Microsoft: "We care about the PC as a gaming platform"; actions show otherwise

[Mountain Man]

Tell me, does a company that cares as deeply about the success of Windows as a gaming platform as it does about the Xbox wait two and a half years to bring their big hit first-person shooter to the PC? No, but that's what they've done with Halo 2. What's more, they're charging full price for it—a nearly three-year-old game that costs $30 new on the Xbox costs $50 on the PC. It looks like a three year old game, too…visually, it's dramatically inferior to other current AAA PC games. Given how deeply this game is integrated into Live and how they want to make the "real" Live experience a paid subscription thing on the PC, they should be giving away the PC version of Halo 2 with every copy of Vista. At the very least, it should be a budget title. Just when the Xbox 360 owners get all hyped up about the vastly superior Halo 3, the Vista users get a port of a 2.5-year-old game they should have had access to simultaneously with Xbox owners back in 2004. This does not demonstrate that Microsoft cares about the PC as a game platform as much as their console business; in fact, it clearly demonstrates the opposite.

. . .

Just look at the release of big games from Microsoft's own game publishing arm, Microsoft Game Studios, for the calendar year 2007. On the Xbox 360, it's got:

* Crackdown
* Forza Motorsport 2
* Shadowrun
* Too Human
* Mass Effect
* Halo 3
* Blue Dragon
* Lost Odyssey
* Alan Wake
* Project Gotham Racing 4

Not to mention smaller games like Fuzion Frenzy 2 and Tenchu Z. What are they publishing on the PC side? Shadowrun, Halo 2, Jade Empire, and Alan Wake. Two of their whopping four PC games this year are ports of old Xbox 1 games that are, frankly, past their prime and coincide with much cooler releases from the same developers on the Xbox 360 (Halo 3 from Bungie and Mass Effect from Bioware). The other two are also appearing on the Xbox 360. That's right, Microsoft cares so much about Windows gaming that they are publishing exactly zero triple-A Windows exclusives this year. Microsoft is spending probably a few hundred million dollars in development and marketing of its own Xbox 360 games this year. That dwarfs their financial investment in PC games.
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,2128054,00.asp

[8IronBob]

Guess that's going to be the decline of the PC gaming industry right there...

[Batchelor]

All the big money is in consoles right now, and I would assume Microsoft is pulling every trick in the book to keep 360 sales up. I'm sure PC related junk will pick up in a year or so.

Then again, Microsoft has always been notoriously two faced.

[avatar_58]

No offence but it's not Microsoft's job frankly. They have a gaming platform and it's called Xbox 360. Do you really blame Microsoft for not publishing many PC titles? It's not exactly a large profit to be gained, and the xbox was a big enough risk in itself.

We just have to face it - hardcore PC gaming is becoming a niche.

[Dave-ros]

I'd be happy for Microsoft to keep out of PC gaming -- it'd mean less Vista-only titles....... wouldn't it? :o

[Jiminator]

they were waiting for vista to become a bulletproof DRM delivery system like xbox :rollseyes: then they will start porting their games. :)

[NutWrench]

If Microsoft really cared about PC gaming, they would do a sequel to Mechwarrior or license it to someone who wants to.

[Llama Gibbz]

They should concentrate on the fixing the 360's failure rate,or they may not have a future in consoles.:p

[8IronBob]

Heh, so far the only game console likely to succeed may be the Wii, at this point. If M$ wants to put their whole concentration on the X360 console, instead of what they were originally known for in PC gaming, then they better do things right on the hardware end when it comes to a console that'll last longer than the warranty period.

[Mountain Man]

Do you really blame Microsoft for not publishing many PC titles?
No. I blame them for not publishing many PC titles while claiming they're committed to PC gaming.

[Simon Charles]

Why the sudden shock over Microsoft giving PC users the shaft?

[Hudson]

they were waiting for vista to become a bulletproof DRM delivery system like xbox :rollseyes: then they will start porting their games. :)

Yeah, the xbox is really bullet proof in the DRM area.

/me installs his copy of Riddick on his 300gb xbox hard drive

[Destroyer]

who cares if they didnt bring Halo to PC. most pc gamers think Halo sucks anyways. Halo might be a good FPS for console, but it has nothing on some of the PC games. Screw halo.

[Hudson]

Well even forgetting about Halo just look at the other titles they're not bringing to PC.

They want Vista to be this haven for PC gamers but they just want everyone else to do it for them.

[Destroyer]

The only one of those games that I would even wanna play is alan wake. So really I cant complain that MS isnt bringing games to PC.

[Wamplet]

what about some RTS games?

I think AOE 4 is in the works.

[Karthik]

If MS cares about PC gaming, they would have a version of Vista which loads the essential stuff running in the background and freeing 90% of it for the games to fully utilize. Instead they release a Gamer's Edition which takes up 2/3rd of the system resource.

But MS isn't the only one to be blamed, it's the hardware manufactures as well. For example, the Nvidia 8800 only just recently has descent drivers. And often these new drivers seem to cause problems for older games. The recent 94.24 for example claims to support older cards and weighs about 40MB. Well guess what it doesn't work with FX cards and below, eventhough it's oversized and Nvidia claiming it supports FX cards, GF3 and GF4.

[8IronBob]

True, but Vista was nice with my old, dead-end ATI Mobility X300, which is a laughing stock card that can't even be upgraded. Seems like I'll be stuck X360 and Wii gaming for a while, until I build up enough cash to go back to a desktop.

[Thewho]

Anyone want to bet how it'll take for people to get halo 2 running under xp? Not that I care about halo, but it'll be funny to see it happen.

[Steve]

Anyone want to bet how it'll take for people to get halo 2 running under xp? Not that I care about halo, but it'll be funny to see it happen.

But does Halo 2 pc require dx10 to run (I know it looks like shit) if so there's no way anyone will get it to run under XP.

If it just requires Vista then I bet someone will get it running on XP.

[Mountain Man]

Well even forgetting about Halo just look at the other titles they're not bringing to PC.

They want Vista to be this haven for PC gamers but they just want everyone else to do it for them.
Their only concern is that we buy Vista. Obviously they could care less whether or not we have anything worthwhile to play once they have our money.

If MS cares about PC gaming, they would have a version of Vista which loads the essential stuff running in the background and freeing 90% of it for the games to fully utilize.
I would love to see something like this and would buy it in a heartbeat. Instead, we get bloatware.

[IwantMORE]

All you probably have to do is remove the line

If (detect_windows_verion == Vista)
{RUN}
Else
{re-direct url=microsoft.con/VISTA}
End

[Litude]

what about some RTS games?

I think AOE 4 is in the works.
Currently the developer of the Age of Empires series (Ensemble Studios) is working on Halo Wars, an Xbox 360 only game. Of course they might be working on AOE 4 at the same time but I guess most of their resources go into the development of Halo Wars. :(

[Foxy]

who cares if they didnt bring Halo to PC. most pc gamers think Halo sucks anyways. Halo might be a good FPS for console, but it has nothing on some of the PC games. Screw halo.

Translation: 'I didn't like Halo.'

Halo PC had and still has a large playerbase, despite the port being ass. (lag, features)

[ShadeEX]

Well I just bought Halo 2 for my 360.. I really don't see how I should pay full price for the Vista port when the original was dirt cheap (25DKK)..

Not to mention that I don't even own Vista and im not planning on getting it either just yet.. Ill wait till a Service Pack or 3 has been released, and better thirdparty drivers are out..

And ofcource when i have a better PC

[8IronBob]

Well, even some of the older X360 games are cheaper than their PC counterparts nowadays, anyway. I saw quite a few X360 games for $30 USD easy. Tetris Evolution was already retailed at that, so don't start thinking that everything is $60 for the X360, because there is a little game pricing difference depending on how long the game's been out.

[Kristian Joensen]

Currently the developer of the Age of Empires series (Ensemble Studios) is working on Halo Wars, an Xbox 360 only game. Of course they might be working on AOE 4 at the same time but I guess most of their resources go into the development of Halo Wars. :(

I believe they are also developing the recently announced AOE III expansion pack ?

[Gabrobot]

Guess that's going to be the decline of the PC gaming industry right there...

Except it's not in decline. Between 2006 and 2007 PC gaming sales went up by a whopping 48%...not exactly signs of impending death.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/23/technology/23gaming.html

[MAT]

I believe they are also developing the recently announced AOE III expansion pack ?

Big Huge Games are making the expansion pack.

[Kristian Joensen]

Aha, thanks for the corrections. But doesn't that in and off it self show a willingness on MS side to let others than Ensemble Studios develop for the AOE franchise ?

That leaves BOTH of these options open:

1)A studio other than Ensemble might be developing AOE IV as we speak.
2)A second team over at Ensemble might be developing AOE IV.

As far as point 2) goes, that is something is that often overlooked by people wanting a sequel to one of their favorite game series but then sadly pointing out that the development studio is working on some other game X. The fact is that many of these development studios are multi-team studios and can work on more than one game at a time.

Edit:

It was exactly the same with SC2, before it was announced many people on these boards where pointing out how they where working more WoW content and using that as a reason to not expect a SC2.

[Destroyer]

what about some RTS games?

I think AOE 4 is in the works.

not really. last year when AOE 3 came out MS gave out copies free to computer science students at some places. I got one and i played it a few times gave it to a friend. wasnt very fun.

[Steve]

not really. last year when AOE 3 came out MS gave out copies free to computer science students at some places. I got one and i played it a few times gave it to a friend. wasnt very fun.

Jayne and I duke it out in that game all the time. She kicks my ass.

[Destroyer]

jayne?

[Steve]

jayne?

My partner, girlfriend... keeper :o ;)

[hell-angel]

Well, girls can be good gamers to :)

[Steve]

Well, girls can be good gamers to :)

Well, yeah. :)

[Tang Lung]

Well, girls can be good gamers to :)

Quiet hippy! and get your hair cut!

[Inanimate Carbon Rod]

Well, girls can be good gamers to :)

Thats a lie :censored:

[Wamplet]

wow, I didn't even know there was a second expansion coming out for AOE3

[hell-angel]

Quiet hippy! and get your hair cut!

I am not a hippy, I am a rocker. And I will cut my hair the day there is peace in the world :p (or I am the best gamer in the world, what ever comes first :p )

Thats a lie :censored:

Well, I said can, that doesn't mean they all are. Just some who have good skills. :)

At least, so I noticed. I had in UT2k3 one helluva a match with a girl. Just she and me against 4 others. And we kicked ass :D

[Tang Lung]

I am not a hippy, I am a rocker. And I will cut my hair the day there is peace in the world :p (or I am the best gamer in the world, what ever comes first :p )


You best get back to playing then :p

[hell-angel]

You best get back to playing then :p

I will do that then ;)

[Llama Gibbz]

Games for Windows Vista.

Just saw shadowrun is vista only.
I almost bought it until i saw the fine print

I guess if they dont sell many pc copies,they will make up for it with 360 sales.

*<-----sucker dowloads 360 demo* :p

[Jiminator]

interesting thread. the counterpoint is that some developers are pushing for more advanced opengl (carmack). You have to figure that as a developer do you expose better graphics to a small fraction of the market on a platform that is going to make the game run slower, or do you shift to opengl which is available to every platform with no slowdown. vista may have the effect of killing DX and pushing developers to opengl. It will be interesting to see how it plays out.

[8IronBob]

Heh, I dunno, maybe some third-party genius will crack Vista to run OpenGL, I wouldn't be a bit surprised to see some sort of hack that Microsoft winds up being blind about.

[Karthik]

Eh....OpenGL clearly runs with no problems whatsoever right now.

[FireFly]

interesting thread. the counterpoint is that some developers are pushing for more advanced opengl (carmack). You have to figure that as a developer do you expose better graphics to a small fraction of the market on a platform that is going to make the game run slower, or do you shift to opengl which is available to every platform with no slowdown.
Vista actually has a lower performance overhead than XP, which is why in several situations already, games run faster under Vista. DirectX 10 only magnifies that advantage, and in fact nearly everything that developers are doing in DirectX 10 can be done with DirectX 9 - just with a bigger performance penalty.

[Jiminator]

comparisons please? all the tests I have seen indicate the opposite. People will moan about crappy drivers, etc, but in the end it is the frame rate that counts. Also I have yet to see any DX10 game that runs faster than a DX9 mode.

[CommanderZx2]

I have one of these games for vista games, shadowrun. When the free month trial runs out I don't see myself buying any gold live service.

If shadowrun and Halo 2 are what the standard of vista live games are going to be like, I suppose I shall just boycott any game that uses live from here on.

[Foxy]

Having had Vista and Halo 2 for a few days, I can say, if Live and all this claptrap is the future of PC gaming, then the future of PC gaming is dead.

Vista is buggy (drivers out of the kernel and STILL bluescreens? **** off!), and for everything it does right (Users directories with 'Documents' etc not this 'Waaa My!' crap); enforcing superuser for installs, it pisses me off with something else (ugly font antialiasing that can't be completely turned off, for example).

Maybe I'll get used to it (I liked XP after getting rid of the candy button crap), but right now I feel like junking it and getting XP on the rig.

Halo 2 is appalling. The gameplay itself is ruined, and the new additions (dual wield, hijacking, sword, semi destructable vehicles) hinder rather than help the game.

Then there's Live. I genuinly feel sorry for XBOX players who have to put up with this shit in *every game*. It's just horrific. Imagine the worst noobified set of interfaces possible, then multiply by ten.

A good example is the prompt that comes up when you leave a party (server for all us non idiots): 'This will make you leave the party!'

WELL DUHHH!

Jesus.

Most annoying though is how it tries to hide lag at every opportunity. The server browser doesn't display pings (how helpful), and neither does the scoreboard. The only place I've ever seen a ping is on the server detail display. (Useless).

The interface is convoluted and patronising.

Horrible.

[Dr. Kill]

What the hell are we gonna do when XP is no longer supported? :eek:

[Thewho]

Don't worry about it. I'm sure when the time comes MS will release a patch for XP which opens up 20 different security loopholes. ;)

[CommanderZx2]

What the hell are we gonna do when XP is no longer supported? :eek:

If vista is still rubbish, I'll switch to linux when XP looses support.

[FrozeN91]

Foxy, your post scares me... Sadly, I'm getting Vista Premium on my new computer. I'll switch to XP if I don't like Vista though.

[wayskobfssae]

If Microsoft really cared about PC gaming, they would do a sequel to Mechwarrior or license it to someone who wants to.

Except that they realize every Battletech game since Mech2 was utter crap. They probably just finally gave up.

[Karthik]

Foxy you better check if you're using the same Live which XBOX users have been using. It's impossible for it to suck cause.....it's XBL and alot of PC gamers have stated that the interface is much better than anything found on the Pc.

[CommanderZx2]

Foxy you better check if you're using the same Live which XBOX users have been using. It's impossible for it to suck cause.....it's XBL and alot of PC gamers have stated that the interface is much better than anything found on the Pc.

The live on the PC is not the same as the xbox, it has none of the xbox's features. No demos, trailers, market place at all. All it does is allow for multiplayer with shadowrun and halo 2 and that's it.

You're essentially paying Microsoft for achievements, which are completely worthless.

Every single free app out there has more features than games for windows live and yet is free.

"PC gamers" who think that live on the PC is great are idiots who haven't actually tried it. Or they are actually xbox 360 players in disguise.

[Phait]

What the hell are we gonna do when XP is no longer supported? :eek:

Quit keeping up with PC gaming and play only up to where we left off?

At least, that's my plan.

[Krust]

Do dev's have to use live when they want there game to run on vista?
If not, I guess most of them won't use it anyway.

[Foxy]

Do dev's have to use live when they want there game to run on vista?
Doubtful.

You're essentially paying Microsoft for achievements, which are completely worthless.

Every single free app out there has more features than games for windows live and yet is free.

To be fair, essential features are free on Silver.

Foxy you better check if you're using the same Live which XBOX users have been using. It's impossible for it to suck cause.....it's XBL and alot of PC gamers have stated that the interface is much better than anything found on the Pc.

Live is horrible, at least in Halo 2 Vista. I've never seen XBL, but I assume that WL is a carbon copy of it.

I never liked Steam much, but after seeing Live, I realise just how good we've had it. An interface that's well integrated, but designed for PC players.

With Windows Live, MS seems to have stupidly assumed that XBOX Live is 'the shit' and not looked at any of the popular PC 3rd party integrated server/matchmaking/friends jobbies (Gamespy, XFire, Steam). All of them blow Live away.

[Karthik]

Well that's because XBL is more towards jumping in. Not going tabs after tabs for proper servers.

[Foxy]

1) 'Jumping in' is only available if you pay for WL Gold.
2) This is the PC, not a console. We do things differently here. Microsoft was apparently blind to this, or just didn't care.

All my fears of consolization have been entirely vindicated.

[Dr. Kill]

Quit keeping up with PC gaming and play only up to where we left off?

At least, that's my plan.


Well, in that case, I'll be able to run any game at 60fps at max settings and high res... well, except for maybe Crysis. ;)

[FireFly]

comparisons please? all the tests I have seen indicate the opposite.
These benchmarks were run several months ago, and show a significant performance boost in BF 2142 and slight increases in Oblivion and CoH, with ATI hardware.

http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/windows_vista_performance_amd_catalyst_7.1/page11.asp

Some more recent benchmarks with newer hardware, this time showing improvements in Episode 1, and FEAR:

http://www.thetechlounge.com/article/411-4/ATI+Radeon+HD+2900+XT+Vista+Performance/

Yes, the improvements are slight, and only exist in certain resolutions/settings, but they're there, and given the still relative immaturity of both vendors' drivers, that's pretty impressive. Perhaps more notable though, is that XP and Vista are now nearing performance parity - if Vista is slower, it's only by a few FPS. So there is no 'slowdown' for developers and to worry about.

If you want to hear it from the mouth of a developer, though:

"[Crysis] DirectX 9 on Vista will run faster throughout due to the better device driver model...which is a great thing because just upgrading the operating system on the same rig, you get a better gaming experience,"

http://uk.gamespot.com/pc/action/crysis/news.html?page=2&sid=6154899

Also I have yet to see any DX10 game that runs faster than a DX9 mode.
That's because developers are using their DirectX 10 paths to add new features, taking advantage of both the extra performance available due to the API and the extra performance available in DirectX 10 class cards (which up until very recently have consisted solely of 8800s).

And increased performance doesn't just mean being able to run the same algorithm faster, but being able to introduce better algorithms without incurring a significant performance penalty. So with DirectX 10, the fact that the CPU cost of each 'draw call' is much smaller doesn't mean they'll be a huge increase in performance in existing applications, because developers have already designed their games so they're not bottlenecked by the overhead of the API. It does mean however that when designing games for DirectX 10 they're now able to budget for many more objects on screen at once, resulting in higher scene complexity.

http://www.elitebastards.com/cms/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=69&Itemid=29&limit=1&limitstart=2

But again, from the mouths of developers:

"

[i]Tim Sweeney: Realistically, DirectX 10 doesn't introduce fundamentally new capabilities, but brings many new features that will enable developers to optimize games more thoroughly and thus deliver incrementally better visuals and better frame rates.

If you look at the long-term graphics roadmap, there have only been a few points where we've gained fundamentally new capabilities. The most visible was the move from DirectX 6, 7 and 8, which in practice were fixed-function, 8-bit rendering APIs, to DirectX 9 with programmable shaders and support for high-precision arithmetic. Most of the in-between steps have brought welcome but incremental improvements, and DirectX 10 falls into that category."

"Unreal Engine 3 will make full use of DirectX 10, and many of our and our partners' games will ship in 2007 with full support for DirectX 10 and Windows Vista. But, despite the marketing hype, DirectX 10 isn't all that different from DirectX 9, so you'll mainly see performance benefits on DirectX 10 rather than striking visual differences."

http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/directx_10_graphics_preview/page8.asp

"Since Shader Model 2, almost everything was possible, but not advised because of the performance problems. In controlled situations such problems can be managed (e.g. tech demos) but not in a big, living game world. DX10 hardware gives us more tools to address the problem."

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,1989808,00.asp

Do dev's have to use live when they want there game to run on vista?
If not, I guess most of them won't use it anyway.
No. You don't even need to use Live to get 'Games For Windows' certified. Even Epic have said they might not use it (they're currently in talks with Microsoft).

[Hudson]

Yeah, it's much like how shader model 3.0 is mainly used to run 2.0 effects more efficiently, with a few extra features.