Gabe says windows 8 might be catastrophe, wants to port steam to Linux

[diesbudt]

If you think that MS will crumble merely because a few 'Big' companies make noises about moving to Linux, you clearly haven't been paying attention over the last 15 years or so. MS will do whatever MS wants to do. And instead of re-thinking their strategy, they will work very hard to lock out those that don't lock step with them. they will create some feature (another DX version,as for example) that is exclusive to Windows and then convince game developers (not distributors) to use it. Its the same old song and dance all over again.

Never said they will crumble, or even be hurt. Just that they will have to rethink their strategy, much like vista --> 7. Especially if companies don't just bark, but back that up with a bite.

Apple has been slowly creeping into the market past tablets and phones and ipods. They could sieze this opportunity and work with some of those upset companies and work a way around MS.

Sure it isn't very probable. And I know Microsoft does what Microsoft wants, but that is a dictatorship like mindset, and if history shows anything one day that mindset will no longer work for the people under it and mutiny/rebellion/boycott is largely possible, whether we are talking in the next year or 2 or years down the line. Though in most history lessons, it just leads to a newer dictatorship that made lots of promises, but ends up being as bad if not worse than the first.

 

[micrometers]

The only way I can see this working is if Steam builds some sort of game layer like crossfire or wine that lets you play windows games on linux.

If that happened, hallelujah.

 

[thespyder]

Never said they will crumble, or even be hurt. Just that they will have to rethink their strategy, much like vista --> 7. Especially if companies don't just bark, but back that up with a bite.

Apple has been slowly creeping into the market past tablets and phones and ipods. They could sieze this opportunity and work with some of those upset companies and work a way around MS.

Sure it isn't very probable. And I know Microsoft does what Microsoft wants, but that is a dictatorship like mindset, and if history shows anything one day that mindset will no longer work for the people under it and mutiny/rebellion/boycott is largely possible, whether we are talking in the next year or 2 or years down the line. Though in most history lessons, it just leads to a newer dictatorship that made lots of promises, but ends up being as bad if not worse than the first.

sorry. Poor choice of words on my part. When I said "Crumble" I meant crumble to popular opinion (not fold completely). MS doesn't bow to the wind of consumer opinion. They force opinion ON consumers.

And they didn't do it with Vista, at least not in the manner you seem to be indicating. Win7 IS Vista, but with some of the grosser issues resolved. It is Vista 2.0 in fact. And those changes weren't driven by a few game distribution companies, they were driven by poor sales across the board, VERY high profile negative reviews across the industry and a significant increase in the Apple OS. But even then, all they did was correct a few things (like decreasing the OS footprint and tweaking some of the security invasiveness) and change the name.

 

[Naeeldar]

Except alot of businesses are saying the same things now, they did when vista came out.
Also I believe you over exagerate how much businesses mean compaired to casual users that are maybe just "gamers".

When valve make comments like that about the OS, and you lateron hear Blizzard clime in on the same note, thats not a possitive thing.

Doesnt sound like game developers love Windows 8, nor are the business people.
Alot of people here in this thread seem to love Microsoft beyound belief, excepting the "you use this" mentality of mircosoft. Its okay as a consumer to not agree with a product, and in normal circumstances, the manufacture would then do something to fix the issue(s), or face loseing customers.

The problem is monopoly, and microsoft forceing people. There is no other alternative (currently) that offers anything acceptable when it comes to gameing on the pc.

If enough game developers disagree with microsoft, things could go bad for them real quick though.
Honestly the only reason Im useing windows, is because I want to be able to play games without running into issues.


The higher level of private data collection, the windows live id login, the kill switch.....
these are not acceptable courses of action, by my standards as a consumer.

Ontop of that, theres the new UI thats nothing like windows, and the loss of features older windows have.
I hope mircosoft window's 8 flops really hard, so mircosoft learns a lesson about what they can and cant reasonably expect to shove down peoples throats.

Most businesses are not sayign that. Blizzard and Valve have come out publicly saying that because they hate the idea of the Marketplace. BTW I use iOS devices for everythign but my gaming pc and work pc. So I'm hardly stuck in the MS world.

The Marketplace could very easily hurt companies like Blizz and especially Valve when you consider that a metro app will run under any device. That's big. So those app developers making a lot of money with iOS will also develop on metro since it will also open desktop apps.

As to the business aspect - when you understand the sheer volume of licenses they sell to the walmarts and govts of the world you'd understand what I mean by drop in a bucket. IF business adopt, consumers will follow. For example if business adopt then HP and the Dell's would adopt as well which impacts the consumer. It's a fun little chain that is absolutely a monopoly.

That said I can tell you there are major companies out there already piloting and the CIO's like the software. Plenty will migrate end of this year and next.

 

[Jeffg010]

I'll say right here and now windows 8 will be a failure not because of games but because of businesses will not switch over to metro. I do PC support and the butt hurt from going to MS Office 2003 to 2007 is something I never want to go through again. We had to have Microsoft come in and give us a demo on it and after all that some of the techs told MS that they thought this was failure. It got so bad with office 2007 that we send out an E-mail to all the managers that the employees were not allowed to bother the tech people with questions. We gave them a link that MS gave us on how to use 2007 and that was all the employees got. I can’t imagine what it be like to roll out windows 8. Good luck with that ain’t going to happen.

 

[thespyder]

I'll say right here and now windows 8 will be a failure not because of games but because of businesses will not switch over to metro. I do PC support and the butt hurt from going to MS Office 2003 to 2007 is something I never want to go through again. We had to have Microsoft come in and give us a demo on it and after all that some of the techs told MS that they thought this was failure. It got so bad with office 2007 that we send out an E-mail to all the managers that the employees were not allowed to bother the tech people with questions. We gave them a link that MS gave us on how to use 2007 and that was all the employees got. I can’t imagine what it be like to roll out windows 8. Good luck with that ain’t going to happen.

LOL. I was on a year long project to upgrade to Windows Vista for my company. Talk about painful. And there were whole months when the IT folks were incommunicado. As you can tell, I don't work for a small firm.

But what will drive all of this is some Big wig CIO will want it because he/she will have bought into the MS company line. And it will happen. After all, they don't feel the pain.

 

[Jeffg010]

LOL. I was on a year long project to upgrade to Windows Vista for my company. Talk about painful. And there were whole months when the IT folks were incommunicado. As you can tell, I don't work for a small firm.

But what will drive all of this is some Big wig CIO will want it because he/she will have bought into the MS company line. And it will happen. After all, they don't feel the pain.

100% this we are still on windows XP and we have 50,000 employees. With office 2007 I remember downgrading people because they could not cope with it. Now I get requests to upgrade people daily to 2007 because the CEO is now using it and when they get a word doc or excel spreed sheet it tells them it was created in a newer version and the employees freak out that they are missing something.

 

[Skel]

I'll say right here and now windows 8 will be a failure not because of games but because of businesses will not switch over to metro. I do PC support and the butt hurt from going to MS Office 2003 to 2007 is something I never want to go through again. We had to have Microsoft come in and give us a demo on it and after all that some of the techs told MS that they thought this was failure. It got so bad with office 2007 that we send out an E-mail to all the managers that the employees were not allowed to bother the tech people with questions. We gave them a link that MS gave us on how to use 2007 and that was all the employees got. I can’t imagine what it be like to roll out windows 8. Good luck with that ain’t going to happen.

This used to be a huge pet peeve of mine when I ran an IT department. I would expect my PC support to be like Doctors and keep up with the newer stuff, even if they don't really care for it. Saying something is crap is one thing, refusing to support it is the quickest way to be replaced by someone who will.

Of course this has nothing to do with PC Gaming (before I get called out again, with luck they'll at least not just cut one line out of the entire response)..

 

[Arkadrel]

I'll say right here and now windows 8 will be a failure not because of games but because of businesses will not switch over to metro. I do PC support and the butt hurt from going to MS Office 2003 to 2007 is something I never want to go through again. We had to have Microsoft come in and give us a demo on it and after all that some of the techs told MS that they thought this was failure. It got so bad with office 2007 that we send out an E-mail to all the managers that the employees were not allowed to bother the tech people with questions. We gave them a link that MS gave us on how to use 2007 and that was all the employees got. I can’t imagine what it be like to roll out windows 8. Good luck with that ain’t going to happen.

OMG.... I feel the same way, about the new Office's.
You figour out where everything is in 2003, then get a new office, and..... arrrgggghhh your pulling out hair from shear frustration.

And yeah.... dispite what some people here claim, when you read the the comments by users that are in the bussiness, their more or less all saying they ll refuse to use this.

check out
http://windowsteamblog.com/windows/...9/introducing-windows-8-consumer-preview.aspx

and just read the comments people left, after trying the consumer preview of windows 8.
And remember the people that try this are probably huge fans of microsoft, and if they have their panties in a bunch after trying it, you know the bussiness's will be 100 times worse.

 

[tommo123]

This used to be a huge pet peeve of mine when I ran an IT department. I would expect my PC support to be like Doctors and keep up with the newer stuff, even if they don't really care for it. Saying something is crap is one thing, refusing to support it is the quickest way to be replaced by someone who will.

Of course this has nothing to do with PC Gaming (before I get called out again, with luck they'll at least not just cut one line out of the entire response)..

if it's PC support as in a corporate environment then they're there to fix problems (software and refer hardware to someone local or some such), they are not there (generally) to teach people how to use software. people are meant to get trained in new software to prevent a scenario like the above happening.

 

[Jeffg010]

This used to be a huge pet peeve of mine when I ran an IT department. I would expect my PC support to be like Doctors and keep up with the newer stuff, even if they don't really care for it. Saying something is crap is one thing, refusing to support it is the quickest way to be replaced by someone who will.

Of course this has nothing to do with PC Gaming (before I get called out again, with luck they'll at least not just cut one line out of the entire response)..

Yup I got like 5000 of you types that want me to click their mouse button when they can't find something as easy as a printing.

 

[thespyder]

This used to be a huge pet peeve of mine when I ran an IT department. I would expect my PC support to be like Doctors and keep up with the newer stuff, even if they don't really care for it. Saying something is crap is one thing, refusing to support it is the quickest way to be replaced by someone who will.

Of course this has nothing to do with PC Gaming (before I get called out again, with luck they'll at least not just cut one line out of the entire response)..

Likewise, I expect my senior leadership to have faith in their staff. if the staff is saying that something is universally a bad idea, i don't expect that they will be replaced with someone who will. The IT folks do keep up on the current technology. But just because it is new doesn't mean it is any good. And if the Techie people don't like it and are saying it will be more work and hassle to support the newer stuff, I would think that the Leadership would trust them and not go with the upgrade.

 

[Skel]

Yup I got like 5000 of you types that want me to click their mouse button when they can't find something as easy as a printing.

Sorry that I'm one of those people that expect the support people that work for me to support the users, the reason they computers are there in the first place. I've never expected anyone to be a master at piviot tables but I would expect them to be the first line of PC support regardless of what it is, but then I didn't hire button pushers either.

Likewise, I expect my senior leadership to have faith in their staff. if the staff is saying that something is universally a bad idea, i don't expect that they will be replaced with someone who will. The IT folks do keep up on the current technology. But just because it is new doesn't mean it is any good. And if the Techie people don't like it and are saying it will be more work and hassle to support the newer stuff, I would think that the Leadership would trust them and not go with the upgrade.

I agree completely, if the group is saying by and large that it's a bad idea then it shouldn't be used. Unless there was a business reason that we couldn't get around.

 

[Jeffg010]

Sorry that I'm one of those people that expect the support people that work for me to support the users, the reason they computers are there in the first place. I've never expected anyone to be a master at piviot tables but I would expect them to be the first line of PC support regardless of what it is, but then I didn't hire button pushers either.



I agree completely, if the group is saying by and large that it's a bad idea then it shouldn't be used. Unless there was a business reason that we couldn't get around.

When I have 5,000 users to support I don't have time to answer how to change the color of your font in word when I have anther user that has a dead hard drive. What we did was give the user the link to search what they need to find out. We also have video library that they can take online to learn how to use different types of programs. We are there to fix and get you back up an running not to teach.

 

[thespyder]

I agree completely, if the group is saying by and large that it's a bad idea then it shouldn't be used. Unless there was a business reason that we couldn't get around.

Can I work for you? All of the bosses I have had in the past have been dazzled by baubles and forced the 'Troops' to lock step. Even if it was a bad idea.

Ex. We converted to Vista 3 months before Windows 7 came on the market. or that is to say that we started our year long conversion 3 months before Win7 launch. When every single IT person was saying "Wait till Win7. it will be a better platform."

 

[Skel]

When I have 5,000 users to support I don't have time to answer how to change the color of your font in word when I have anther user that has a dead hard drive. What we did was give the user the link to search what they need to find out. We also have video library that they can take online to learn how to use different types of programs. We are there to fix and get you back up an running not to teach.

If you’re the only person supporting 5000+ users then I can understand why you’re a bit cranky on a guy asking how to change his font. In reality I have no clue what you’re doing, or how you’re doing it, nor do I really care. Your versions of SLAs and whatnot are driven by your internal workings, if it’s working for you then cool…wtf do I know? I’m just pointing out there’s a line of support that my guys have to do, and that includes being the first line support on all PC related things, not just things like a dead HD. I’m not expecting any of them to teach a class on excel or PowerPoint, but I do expect them to answer stupid questions like how do I change a font. That should take a few minutes and makes a huge impact on the user. Of course I also staff within my metrics so my guys also aren’t supporting 5,000 users by themselves.

Can I work for you? All of the bosses I have had in the past have been dazzled by baubles and forced the 'Troops' to lock step. Even if it was a bad idea.

Ex. We converted to Vista 3 months before Windows 7 came on the market. or that is to say that we started our year long conversion 3 months before Win7 launch. When every single IT person was saying "Wait till Win7. it will be a better platform."

Dude that sucks, but then some managers suck too. I myself consider lucky as I came up from a bench tech to where I am, maybe that's why I don't follow the shiny ball down the hall. Of course I did work for many years in a few enterprise wans so I also get the business side too, there always has to be a balance.


we really should break this talks off from this thread as it has nothing to do with PC Gaming..

 

[Naeeldar]

When I have 5,000 users to support I don't have time to answer how to change the color of your font in word when I have anther user that has a dead hard drive. What we did was give the user the link to search what they need to find out. We also have video library that they can take online to learn how to use different types of programs. We are there to fix and get you back up an running not to teach.

I agree with that. But thtas also why companies need to remember to actually provide training/support on using programs these days. They seem to think they can get away with it now because everybody knows how computers work.

I can name 4-5 companies ranging from 5,000 US users to 75,000 US users that will be on Windows 8/Office 13 by year end.

It's coming. And yes the support could be worse in some ways then office 07. There are new resources and MS is also more focused on adoption. They have different partners/initiatives this time around.

 

[Dumac]

From what Ive seen on youtube:
1) Desktop is now removed, the "default" idle screen is now your "start menu" in full screen.
Instead of icons, you now have these tiles in prime colours, they call this the Metro screen.
People dont like looking at a black screen with coloured blocks on it, they rather have a
sexy wallpapir in the background.

This is completely false. Desktop still exists in Windows 8 (x86). You can have icons on the desktop, or live tiles on the metro start screen. You can still set the background on your desktop to whatever yo uwant.

2) There is no more "window's", you can more or less only view 1 thing at a time, and view that thing in full screen. Thats not what a window is, thus the OS really shouldnt be called windows.

Completely false. The intact desktop mode is almost exactly like win7 (minus start bar) so you can have as many windows as you want.

Metro programs are designed to be full screen, but you can do a 70/30 split with two metro programs side by side.

3) Currently with the consumer preview, there are some driver issues, that shows in games not working perfectly. Ei. missing sound in alot of games ect, stuff like that.

As with all previews, this is probably true.

4) gameing performance seems lower than windows 7.

Wrong. All the benchmarks I've seen show performance to be higher in Win8.

5) Most people cant figour windows 8 out, its not intuative.
There is no "x" to close a window or program/app, instead you use a finger motion to
drag-n-drop a program from top of screen down to bottom of screen.

To close your PC, you need to go to the right hand corner, get up the "charms", go under
your controlls, under power, and choose power down. People are used to finding it under
the start menu, so they dont understand why they cant find it under the new "metro".

There are more exsamples like this, where people dont understand, cant find things.

Whether or not a UI is 'easier' is pretty subjective. I don't find anything about Win8 unintuitive. Everybody screams "OH MAH GOD ITS FOR TOUCHSCREENS ONLY" ignoring the fact that it works perfectly with mouse+kb. The live tiles are basically just icons. You are just clicking on an icon. Whoop de doo.

6) You lose certain features with windows 8.
Normally when you get a new windows version, it can do more than the last one you had. This time, certain things are lost.
People dont like giveing stuff up.

You lose some features with every windows iteration. You also gain some. That is how it works.

There is a lot of misinformation in your post. Please be more careful in the future.

^ with stuff like I can understand why people are frustrated with windows 8.
I personally think it will flop, atleast on the pc. People will stick with windows 7 and skip win8.
On the Tablets side it might be a success, but even there Im skeptical.

I can see a lot of people skipping Win8 as well. A lot of it mostly from fear of something new. How many people reverted to classic start menus in winxp and win7? People are scared of change, improvement or not.

I won't be leaving win7 because I don't see any reason to.

 

[Dominato3r]

I doubt they will be the last to chime in also. A few more big companies chime in, and MS will have to rethink this strategy, although it is probably too late.

I will just stay with Win 7, until the revamp of 8 like win 7 is to vista.

Every gaming company on the planet could say something negative and MS wouldn't twitch. I think some people seem to forget that gaming is a ridiculously small demographic in the Windows landscape.

The big bucks come from business, and in that landscape they're transitioning to a subscription model for most of their software. As far as MS is concerned, once everyone starts paying a monthly fee, they could be on Win95 for all they care.

 

[BladeVenom]

Wrong. All the benchmarks I've seen show performance to be higher in Win8.

Windows 8 has very high DPC latency http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2250925 The audio sucks.

 

[Dumac]

Windows 8 has very high DPC latency http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2250925 The audio sucks.

All the benchmarks I looked at are FPS, etc. The typical gaming/performance benchmarks.

Nobody really looks at audio as a performance benchmark in gaming, so the issue wasn't present.

I played stuff on Win8 and haven't noticed any problems. But I"m not really an audio purist.

 

[Skel]

All the benchmarks I looked at are FPS, etc. The typical gaming/performance benchmarks.

Nobody really looks at audio as a performance benchmark in gaming, so the issue wasn't present.

I played stuff on Win8 and haven't noticed any problems. But I"m not really an audio purist.

Looks like there's an issue, but is it a drivers or OS?

 

[gladiatorua]

Every gaming company on the planet could say something negative and MS wouldn't twitch. I think some people seem to forget that gaming is a ridiculously small demographic in the Windows landscape.

And Microsoft doesn't care about PC gaming. Because it doesn't get a cut from every game sale. Unlike on Xbox.

 

[Canbacon]

Every gaming company on the planet could say something negative and MS wouldn't twitch.

I wouldn't say every gaming company.

I know my team is always looking forward in new platforms. The compatibility from the desktop metro to mobile metro is very interesting as we may be able to make a companion app for the main game.

 

[BFG10K]

The first thing, yes, I would agree desktop icons need to be looked at because they are bland and ugly.

Bland icons aren’t the issue, it’s the fact that the icons sprawl across the screen and waste space. He has way less than 135 icons, yet he still has to scroll sideways. That’s unacceptable on such a large display using mouse input.

The old cascading Start Menu is vastly superior. It can show arbitrarily complex depths with only trivial screen real estate, and it rolls up into a single button when you’re finished. It can also be accessed without disturbing my workflow and jarring me into a fullscreen change.

This Fisher Price abortion can’t compare.

The second video really is the most terrible video I've seen on this OS. When I first started using Windows, it was completely foreign to me. I had no idea of how the UI worked, how to find things, how to delete programs etc. I was guided by family/friends/teachers, and eventually learned my ways around it. This is a new UI. It's going to take sometime to learn. You can't expect someone to learn a new UI in 5 minutes like that video is implying.

If you’re changing to something inferior, that’s not good. This is castration for desktop users so Microsoft can leverage itself into portable space and make money from their app store, plain and simple.

As a consequence, the desktop user is left with dumbed down options and a UI that’s tailored to a full screen, single-tasking paradigm with abysmal mouse support.

All of this could’ve been avoided with two simple options:

My computer should use:
[]Metro combined with Desktop.
[]Desktop only (completely remove Metro).

My Start Menu style should be:
[]Windows 95.
[]Windows XP.
[]Windows 7.
[]Windows 8 Start Screen.

Give users the choice and they won’t complain. But no, Microsoft wants to compete in tablet space and make profit with their Metro store, so that means I lose my Start Menu.

I hope this POS absolutely bombs and burns them ten times worse than Vista ever did. Then maybe they can start taking the people that made them rich (desktop users) more seriously.