appliance VM's I get from turnkey linux in a hypervisor are fine. Unless you like an unusal geeky project or want to play with node.js there is no reason to run it at home. It is a different tool for a different problem.

Re: Too much gathering and sharing "data"

[Billly Gates]

She claimed well how is it that you re-install that OS each time an update comes and xorg breaks?

Because you're a moron? I haven't yet needed to reinstall my Linux system, neither for updates, nor the usual "registry slowdowns", that keeps plaguing Windows.

Originally it was a dual boot Linux / Windows 98, but I got rid of the Windows partition because I never used it. Just how many times would I have needed to reinstall Windows, if I have used that?

Since Windows 7 changes are virtualized for the registry if something unusual is detected hence the UAC prompt "Did this install properly"

Re: Too much gathering and sharing "data"

[bingoUV]

MS won, you say, but you don't have an answer to most if my points? FYI I am not a teenage girl, so what do I care what that class of users wants?

Linux never changed its GUI, you're just too ignorant to talk about it.

Re: Too much gathering and sharing "data"

[corychristison]

I've been using Gentoo since about 2004/2005. In 2010 or so I migrated to Funtoo upon buying new hardware.

Perhaps because in the early days it required you to get down and dirty and an understanding of what you are doing just to install it, I am more disciplined?

If you have to nuke your entire system just to fix X you have serious problems with your understanding of Linux.

I keep a flash drive around with SystemRescueCD (relatively) up to date, just in case. I've used it twice in the last year, and once was to perform a fresh install of Funtoo on a "micro pc" I have hooked up to my TV, the other time was this past weekend to run Memtest on my younger brothers Windows computer.

I'll let you in on a little secret... if you use Linux, and somehow break your system, boot into SystemRescueCD, mount your filesystems, chroot into your system and fix away. No reinstalls needed.

Can this be done on Windows? Absolutely not. Your choices are reinstall or buy new hardware. Both options are a huge waste of time/money.

Re: Too much gathering and sharing "data"

[Anonymous Coward]

You were talking about slashdot linux enthusiasts and now it's about average moms and teenage girls all of a sudden?

Re: Too much gathering and sharing "data"

[Anonymous Coward]

Can this be done on Windows? Absolutely not.

Just because you don't know how to do something, doesn't mean that it can't be done.

If you have problems booting Windows, it normally will still load in safe mode, where you can then fix it. If safe mode doesn't work, often you can use the system restore functionality to fix it. If neither of these options work you can get live booting versions with a bunch of tools that can be used to fix a broken system, obviously they are problematic from a copyright point of view, but that doesn't really concern me, they still do the job. Not that I really have need of it, in my experience Windows doesn't break that badly very often, likewise neither does Linux.

I'm a Linux geek, I use it almost exclusively at home, the exceptions where I use Windows at home is mostly in VMs for testing purposes, but I do still know my way around Windows.

Halo 3

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe Halo 3 and other Xbox only games will be playable on windows 10 in the near future. I really hope Microsoft delivers on this logical evolution of their operating system.

Re:Halo 3

[Anonymous Coward]

As a Wine user... maybe Halo [1] will become playable on OS X some time in the near future. The fixed addressing scheme required by its .exe is incompatible with modern operating systems using ASLR and other technologies.

In other words

[Opportunist]

Watch whether games you buy are "crossbuy" so you can avoid them. Piss-poor console ports are already a known problem, but when it becomes pretty much a requirement that whatever you want to play on your PC has to run on an anemic console, you may bet the 60 bucks that it's going to be just a crappy port with no consideration to different controls, different resolutions or different play styles than waste that money on buying the rubbish.

I'm already fed up enough with more and more games being developed for some console, then being half-assed ported to PC to cash in again without at least an afterthought on the differences of the platforms, where you can consider yourself already lucky if it's just shot controls that only make sense on a console controller but none on mouse and keyboard and you don't have to pretty much disable any semblance of networking security so you can play online.

Thanks, but no thanks.

Re:In other words

[Anonymous Coward]

The whole point is they AREN'T ports. The same code runs on both as they both run the same OS. The only thing that needs to change is input support.

Re:In other words

[im_thatoneguy]

Xbox and PS4 are both x86 PCs. If anything every console game is just a specific quality setting that's been well polished. This notion of controls being crappy is ludicrous--it's been 10 years since console controls have seen any major change for first person shooters. It's been 30 years since there's been a major change from WASD and Mouse+Keyboard. It's not like developers have to spent a ton of time refining controls these days. Some games play better or worse with a control pad. I enjoy Rocket League with a control pad and I play Fallout 4 with a control pad... and I just use an XBox One controller on the PC for both. Steam works great with a control pad. I play Battlefield 4 and TF2 with a mouse and keyboard.

Porting for Windows 10 takes nearly no work. You're developing either a DirectX12 game for Windows or you're developing a DirectX12 game for Windows. Create your art assets at multiple detail levels. Polish your shaders to run at levels that run smoothly on the XBox One. Then for the PC give people the option of cranking the settings and resolution to the Max.

I don't like to buy Xbox One games anymore because I want to also be able to play them on my laptop with a controller plugged in when I'm on a plane or in a hotel while traveling. I like to be able to play games on my PC at work during lunch. But I also would love to be able to play my same games on my Xbox at home which until recently had a better video card and cpu.

The Xbox One is just becoming one of many reference PCs like the Surface Pro line. The Xbox One Controller is now available for PC and Xbox One. The Oculus Rift is shipping with an XBox One controller. I can't see how you can defend lock-in with consoles. Why wouldn't you want to play your PC games on your XBox? Why wouldn't you want to play your Xbox games on the PC?

Re:In other words

[bloodhawk]

The idea with a single underlying OS and API is they aren't ports anymore. You write a game for one and it runs on both. Consoles nowadays are just customised and specialised PC's, gone are the days when a port was a massive undertaking.

Re:In other words

[Anonymous Coward]

perhaps because the graphics cards are at least last generation on the consoles?

Re:In other words

[Opportunist]

Ah, so there is now a good excuse that the controls suck, the resolution can't be tuned to the native resolution of the screen, the aiming is wonky, the difficulty is insulting to three year old autistic paraplegics, there are loading times where there is no sensible reason to have any since your SSD doesn't have to read BluRays and the network support needs a lot of your support to even consider making a connection.

Re:In other words

[im_thatoneguy]

perhaps because the graphics cards are at least last generation on the consoles?

Because PC games never release options to run on older graphics cards?

The PC Master Race has always run a wide variety of hardware from multiple generations, multiple operating systems and hugely diverse control sets. You could play a game like flight simulator on an ancient dinosaur of a business all-in-one or you could crank up the quality settings for the day with the latest in volumetric cloud rendering and atmospheric effects. You could play it with a keyboard, or you could play it with a full custom built cockpit featuring a yoke and pedals.

But you don't think that a game could target both older PCs and a console which is probably better than 80% of the PC customer's hardware? Give me a break.

Re:In other words

[Anonymous Coward]

Probably because you're living in magical fantasy world where games are properly optimized and polished among all different consoles and computers. Back here in reality, developers rush out and half-ass the optimization, if not stopping you from changing your config at all.

Re:In other words

[im_thatoneguy]

Why would a PC game that happens to be running on a console run badly on a PC? I've got breaking news for you: PC games also manage to run on lower spec crummy desktops. The Minimum System Requirements are usually a few generations *older* than the latest consoles. So if you're going to make a cross-release game you just make the PC version and then hardcode the resolution to "1920x1080" and the quality settings to "Textures: Good, Models: Better, Shaders:Best,Lighting: Good." And hit ship.

Also, this might surprise you but every PC Game you probably play today will work great with an Xbox One controller. Just plug it in and you're good to go. The controls don't suck.

Re:In other words

[Opportunist]

Because to run a PC game on an XBox it has to be cut down and trimmed to fit to the limitations of the console. And you don't think they'd give the PC something "extra", like, say, improved graphics, better resolution or multimonitor support.

Wasn't there even some kind of provision in the contractual requirements for console developers that they must not create a "better" version than the one on the console?

Now why would I not want that for my PC game, I wonder.

Re:In other words

[Opportunist]

Try any RTS game with your XBox controller, I dare you.

Aside of that, yes, there are actually a select few good console-to-PC ports. They're just exceedingly rare and the hit-to-miss ratio is not favorable enough to warrant risking a dime on trying to find out whether one is.

Re:In other words

[Phydeaux314]

Really? Personally, I very much enjoyed Mass Effect, Tomb Raider, Dragon Age, and Halo.

Re:In other words

[jfbilodeau]

I think that Mass Effect, Tomb Raider and Dragon Age fall more in the RPG category. Not quite the same.

Re:In other words

[Knightman]

You do know that RTS stands for "Real Time Strategy", right?

The games you have listed are FPS games that have a thin RPG veneer on them and they are not the slightest RTS in any way.

Re:In other words

[Anonymous Coward]

and when the maxium graphics assets those older generation cards can run seriously compromises what could be done on later pc's and it costs extra money to provide second textures?

Re:In other words

[Dutch Gun]

That sounds great in theory. In reality, it's not quite that simple. Many game engines are already cross platform. We already know how to do this from a technical perspective.

The real work is in mapping controls and tuning gameplay, design, interfaces, etc, to work with those different control schemes and form factors (if you're talking about different sizes). PCs also require much more work to scale properly than console games, since they can work with a very wide variety of hardware - and this tends to come with some greater QA costs for simple compatibility testing, although honestly, it's much better than it used to be.

Re:In other words

[interval1066]

Try any RTS game with your XBox controller, I dare you.

So you get the keyboard for the xbox. Maybe a third party joystick. So what?

Re:In other words

[Anonymous Coward]

What limitation are there on an XBox that don't exist on a 5 year old PC that the game already supports?

Re:In other words

[Jack Griffin]

So you get the keyboard for the xbox. Maybe a third party joystick. So what?

When you play online multi-player you get owned by all the players with a keyboard and mouse. A game-pad controller simply cannot compete with a keyboard and mouse for speed and accuracy.

Re:In other words

[im_thatoneguy]

Try any RTS game with your XBox controller, I dare you.

So in your bizzaro world you think that a cross play RTS will start with the Console version and then impose a gamepad on the desktop version?! If anything they'll start with the mouse and keyboard RTS (where RTSs actually sell well) and then slap on an awkward (and FREE) console/gamepad port.

Aside of that, yes, there are actually a select few good console-to-PC ports. They're just exceedingly rare and the hit-to-miss ratio is not favorable enough to warrant risking a dime on trying to find out whether one is.

Yes, Console/PC multiplatform games are a real hit and miss except for in the last 12 months (including but not limited to....)

Fallout 4
XCom
The Witness
Rise of the Tomb Raider
DiRT
Helldivers
Grandtheft Auto 5
The Witcher 3
Metal Gear Solid V
Ori and the Blind Forest
Oddworld: Abe's Oddyssee
Tales from the borderlands
Final Fantasy XIV
Rocket League
Project CARS ...

XCom is way better with mouse and keyboard, but guess what they released it on Xbox too and it totally worked. But who cares, it's FREE. If you don't like the Console port... play it on the PC with mouse and keyboard. If you don't like the PC Port play it on the console.

My PC is hooked up to my TV. Whether it's a console or a PC is purely semantics. Whether the XBox One is a PC or a console is completely arbitrary terminology. "Ugh ports from beige pc cases to white pc cases never work!" It makes no sense at all. If there are going to be any control problems the only place they'll ever take place is with a game like Star Craft. And there is a snowball's chance in hell that they would target the gamepad and then lazily throw in some mouse and keyboard support later.

Re:In other words

[kuzb]

The part where your ridiculous argument tends to fall apart is that most modern games still run on 5-year old hardware.

Re:In other words

[Anonymous Coward]

BULLSHIT. most game engines are NOT cross platform at all, they usually have a cross platform layer at the logic area but the real work (rendering et al) is mostly NOT cross platform and most of the work is actually still in porting. input controls while they take some work are just a tiny fraction of the work involved.

Re:In other words

[Anonymous Coward]

That theory really doesn't hold water anymore. An Xbox or Ps4 is about as powerful as a midrange PC, most games even on the PC platform don't target high end, they target mid to low end as their baseline so they have enough people that can buy and play it to make it profitable. In another couple of years then it might be true that consoles are holding games back, but that is still a ways off.

Re:In other words

[Dutch Gun]

I'm tempted not to answer a rude AC, but I'll go ahead and bite. I happen to be a professional game developer, and have worked on several different game engines at the companies I've worked for. I'm just telling you what I've seen. Or if you don't believe me, just grab a cross platform open source engine like Unreal or Unity and inspect the code yourself, and it will validate what I'm telling you.

Let me dispense with two myths: First, a very large portion of the work involved in a game engine isn't directly involved in rendering. That's just one aspect, albeit the most visible one, for obvious reasons. Most laypersons think of "rendering" when they think of "game engine", but there's a lot more that goes on under the hood.

Second, even a very large portion of rendering code is completely API/platform-agnostic if properly designed. You need a very thin layer to the D3D/OpenGL/Proprietary APIs for rendering, but in general, since pretty much all the hardware works very similarly, the APIs tend to have roughly equivalent functionality. In my own engine's graphics code, for instance, there's about 20 different modules, handling everything from primitives, line rendering, texture loading and management, particle effects, streaks, lightning, text rendering, lighting, post-proc management, and so on. Everything is communicated through a very thin API that translates the calls to native functions for the platform in question. Things get more complicated as you start optimizing, especially with consoles and the bizarre hardware of last generation, but it still generally holds true.

In general, both among professional game engines I've worked on, as well as my own engine, I'd guess that platform agnostic code accounts for no less than 95% of the code, and is completely portable across platforms, although I haven't really measured precisely.

Re:In other words

[JackAxe]

"This notion of controls being crappy is ludicrous..."

I'm guessing you only game on a gamepad? If you want an example of a modern game that has absolutely horrible controls on anything but a gamepad, look at Dragon Age: Inquisition. Its controls are absolute shit on a mouse when in combat -- the first DA has fantastic controls. Despite EAware's lies, the game was designed only for a gamepad, so when it comes to mouse controls, they are downright crap and complete afterthought. This game is one of the worst offenders, but there are plenty more that are just crappy to play on a PC, because the developers really didn't bother to test/design their game for anything but a gamepad.

And I know you're questioning the parent, I wouldn't want to play some games on an Xbox, because it doesn't support a mouse... I own multiple controller, several gamepads, a HOTAS, racing wheel, and of course a good mouse. I like using the best input for the game at hand and gamepads fit a very narrow niche compared to all the games that a mouse encompasses. And I'm getting an Oculus in July and I honestly don't need the bundled gamepad, I'd prefer if I could just trade it back in for the Touch-inputs they're releasing later on -- which is how they're intending it to be played.

Re:In other words

[thegarbz]

RTS... Mass Effect....

*faceplam*

Re:In other words

[donaldm]

Correct me if I am wrong but one thing I did not notice in the article is how Microsoft approaches the second hand market with respect to Quantum Break.

Ok let's say someone goes out and buys Quantum Break for their XBox then uses the digital download of the PC version to install on their PC. Personally I don't see any problems with this however the words "digital download" sets off alarm bells. Now say that person goes to a store that deals in second hand games and trades or sells their copy of Quantum Break, how does the store or prospective buyer know that the digital download of the game for the PC is still valid.?

Lets not get stupid arguments like "Oh he would never sell his copy". That is childish.

To me that is Microsoft harking back to the introduction of XB1 and basically having a no second hand games policy but this time they are doing it by stealth. Selling/trading Quantum Break is basically broken since you will need an access code for your PC then a prospective buyer of the second hand game has a flawed product. You could have another scenario of a buyer purchase the copy the loading the game onto their PC then getiing theor money back by selling the game but keeping the now cheaper game on the PC.

Obviously just getting a game by digital download effectively means you are locked out of trading it. I personally don't object to that but providing the media for the XB1 and a digital download for the PC effectively removes that game from the second hand market.

Re:In other words

[donaldm]

The part where your ridiculous argument tends to fall apart is that most modern games still run on 5-year old hardware.

You are sort of correct however however I will use Quantum Break as an example. You will need as the minimum System Requirements: Windows 10 (64-bit), DirectX 12, Intel Core i5 4460 2.70 GHz or AMD FX-6300 Nvidia GeForce GTX 760 or AMD Radeon R7 260x, 2GB video RAM and 8GB RAM.

Now that is fine if your 5 year old PC meets those specifications, but I somehow doubt that most older PC's will be able to play this game without an upgrade.

Re:In other words

[jmac_the_man]

To me that is Microsoft harking back to the introduction of XB1 and basically having a no second hand games policy but this time they are doing it by stealth.

Worth noting: the original plan is a better deal for the customer. MS was talking about how people who owned games could share them with a certain number of friends. So you'd need one copy among 5 friends, and two of them could be playing simultaneously. (MS gave the specific example of two friends playing online against each other.)

By contrast, you don't get shit for the trade in value of a game.

Re:In other words

[CronoCloud]

but when it becomes pretty much a requirement that whatever you want to play on your PC has to run on an anemic console

I think the issue is that it is more of a requirement that whatever you want to play has to run on some kind of anemic budget laptop. Check out the steam hardware survey sometime.

I'm already fed up enough with more and more games being developed for some console, then being half-assed ported to PC to cash in again

the PC is an afterthought due to the buying habits of PC gamers themselves. Some guy buying Skyrim for $5 on some steam Sale in 2016, isn't going to be a target customer for Bethesda. Neither are all the pirates in Eastern Europe.

Re:In other words

[CronoCloud]

Try any RTS game with your XBox controller, I dare you.

You do know that the RTS genre originated on consoles, right? And that base-centric RTS without all that silly APM obsessed "you have to micromanage every unit so you need to be hopped up on Ritalin to be a competitive tournament player" paradigm work fairly well.

So yes, I HAVE played RTS with a controller. Basically you control the mouse pointer with the joypad. You can probably find video of people playing Dune 2000, the C&C's, or Warzone 2100 on a PSone on youtube. ..

Re:In other words

[CronoCloud]

There ARE genres other than FPS's you know. And need I remind you that console and PC players ARE playing together already.

For example, War Thunder. War Thunder is a vehicle combat game (by the same guys who did IL-2) designed for accessibility to those who AREN'T Janes-reading bearded ex-military grognards. It has an "instructor" mouse flying mode for those PC users who have no desire to use a joystick. The HOTAS guys on PC consider that easy-mode and actually consider the Dual Shock users kindred spirits compared to them and tell dual shock users to join the HOTAS users in the more realistic modes of play. It also has tank combat, and the PC players realized VERY quickly that the console players adapted VERY quickly to tank combat. But War Thunder supports all control methods on ALL platforms, so yes the PS4 players can use a HOTAS (with the PS4 camera serving as a TrackIR equivalent) if they want.

There are even some PC players using gamepads, I know one guy who uses a hybrid control method for tanks on PC, using a mouse WITH a gamepad. (That's my preferred control method for some FPS games)

Re:In other words

[Opportunist]

Oh, I would love to buy games on release day. But with always-online DRM, why bother? I can't play it within the next 30-90 days anyway.

Re:In other words

[Opportunist]

Try again with some Real Time Strategy titles.

I think you conflated it with FPS titles. Which the games you mention aren't either.

Re:In other words

[Opportunist]

Yes, there are other genres than FPS and RTS. I wouldn't wanna play a platformer on a keyboard/mouse setup. Then again, I don't want to play platformer games. I want to play FPS and RTS.

And watching those genres that are at best as at home on a console as jump'n'run games are on keyboard/mouse setups being butchered to be crammed into consoles and then half-assedly ported to a sensible platform for them really pains me.

Re:In other words

[PJ6]

Why would a PC game that happens to be running on a console run badly on a PC? I've got breaking news for you: PC games also manage to run on lower spec crummy desktops. The Minimum System Requirements are usually a few generations *older* than the latest consoles. So if you're going to make a cross-release game you just make the PC version and then hardcode the resolution to "1920x1080" and the quality settings to "Textures: Good, Models: Better, Shaders:Best,Lighting: Good." And hit ship.

Also, this might surprise you but every PC Game you probably play today will work great with an Xbox One controller. Just plug it in and you're good to go. The controls don't suck.

But the controls do suck.

Remember the Diablo-style drag-and-drop inventory system introduced 20 years ago? Well for modern games, making a good inventory system is effing rocket science. Look at the inventory system in Borderlands (any version) and tell me how the hell that got out of design, let alone passed QA. Let's play Unreal Tournament (1999, 2004, or 2015 alpha) together, you with a controller, me with a mouse and keyboard, and tell me there's no difference.

For some things, the controller will ALWAYS BE SHIT.

so once again the pc will held back

[Anonymous Coward]

to being lame console ports!

Isn't there anything without spam in it?

[Anonymous Coward]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?... .. Win10 ... Win10 ... WinWin .. 10 .. .. Win10 ... WinWin .. 10 .. Win10 10 10 10 10

Bacon Beans Spam Spam Ham 10

Windows 10

Another Viking Victory!

With Win10 and Spam

Lovely!

[Anonymous Coward]

Personally, I look forward to the day when our benevolent overlords ensure that ALL game for the PC look as totally lovely as on they do on consoles! And when ALL of them will only play with controllers game controllers! And when ALL of them are appropriately easy and unchallenging both physically and mentally as all those perfect console games sold to our good friends the basement-dwelling thumb-monkeys!

Losing the Console Wars

[Anonymous Coward]

And if they weren't losing the console wars (at the moment) you wouldn't be seeing any of this (cross buy, backward compatibility, support for mkv, etc.). Just look back at their original plans for DRM - it would be a whole different world if they were winning this gen.

Plays-for-Sure!

[Anonymous Coward]

Plays-for-Sure!

They are just copying SteamPlay on Steam by Valve :)

What about the publishers?

[jfbilodeau]

Steam is having enough difficultly convincing developers to sell a game for three platform. How are developers and publisher going to gobble this up?

Steam already does it better

[jfbilodeau]

Steam already allow me to start a game on Linux, and continue playing it on my Macbook while on the road. It's another case of Microsoft playing catch-up while trying to sound innovative.

GOG is not that far behind either.

One size fits all?

[Anonymous Coward]

Are they again trying to make software that works for all the features of the lowest common denominator? Things like auto aim on a desktop game. A menu where you browse through the options instead of directly selecting them. A communication system where you can only use the microphone instead of being able to type in a chat box. Maybe make the games compatible with the phones too, so we can enjoy extremely large buttons on a 27 inch desktop screen?

Re:One size fits all?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, that's not how UWP works at all. A UWP app can include functionality it needs via "extension SDKs". It then can decide at runtime whether the APIs are available on the host or not.

Probably the most clearcut example is Win32. If you want the traditional Win32 API in your UWP program, you include the Desktop extension SDK in the project. At runtime, you can check the platform to see if the APIs are available. On a desktop PC they obviously are. Other platforms, maybe not. You decide what to do based on that check.

It'll be great if they can get it working. Notice it says "in theory," UWP apps for Windows 10 can run on the XBox and vice versa.

Artificial Dumbness simulators, to me.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, I have both 4 and 1 and all the time I change between consoles because of a exclusive game is a pain in the asss.

They tried already.

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft tried this already with the Halo franchise. They wanted to port Halo 3 to Vista(?) and got shot down by the XBox fans who said: "If you allow PC gamers using mice to compete with us Xbox gamers who are forced to use a thumbstick, we will NOT be playing online / buying the game." Guess what happened? Halo 3 and every main installment game afterward was XBox exclusive. Why? Microsoft wanted the money from XBox Live subscriptions, and Halo was / is their biggest online game for the platform.

This "Windows 10 gamers playing with console gamers" attempt will fail for the same reason. Hopefully this time it won't mean PC gamers will be left empty handed, but if you think precision accuracy VS. a thumbstick will be allowed to get off the ground, I have a bridge I'd like to sell you.....

And yet...

[Guspaz]

Last time Microsoft released a first person Halo game on PC? 9 years ago, with Halo 2, and even that was three years after the console version.

Put your money where your mouth is, Microsoft.

Cross platform license?

[clay_buster]

This sounds great. I can play games at home on my Xbox/TV and on the road on my PC. Not really sure why anyone is complaining about this.

That's nice and all but

[NotSoHeavyD3]

I'm still waiting for Windows 10 to come out of alpha testing.(Seriously it has a bug that causes the start button to not work. When this happens store apps and edge might not work either. The solution is to either create a new account or possibly reinstall windows. How the hell did that one get missed?)

Re: That's nice and all but

[Anonymous Coward]

WTF are you rambling on about?

Re: That's nice and all but

[NotSoHeavyD3]

There is literally a well known bug in Windows 10 that causes the start button to not work. (Google "windows 10 start button not working") I've been hit by the bug and at this point the only work around I could get was installing classic shell. Maybe it's me but a bug like this is so basic it should have gotten taken care during the alpha phase.(Since apparently it's existed since then.) It's hard for me to not complain since at a fundamental level the OS is so broken.

Re:That's nice and all but

[ITRambo]

We work on PC's for a living. I haven't seen this bug in months. It's been patched. Try updating to the latest build, please. At least try running sfc /scannow.

Re:That's nice and all but

[NotSoHeavyD3]

Actually I have the latest build when this happened. Tried sfc /scannow and it failed. Actually tried the things listed here http://home.bt.com/tech-gadget... and tried to reinstall apps as well which didn't work. They're right that if you create a new account it comes back.(Or install classic shell.) Oh to make matters worse I actually did a clean install of Windows 10. (I upgraded my system to register it with Microsoft and then wiped the disk and did an install.) Before anybody asks I have an Asrock Z77 extreme6 motherboard and a i5 3570 cpu with a 970GTX so pretty standard parts too. (As I've mentioned I've worked around it by installing classic shell which reminds me. I really should give that guy a donation for it.)

Re: That's nice and all but

[m76]

Haven't you heard? MS laid off most of it's QA staff. They're basically leaving testing to the end user, that's why they gone out of their way to implement telemetry. Windows will never be final from now on, it'll remain in a perpetual alpha state, as new and new untested updates are installed forcibly.

Re: That's nice and all but

[Anonymous Coward]

Googled it.

That's fucking poetic.

Never had those kinds of problems in Windows 98.

Re:That's nice and all but

[Banana Slamma]

I also work on computers for a living and I can tell you the bug is very much alive. I saw it as recently as 2 weeks ago.

and Windows 10 Mobile phones

[frovingslosh]

So if you ever want to play your Xbox games at the landfill where they bury all of the unwanted Windows 10 phones, this is good news.

FU M$

[the_Bionic_lemming]

I just want the option to unload X-Box and groove
and Cortana
and One Drive
and one note
and People
and Phone
and Phone companion
and Store
and Weather
and the tile server that I broke by adding start up properties that well, broke it.

I'd like a few of us to gather together, find all the IP's that win 10 uses and also share info on how to break all the mandatory crap that this facebook OS is mandating.

Re:FU M$

[ITRambo]

Ccleaner lets you uninstall Store apps. It actually works. Just don't uninstall the Store itself, unless you like breaking things.

Don't want Windows

[Anonymous Coward]

XBox One is the last Microsoft platform in my house. I do not want Windows anymore. Don't mess up XBox or I'll be forced to move to PS4.

Linux on 5 laptops and 3 desktops

[future assassin]

in the last 10 years and the only issues I had was getting the Broadcom wifi chip working on the Dell Inspirion laptops. Hell I had Hercules RMX/MIXXX operating with a few tiny issues.

Sure there might be some issues here and there you might run into but you make it sound like a cluster fuck when you try Linux. I can't even phantom why anyone would want to go into Windows 10 with the we'll rape you in the ass while spying on you features.

Re:Linux on 5 laptops and 3 desktops

[Anonymous Coward]

I went to Windows 10. No regrets. Why? Because I'm not a tin-foil hat wearing, Ted Kaczynski admiring privacy loon, for starters. Telemetry is not spying. Not even remotely the same thing. Nor is "phoning home." You use Linux. You probably love Linux. It's therefore entirely likely you hate Microsoft and feel the need to resort to lies and slander. This is actually the #1 thing I don't like about Linux users. You're the evangelical Christians of the computing world.

Re:Linux on 5 laptops and 3 desktops

[thegarbz]

Sure there might be some issues here and there you might run into but you make it sound like a cluster fuck when you try Linux.

The general view is there are more of the GP's experience than there are of your experiences.
The only Linux machines I've ever had run flawlessly were on a server, and that had limited requirements as far as hardware and user interaction goes.

Linux is an epic battle vs its user. If you're able to put it in its place it will be your slave forever. But you start with a handicap, with only the assistance of Google to help you. The crowd is on Linux's side chanting a never ending stream of "I don't have this problem, it must be you." And after the match everyone gets drunk and starts punching each other when a systemd supporter calls a sysvinit's script ugly.

Re:Linux on 5 laptops and 3 desktops

[Dutch Gun]

I'm not claiming it's a clusterfuck. All I'm saying is that each time I've tried to use it, I've hit a roadblock serious enough to be a complete showstopper. I'm pretty sure I've gotten unlucky, but it's not like I've got strange hardware to deal with or anything. My laptop from a few years back was a older model Dell XPS 13. My current Linux experiment was running in a VirtualBox VM, so there are unlikely to be hardware issues there. I'm trying to connect to a Synology NAS's SMB share across a standard wired ethernet LAN at home. It's very basic stuff that an OS should have no troubles with.

Still, in case you missed my point, the main reason I use Windows is because I have no trouble getting the thing to actually work, and it's been incredibly reliable over the past decade. Time is money, and the time I've spent tinkering with Linux simply trying to get it operational has far exceeded what I paid for my last copy of Windows.

Look, I don't hate Linux. I was trying to get it working in order to port my game to Linux, because I LIKE the concept of a free alternative OS that people can use. Unless I can figure out this most recent networking issue, that's unlikely to happen in the near future, which I think is a shame.

P.S. The word your looking for is "fathom" ;)

Re:Linux on 5 laptops and 3 desktops

[Anonymous Coward]

LOL funny how some try to justify "telemetry" as not spying. Ignorance sure is bliss. I guess when you're a big Microsoft fanboy you can justify anything this company does to you.

MS can keep their Windows10 and XBox

[Anonymous Coward]

A complimentary PC game with 720p@30fps graphics and gamepad controls? No thank you. I actually bought previous versions of XBoxes and Playstations, but the current console generation is not interesting anymore. They are just dongles to their store and their games and technology are generations behind the PC.

Not the platform

[Anonymous Coward]

... where gamers on each platform will be able to compete with one another.

That's got nothing to do with the platform. Years ago, my friends and IT students, were playing Descent 2 for Windows. They were amazed when I joined their network game from a DOS machine.

It's ironic

[m76]

The console performs bad: Let's promote cross platform with the PC
On the other hand if the console was performing well, they'd do everything in their power to keep the PC as far from the Xbone as possible.

In THEORY

[Anonymous Coward]

In other words, if your app works on both Windows 10 and Xbox One, it is a fucking miracle. You can rest assured that Microsoft will work very hard on making sure that app will fail in the future (on one or the other if not both). They have to keep people running their "upgrade" treadmill, after all. All the while, they'll show off their best fake smiles, applaud how brilliant your work is, and brag about how amazingly compatible their systems are.

Oh my - I better run and install Windows 10 now!

[Anonymous Coward]

psych! not a chance.

commentsubjectsaredumb

[Falos]

But, but, but, that's a lost sale! Are you making the ridiculous suggestion that these people "weren't buying a second copy anyway"? Are you implying Microsoft is doing this crossbuy feature because it doesn't cost them anything?

I would have bought an XBox One instead of PS4...

[Viewsonic]

If they had started to do this back in the XBox360 days. I love gaming, so I have a PC and a console. I do double dip time to time, for games like Battlefield, Fallout, and Skyrim. But if Microsoft is going to make cross licenses like Steam does with all its vendors for PC/Mac/Linux, then I would have bought an XBox One going into this generation. I'd already have saved money by Fallout 4 on PC/PS4 if the cross platform was just built in to begin with.

A good move by Microsoft for sure. The next generation after this, I'll probably be using their platform because of this alone.

Old tired anecdotes are old and tired.

[mjwx]

It has been a very long time since Linux has not worked out of the box, in fact in the last two Linux Mint installs I did it worked perfectly out of the box. It was more trouble to reinstall Windows because the laptop I had used NVidia Optimus (a 600 series chip in combination with an Intel HD chip). It was a pain in the arse because the drivers for both graphics chips needed to be installed and then an additional driver from the laptop manufacturer to get it to switch between the two chips.

I dual boot Win 7 and Linux Mint 17.1. I have far less trouble with Linux Mint.

I love how people like to deride Linux for having problems but then give Windows a free pass. Up to a few months ago, I was having a continual problem with my mouse in Windows. It would spontaneously uninstall itself (which caused the hardware to stop) and then re-install itself. I tried every trick under the sun to get it to work. In the end do you want to know how I fixed it... I reinstalled Windows. Yep, with Linux you may have to muck about with a config file or two, but at least you can fix a live system where as with Windows you need to do a complete reinstall to fix many common issues.

This is to say nothing of Win Rot, which is alive and well despite the protestations of Microsoft's fanbase.