Rumor: Microsoft to relaunch PC gaming with Windows 8

[tyler811]

Those who claim PC gaming is dead mainly blame Microsoft. Ever since the company launched the Xbox, it has let the Windows PC gaming platform fall over the wayside. Since the software giant's number one product is Windows, the company's number one gaming platform is still the PC, no matter how much of a success the Xbox platform becomes. Rumors are now suggesting that things will really start to change with Windows 8.
"Windows 8 will represent a real new push into PC gaming," an anonymous source told TechRadar. "Gaming will be a key component for the whole OS."

http://www.techspot.com/news/41710-rumor-microsoft-to-relaunch-pc-gaming-with-windows-8.html

 

[Mike Gayner]

"Those who claim PC gaming is dead" are morons anyway.

 

[tyler811]

"Those who claim PC gaming is dead" are morons anyway.

Agree

 

[lord_emperor]

Those who claim PC gaming is dead mainly blame Microsoft.

I do blame Microsoft for pushing DirectX so damn hard as to make themselves the only viable PC gaming platform.

If games were still coded with OpenGL in mind it would open up the door for native Linux and Mac binaries, increasing the potential customer base for games by around 6% (based on market share).

 

[postmortemIA]

Right ... Microsoft didn't have to kill hardware audio acceleration, but yet they did so with vista (and continued in W7)

 

[StinkyPinky]

"Those who claim PC gaming is dead" are morons anyway.

Yeah just look at Steam. There's so many awesome games I can't even find time to play them all. In RPG's alone there's...

Skyrim Elder Scrolls 5
Diablo 3
Mass Effect 3
Deus Ex Human Revolution
Dragon Age 2
The Witcher 2

...all within the next 12 months or so. And that's just the big budget ones. Thats just as many potentially awesome games than the so called Golden Age of rpgs in the late 90s.

 

[RavenSEAL]

Yeah just look at Steam. There's so many awesome games I can't even find time to play them all. In RPG's alone there's...

Skyrim Elder Scrolls 5
Diablo 3
Mass Effect 3
Deus Ex Human Revolution
Dragon Age 2
The Witcher 2

...all within the next 12 months or so. And that's just the big budget ones. Thats just as many potentially awesome games than the so called Golden Age of rpgs in the late 90s.

The majority(if not all) are console ports...sadly...

Too late M$, the train left without you and people moved on, keep your crap, PC gaming is just fine the way it is, go back to taking the money from the credit cards of the parents of 12 year old kids that play on xbox live.

 

[videogames101]

The majority(if not all) are console ports...sadly...

Too late M$, the train left without you and people moved on, keep your crap, PC gaming is just fine the way it is, go back to taking the money from the credit cards of the parents of 12 year old kids that play on xbox live.

Dragon Age? Really?

 

[Mike Gayner]

The majority(if not all) are console ports...sadly...

Firstly, out of that list of six games, only 3 were cross-platform.

Secondly, people really need to get out of the stupid habit of calling cross-platform games "ports". "Port" has a specific meaning, and a game which is developed for multiple platforms isn't a port.

Thirdly, so what if they're cross-platform? I'm more interested in how good a game is than how many other platforms it's on. Anyone who can't find great modern games to play isn't a real gamer at all.

 

[StinkyPinky]

The majority(if not all) are console ports...sadly...

Too late M$, the train left without you and people moved on, keep your crap, PC gaming is just fine the way it is, go back to taking the money from the credit cards of the parents of 12 year old kids that play on xbox live.

I don't care if they are console ports as long as they are done nicely on the PC.

Mass Effect is probably based around console and that's a brilliant series and works great on Windows.

 

[RavenSEAL]

Dragon Age? Really?

...?

Dragon age is on PS3 and 360.

 

[StinkyPinky]

...?

Dragon age is on PS3 and 360.

So what? So it sucks because of that? I don't understand your logic. If it is produced for multiple platforms the game automatically sucks??

They can produce Mass Effect 3 on ten platforms for all I care, as long as the game is fun.

 

[RavenSEAL]

Firstly, out of that list of six games, only 3 were cross-platform.

Secondly, people really need to get out of the stupid habit of calling cross-platform games "ports". "Port" has a specific meaning, and a game which is developed for multiple platforms isn't a port.

Thirdly, so what if they're cross-platform? I'm more interested in how good a game is than how many other platforms it's on. Anyone who can't find great modern games to play isn't a real gamer at all.

Alright... "Multi-Platform"...

So, lets see, "The Witcher 2" is the only game there that is locked for PC. Rumors of D3 on consoles are already out, and the rest of those games already have a set console version....

 

[RavenSEAL]

So what? So it sucks because of that? I don't understand your logic. If it is produced for multiple platforms the game automatically sucks??

They can produce Mass Effect 3 on ten platforms for all I care, as long as the game is fun.

Who ever said it sucked?I don't know what you're reading...

I myself am playing ME and ME2 on PC right now...

 

[Mike Gayner]

Then why do you have a problem with games being on consoles as well as PC? Why is that "sad"?

 

[sao123]

"Those who claim PC gaming is dead" are morons anyway.

You're right, in one small miniscule quark sized way... once world of warcraft dies or ports... then PC gaming is dead.

 

[Bateluer]

So what? So it sucks because of that? I don't understand your logic. If it is produced for multiple platforms the game automatically sucks??

They can produce Mass Effect 3 on ten platforms for all I care, as long as the game is fun.

Then why do you have a problem with games being on consoles as well as PC? Why is that "sad"?

The point we're trying to make is that when you develop a cross platform game, you have to cater to the lowest common denominator. Both for the hardware and for your customer base. Since the consoles are less powerful than the PCs, this means features and details have to be stripped from the game in order to get them to run on the lesser console. This degrades the PC experience where much of its potential is simply wasted. There's also that the console player usually wants a less detailed game, something they can jump into and play without a learning curve, or reading any dialog/backstory, something more simple.

This doesn't mean that a cross platform game is bad, but if you take a 360 game and release it on the PC without so much as changing the default button mappings, then thats a major fail.

Here's whats been happening in a nutshell. The game sells poorly because PC players were disgusted with it, the publisher blames piracy on the PC for low sales, publisher devotes more resources to console games, which leaves less for the PC versions. The PC versions become even less optimized, more buggy, and receive less support, PC sales suffer. Publisher blames piracy and devotes more resources to the consoles. Rinse, lather, repeat.

On the plus side though, since PC gaming is the only thing keeping me running Windows, there's a good chance Windows 7 will be the last MS OS I buy, since the odds are that I won't get an educational discount on Windows 8.

 

[RavenSEAL]

The point we're trying to make is that when you develop a cross platform game, you have to cater to the lowest common denominator. Both for the hardware and for your customer base. Since the consoles are less powerful than the PCs, this means features and details have to be stripped from the game in order to get them to run on the lesser console. This degrades the PC experience where much of its potential is simply wasted. There's also that the console player usually wants a less detailed game, something they can jump into and play without a learning curve, or reading any dialog/backstory, something more simple.

This doesn't mean that a cross platform game is bad, but if you take a 360 game and release it on the PC without so much as changing the default button mappings, then thats a major fail.

Here's whats been happening in a nutshell. The game sells poorly because PC players were disgusted with it, the publisher blames piracy on the PC for low sales, publisher devotes more resources to console games, which leaves less for the PC versions. The PC versions become even less optimized, more buggy, and receive less support, PC sales suffer. Publisher blames piracy and devotes more resources to the consoles. Rinse, lather, repeat.

On the plus side though, since PC gaming is the only thing keeping me running Windows, there's a good chance Windows 7 will be the last MS OS I buy, since the odds are that I won't get an educational discount on Windows 8.

Beat me to it, thanks.

 

[fatpat268]

Microsoft has been saying for years that they'll have a renewed focus on PC gaming. It last happened with Vista when they promoted Halo 2, Shadowrun, and maybe some others. And then, they made foolish decision after decision.

It's nice to see that they're making an attempt by bringing back AoE and their Flight Sim, but I wonder if MS will truly make the effort. For Windows 8 to be a truly viable upgrade over 7 (in terms of gaming), it needs to allow you to play games without all the overhead of the OS running behind it and improve performance and compatibility.

 

[StinkyPinky]

The point we're trying to make is that when you develop a cross platform game, you have to cater to the lowest common denominator. Both for the hardware and for your customer base. Since the consoles are less powerful than the PCs, this means features and details have to be stripped from the game in order to get them to run on the lesser console. This degrades the PC experience where much of its potential is simply wasted. There's also that the console player usually wants a less detailed game, something they can jump into and play without a learning curve, or reading any dialog/backstory, something more simple.

This doesn't mean that a cross platform game is bad, but if you take a 360 game and release it on the PC without so much as changing the default button mappings, then thats a major fail.

Here's whats been happening in a nutshell. The game sells poorly because PC players were disgusted with it, the publisher blames piracy on the PC for low sales, publisher devotes more resources to console games, which leaves less for the PC versions. The PC versions become even less optimized, more buggy, and receive less support, PC sales suffer. Publisher blames piracy and devotes more resources to the consoles. Rinse, lather, repeat.

On the plus side though, since PC gaming is the only thing keeping me running Windows, there's a good chance Windows 7 will be the last MS OS I buy, since the odds are that I won't get an educational discount on Windows 8.

I've been gaming for 20 years and PC games today are better than ever. You guys really need to get a grip on this whole "pc gaming is dying" stuff.

Games like Dragon Age and Mass Effect are hardly dumbed down or inferior to games released a decade ago. If anything they're superior. THe production values of modern games are fantastic.

 

[sandorski]

They'll probably just make an XBox controller mandatory, force 1080p resolutions, then force whatever specs the XBox 720 is capable of, preventing anything better on PC. Then they'll be shocked when every PC Gamer complains about it.

 

[RavenSEAL]

Microsoft has been saying for years that they'll have a renewed focus on PC gaming. It last happened with Vista when they promoted Halo 2, Shadowrun, and maybe some others. And then, they made foolish decision after decision.

It's nice to see that they're making an attempt by bringing back AoE and their Flight Sim, but I wonder if MS will truly make the effort. For Windows 8 to be a truly viable upgrade over 7 (in terms of gaming), it needs to allow you to play games without all the overhead of the OS running behind it and improve performance and compatibility.

This is very true, they should make DirectX a separate platform in of it self, when a game is run, windows shuts down and then the platform starts. Would be interesting to see...

 

[Mike Gayner]

This is very true, they should make DirectX a separate platform in of it self, when a game is run, windows shuts down and then the platform starts. Would be interesting to see...

That's. Retarded.

 

[Nintendesert]

Windows 8 won't revitalize or relaunch PC gaming, Intel's SB and AMD's fusion line of chips will. It's going to cause the market for people that have capable gaming systems to absolutely explode. Everyone will have a laptop or a system capable of playing games at a similar performance level to the consoles and as the retards that buy games on the iphone, people will buy it if what they have will play it.

These fusion chips will bring PC gaming from an enthusiast activity to one for the general populace.

That's not even remotely to say that PC gaming is in trouble, when you look at the projected revenue of just MMOs, it's staggering. PC gaming is doing well enough already.

 

[Nintendesert]

That's. Retarded.

He's just too young to remember how much a pain in the ass it was to play games in dos.