Is Windows 8 the Biggest Threat to the Future of PC Gaming?

[Arkaign]

It sounds like Windows is following the "every-other" pattern

Windows 98 was good.
Then came Windows ME which was trash.
Windows XP was good.
Vista was garbage.
Windows 7 was good.
So Windows 8 should suck.

Basically this.

I've played with Win8 a bit, and think it's quite nice really for handhelds (tablet/phone), but it's soooooooooooooooo farking terrible as a desktop OS it's not even funny. It's like going back to the dark ages in terms of productivity by any reasonable stretch.

Tablet/mobile is already dominated by iOS and Android, I think it's basically idiotic to even try at this point. Zunes were actually better than iPods, and the Zune store was so much better than iTunes, but there's something to be said about an established market dominance. Even if Win8 was amazing (it isn't), it's just too late.

So basically the only thing they're doing is sabotaging their desktop OS to the point where it will drive people away, either to old Win7 setups, to Macs, or to some flavor of linux.

Microsoft will be very lucky to survive Win8 without a severe loss of market share. Smart $ would be to short the crap out of MSFT right around the week of Win8 release date.

 

[Smartazz]

The only reason I went with Win7 on this build is I needed access to more RAM - can't do 16GB on XP

If not for that I'd still be on XP, and as such, I don't see a reason/need to move off of Win7 . . . . unless we start needing access to TB's


.

Why would you opt for Windows XP over 7 on a new system? 7 is very good imo and I'll likely stick with it when Windows 8 is out.

 

[coloumb]

No. However, I think Microsoft is taking too far of a leap with Windows 8 and assuming everyone is going to upgrade their setups to touch screen.

 

[AyashiKaibutsu]

This sounds like vista all over again except they're not going to have DX10 to force everyone's hands eventually. Although I haven't been paying attention is DX12 going to be Windows 8 only?. Crap, I like Windows 7 and all, but if it wasn't for the better 64 bit support and DX11 I'd still be using XP...

 

[wuliheron]

Money and the drive for the lowest common detonator are the biggest threats to PC gaming. All of which MS has championed for years so what else is new?

 

[Smartazz]

This sounds like vista all over again except they're not going to have DX10 to force everyone's hands eventually. Although I haven't been paying attention is DX12 going to be Windows 8 only?. Crap, I like Windows 7 and all, but if it wasn't for the better 64 bit support and DX11 I'd still be using XP...

Don't forget better SSD support if you have one.

 

[wanderer27]

Why would you opt for Windows XP over 7 on a new system? 7 is very good imo and I'll likely stick with it when Windows 8 is out.

XP is comfortable and functional.

Win 7, things are locked down a bit more and it's a bit harder to navigate/find things.

Win 7 is okay, but it's not like it's the best thing since sliced bread (XP/Win98).

It'll do for now, I've only been on it a couple of months.

The thing I really hate about that upgrade cycle is what they did with MS Office . . . god I hate Office 2007/2010 - they totally degraded the functionality of the product with that one.


.

 

[homercles337]

Just my opinion.

A very astute one...very astute.

 

[Red Hawk]

If you are talking about Bioware, they abandoned a great single player franchise to put out an MMO which has had some initial success, but I think the long term success is still open to debate. In any case I will never play an MMO, so TOR is of no interest to me.

As for the quality of their single player franchises, I give you Dragon Age II and the terrible ending of Mass Effect 3. Can you really claim that those live up to their past single player games such as Baldur's Gate, KOTOR, and DA Origins?

And as for ME3 being so highly rated, well PC Gamer gave DAII a 90+ % rating too. Enough said.

The rest of the ME3 certainly lived up to the standard of KotOR, DA: O, and the other ME games (haven't played Baldur's Gate). There are many things I can point to on a thematic and emotional level in ME3 that outdo any of those games.

DA II had good points, too, but it was admittedly not up to BioWare standards.

On topic, iPads taking over PC gaming sounds like a nightmare to me. But then, people have been doomsaying about PC gaming for over a decade now. I don't think there's any more reason to think PC gaming will fail now more than ever.

 

[Obsoleet]

XP is comfortable and functional.

Win 7, things are locked down a bit more and it's a bit harder to navigate/find things.

Win 7 is okay, but it's not like it's the best thing since sliced bread (XP/Win98).

It'll do for now, I've only been on it a couple of months.

The thing I really hate about that upgrade cycle is what they did with MS Office . . . god I hate Office 2007/2010 - they totally degraded the functionality of the product with that one.


.

I gave up on Office. No reason to use it or buy it. I use OpenOffice. If I don't use that, I'd use some sort of GoogleApps crap. I suggest you do the same.

Disclaimer: at work they still have Office, so it's on that machine. Outside of docx support, which opens up in Wordpad anyway, I see no negative to OpenOffice.

Basically this.

I've played with Win8 a bit, and think it's quite nice really for handhelds (tablet/phone), but it's soooooooooooooooo farking terrible as a desktop OS it's not even funny. It's like going back to the dark ages in terms of productivity by any reasonable stretch.

Tablet/mobile is already dominated by iOS and Android, I think it's basically idiotic to even try at this point. Zunes were actually better than iPods, and the Zune store was so much better than iTunes, but there's something to be said about an established market dominance. Even if Win8 was amazing (it isn't), it's just too late.

So basically the only thing they're doing is sabotaging their desktop OS to the point where it will drive people away, either to old Win7 setups, to Macs, or to some flavor of linux.

Microsoft will be very lucky to survive Win8 without a severe loss of market share. Smart $ would be to short the crap out of MSFT right around the week of Win8 release date.

It's funny you say this, my first thought after looking over Win8 is that this might be the opportune moment to switch to Ubuntu. The few games I do play anymore should work fine in WINE.

 

[Anarchist420]

The biggest things holding my enjoyment of PC gaming back is the fact that the tech used sucks. At least 3/4 of all games released over the past decade have lossy audio (it made me furious when I heard the Sonic CD remake's lossy-ass audio) and lossy texture compression sucks (uncompressed textures, even if they were 1/4 the size, would make the games look a lot better). The fact that there aren't any good monitors or HDTVs doesn't help either.

I do think Microsoft sucks for creating uniform standards and for promoting the Xbox both of which I believe are at the expense of PC gaming.

Sonic Generations was enjoyable (in spite of the poor technology used) because good sonic games have been hard to come by in since 1999 and because it had really cool physics.

 

[imaheadcase]

Apparently Steam hasn't heard it can't be done - http://store.steampowered.com/mobile

Looks like you buy the games for the PC/Mac on the mobile device, but that can, and probably will change.

As far as Win 8, I bet the same thing is going to happen after MMO's started making alot of money - when dev's see that they can make a casual mobile game and charge $1 for it, then reap millions for a minor investment compared to a retail PC game that might flop ... I believe we are about to see a huge trend-shift to mobile.

I know its done, but to what extent. Its not going to be anything nearly as awesome as a PC platform is the whole point.

 

[Red Storm]

Apparently Steam hasn't heard it can't be done - http://store.steampowered.com/mobile

Looks like you buy the games for the PC/Mac on the mobile device, but that can, and probably will change.

As far as Win 8, I bet the same thing is going to happen after MMO's started making alot of money - when dev's see that they can make a casual mobile game and charge $1 for it, then reap millions for a minor investment compared to a retail PC game that might flop ... I believe we are about to see a huge trend-shift to mobile.

To be fair the Steam iOS app is not much more than chat and store access. It's like remote access to Steam, to actually use it (i.e. play games) you still need Windows or Mac OS.

 

[darkewaffle]

Money and the drive for the lowest common detonator are the biggest threats to PC gaming. All of which MS has championed for years so what else is new?

That's a new one

If you are talking about Bioware, they abandoned a great single player franchise to put out an MMO which has had some initial success, but I think the long term success is still open to debate. In any case I will never play an MMO, so TOR is of no interest to me.

As for the quality of their single player franchises, I give you Dragon Age II and the terrible ending of Mass Effect 3. Can you really claim that those live up to their past single player games such as Baldur's Gate, KOTOR, and DA Origins?

And as for ME3 being so highly rated, well PC Gamer gave DAII a 90+ % rating too. Enough said.

The long term success of any MMO is open to debate until it actually has been released for a "long term". However I think you'd be hard pressed to find one with better vitals than SWTOR after a few months. Massively successful launch, a large content patch a month after, another monstrous content patch here in the near future, with what's likely over 2M units sold and over 1M subscribers after three months in.

Dragon Age II wasn't up to snuff relatively and because DAO was such a great experience expectations were even higher than normal, so when it wasn't what people wanted the hammer came down harder than normal; merely an average game that was treated more harshly than normal. ME3 ending debacle is only a matter of perspective; plenty of great games have mediocre endings but it's not what they're remembered for. A year down the road ME3 won't be "the ending that ruined the series" or whatever other hyperbolic buzzphrase detractors will try to make stick but more along the lines of "an all around outstanding successor to the first two, flawed by a lackluster resolution".

PC Gamer also gave BGII/DAO/KOTOR all a 91 respectively. I can only begin to imagine the point you were trying to make.