The State of PC Gaming and Microsoft

[BladeVenom]

I think MS did shoot themselves in the foot when they stabbed Windows gamers in the back, by converting all their PC gaming studios in Xbox only gaming studios, or shutting them down. It let Apple portray Windows as good for nothing but boring office software. While it didn't hurt MS too badly is OS sales, it really gave Mac and Apple a boost, especially when it came to the next generation of computers, handhelds. No one now associates MS with entertainment. Even their Xbox didn't have the name Microsoft on the front of the package. Many young kids didn't even realize it was a MS product.

 

[natto fire]

Not for me.

Anything thats console exclusive is probably something I dont want anyway.

Same here, the sheer quantity and value of PC exclusives means I have way more games than free time, and a lot of them are really good.

 

[shortylickens]

Yeah out of my 400 steam games I've only installed 200 of them, ever. Only played 100 of those, and only made progress in about 40-50 of them.

 

[destrekor]

Case in point: Titanfall.

What's the point regarding Titanfall?

It's going to be on Windows...


Did you perhaps mean Destiny? That's going to be on PS3/PS4 & 360/One. Console exclusive, but not a Microsoft exclusive.

 

[AdamantC]

Honestly major studios have been slowly going down the drain since at least 2005, while the indie scene has been rapidly growing in size and quality. Sure there have been some great "AAA" titles in recent years, but the continuous "stream of awesome" we saw from major companies from the mid 1980s to early 2000s is long gone.

We are pretty much at the tipping point, as it's never been easier to self publish your title. Especially with the likes of crowd funding and Steam Green Light. And we are starting to see major indie titles smashing the "1 million copies sold" barrier into tiny little pieces.

 

[Morbus]

What's the point regarding Titanfall?

It's going to be on Windows...

Precisely. But not on PS4. Has Microsoft started to make their Xbox exclusive games more of a sort of Microsoft exclusive games?

 

[TheSlamma]

That is a great example. I have a Dell Venue 8 Pro, and Windows 8 is the perfect operating system for it, but trying to use Server 2012 (which is Windows 8 based) in my work environment is an absolute nightmare.

Doesn't everyone have a touch screen in their server rooms? and the metro interface is so handy with RDP. /sarcasm

I feel your pain man. I am always baffled when a BILLION dollar company makes mistakes a basement start up knows better than to do.

 

[HeXen]

^Lol, one part of many why I ditched Windows. They just don't even have their own identity.

But lets get real here, MS doesn't publish that many games per year. Other publishers make exclusives too and you also have developers like Rockstar with a "maybe at a later date" attitude towards PC releases.

Either way, I don't see how consoles are ever a real issue in regards to PC platforms, no the issue with this subject has always been with the PC gamers themselves, especially the elitists that like to make excuses why their too cheap to buy other platforms as well by constantly bashing the consoles and those that use them.

Sometimes a few of you in forums like this make up issues that don't really exist, as if you feel threatened that someone is going to take away or prevent games coming onto your choice of platform. Well exclusives has always been that way and if you were a smart businessman making proprietary hardware, you would do the same. Remember exclusives is what keeps Nintendo existing, the other 2 could still do ok without them since most publishers focus on both Sony and MS anyway. The PC, well it's open without licenses and standards to follow so that is why things are the way they are.

 

[destrekor]

Precisely. But not on PS4. Has Microsoft started to make their Xbox exclusive games more of a sort of Microsoft exclusive games?

Well, if the argument is on that, that's nothing new.

If anyone wants to complain about titles only showing up on Microsoft platforms, well... they really have no room to complain unless they complain about all exclusive titles for the entire course of history. There is nothing new about the practice of developing for a sole platform - we PC gamers benefit at least from Microsoft exclusives, whereas we miss out on Sony exclusives.

Since the original Xbox, there have been plenty of "Microsoft-exclusive" titles that were on both PC and the current console.
Sadly, Microsoft has made plenty Xbox-exclusive titles, but they have a vested interest in slinging as many consoles as possible, and it's generally easier to create a better product if it's focusing on only one platform.

Since DICE decided to take on multiple platforms, they have consistently been unable to deliver a perfectly smooth product for everyone, at least not for awhile into a release. Which is depressing as all hell.

Plus, some games are simply better to keep on consoles only, or on one console only... some games just don't translate well into the PC gaming market, either due to play/control style, or the content itself.
Sometimes the developers willfully choose to ignore certain platforms, simply because they don't believe it to be worth their investment. They are usually right... sure, some of us want the game, but some of us doesn't always translate into hundreds of thousands or millions in sales, which means it isn't smart to fund.

 

[BladeVenom]

^Lol, one part of many why I ditched Windows. They just don't even have their own identity.

But lets get real here, MS doesn't publish that many games per year.

They were putting out a good number of Windows exclusives, and the numbers were growing up till they came out with the Xbox. They published 14 Windows exclusives in the year before the Xbox came out:

2000:
Age of Empires II: The Conquerors
Allegiance
Combat Flight Simulator 2: WWII Pacific Theater
Crimson Skies
Links LS Classic
Metal Gear Solid
MechWarrior 4: Vengeance
Midtown Madness 2
Microsoft A.I.Puzzler
Microsoft Baseball 2001
Microsoft Classic Board Games
Microsoft International Soccer 2000
Motocross Madness 2
Starlancer

 

[Jodell88]

They were putting out a good number of Windows exclusives, and the numbers were growing up till they came out with the Xbox. They published 14 Windows exclusives in the year before the Xbox came out:

2000:
Age of Empires II: The Conquerors
Allegiance
Combat Flight Simulator 2: WWII Pacific Theater
Crimson Skies
Links LS Classic
Metal Gear Solid
MechWarrior 4: Vengeance
Midtown Madness 2
Microsoft A.I.Puzzler
Microsoft Baseball 2001
Microsoft Classic Board Games
Microsoft International Soccer 2000
Motocross Madness 2
Starlancer

Yeah, but that was 14 years ago.

 

[shortylickens]

Yeah, but that was 14 years ago.

Umm, thats the point.

 

[sandorski]

They should have stayed focused on the PC IMO. Windows is their core business, making the PC the centre of Gaming would have drove more Windows sales.

 

[TheSlamma]

I think for right now Windows is going to do fine, just like with Vista people will skip the Win8 trash and wait to see what happens with 9. If 9 does suck though then I think a shift will occur. As of right now I have at least 8 games sitting in my Steam account I need to get to and Thief 4 and Dark souls 2 coming up soon will be even more. I just don't see it even close to collapsed.

Right now looking at Xbone and Ps4 exclusives I see ZERO reason to buy either one of those devices yet. I did own a 360 cause I wanted to play a few games with my friends but my titles on that thing were sparse as everything decent was also on Windows or ONLY on windows.

 

[natto fire]

They should have stayed focused on the PC IMO. Windows is their core business, making the PC the centre of Gaming would have drove more Windows sales.

Of course we see that now, I'm sure there are a few key Microsoft people losing sleep over the fact that they underestimated how many people will buy PC games. Valve went ahead and filled the niche and is doing quite well.

It's funny that Valve is now attempting an OS with their spectacular games library. Microsoft already had an OS and a decent library, but pretty much gave up on PC gaming back when the XBox was released. They got greedy to seek the higher profit margins of consoles, but it is coming back to bite them since there are a lot more quality titles on the PC, and mobile gaming has taken off as well.

They probably didn't know how much infighting there would be when they decided to shift focus, either.

As far as the Apple competition, I think they got too complacent when Apple was using PowerPC chips and never even considered them a threat until Apple got smart and switched to Intel x86.

 

[Venomous]

Of course we see that now, I'm sure there are a few key Microsoft people losing sleep over the fact that they underestimated how many people will buy PC games. Valve went ahead and filled the niche and is doing quite well.

It's funny that Valve is now attempting an OS with their spectacular games library. Microsoft already had an OS and a decent library, but pretty much gave up on PC gaming back when the XBox was released. They got greedy to seek the higher profit margins of consoles, but it is coming back to bite them since there are a lot more quality titles on the PC, and mobile gaming has taken off as well.

They probably didn't know how much infighting there would be when they decided to shift focus, either.

As far as the Apple competition, I think they got too complacent when Apple was using PowerPC chips and never even considered them a threat until Apple got smart and switched to Intel x86.

Steam has it's issues... You can be vac banned simply over a text edit in a cfg file and have absolutely no recourse to have it removed. It's pure BS. At least with EA you can at least state your case and be heard of some bs ban happens.

These type of things will also inhibit valves expansion into being a gaming OS if they don't change their ways. Many people have gotten bs bans over running actual apps in the background.

It took them how many months to address any kind of cheating in COD Ghost? Their stalemate attitude waiting 4 months has effectively killed the game.

There's things I like about steam and a few things I don't. However they won't just be walking into windows gaming as the standard...

I'm still against this cloud gaming... You're leaving control to one company to serve your updates and run your game. I don't like it won't bit especially if you get a bad patch which gives you no ability to revert.

 

[BladeVenom]

I think for right now Windows is going to do fine, just like with Vista people will skip the Win8 trash and wait to see what happens with 9.

Or they will buy a new Android or iOS device, maybe even a Chromebook. Android is now number one, and some are predicting that iOS will be the number two OS by the end of the year. Windows may soon be relegated to third place.

Sure Windows will still be the OS for enterprise desktops for the foreseeable future, but in the home it's failing. Most console gamers could probably do without a desktop. They have their console for games, and a smartphone and tablet for almost everything else. Most of them no longer need Windows.

 

[natto fire]

Steam has it's issues... You can be vac banned simply over a text edit in a cfg file and have absolutely no recourse to have it removed. It's pure BS. At least with EA you can at least state your case and be heard of some bs ban happens.

These type of things will also inhibit valves expansion into being a gaming OS if they don't change their ways. Many people have gotten bs bans over running actual apps in the background.

It took them how many months to address any kind of cheating in COD Ghost? Their stalemate attitude waiting 4 months has effectively killed the game.

There's things I like about steam and a few things I don't. However they won't just be walking into windows gaming as the standard...

I'm still against this cloud gaming... You're leaving control to one company to serve your updates and run your game. I don't like it won't bit especially if you get a bad patch which gives you no ability to revert.

So don't edit your cfg files or any steam files for that matter, seems pretty standard. I have never gotten into competitive play, but it seems like everyone on the same field with identical configuration files seems reasonable.

Can't say I give two shits about COD, or the types of people that play it. I have 3 different computers I use my Steam account from, and love having my save files synced between them ("cloud gaming" if you want to be all buzzword with it)

I am on my second account now and am ecstatic upon how it is being handled.

I get what you are saying about hundreds of licenses being tied to one service, but humble bundles have brought my average game cost to such low levels that I'm afraid those things don't bother me anymore.

If Steam went down tomorrow I would be more worried about reading the petulant BS here than my library on steam.

 

[Venomous]

So don't edit your cfg files or any steam files for that matter, seems pretty standard. I have never gotten into competitive play, but it seems like everyone on the same field with identical configuration files seems reasonable.

Can't say I give two shits about COD, or the types of people that play it. I have 3 different computers I use my Steam account from, and love having my save files synced between them ("cloud gaming" if you want to be all buzzword with it)

I am on my second account now and am ecstatic upon how it is being handled.

I get what you are saying about hundreds of licenses being tied to one service, but humble bundles have brought my average game cost to such low levels that I'm afraid those things don't bother me anymore.

If Steam went down tomorrow I would be more worried about reading the petulant BS here than my library on steam.

Yeah and I agree with your various view points of how well it works. I'm just saying they really need to change some things about what I choose to edit. In some games eyefinity users need to make config edits.

 

[natto fire]

Yeah and I agree with your various view points of how well it works. I'm just saying they really need to change some things about what I choose to edit. In some games eyefinity users need to make config edits.

OK, I was short sighted, and did not think of normal users having to "hack" their games. Which is silly to forget, because I had to do this to make Simcity 4 work with my 2560x1440 monitor.

If they are going to sell games that have to be "hacked" to be used on proper hardware then they either need an internal way to deal with that, or stop trying to make money off of software that their anti-cheat software is incompatible with.

I am not the rabid Steam fanboy type, as I still remember when their software was very buggy and aggravating to use, so be aware I am not trying to attack you, just relaying my experience in the last couple years with Steam, including long spats of offline mode.

To add, I have never been banned or threatened ban in my 10 years on 2 different steam accounts (I sold one of them, which I am pretty sure is bannable?). Although, I have only had to modify the one game, Simcity 4, to use the native resolution.

 

[Red Hawk]

Now, first off, let me say that I don't think PC gaming is dead at all or dying. The indie scenes is stronger than ever, there are more games than ever and they are better than ever: it's just that AAA PC gaming scene is dwindling and has been dwindling for years. Coincidentally or not, since around when the first Xbox was released.

I reject your premise. AAA gaming is as strong on PC as it's ever been. EA still releases its games on PC. Activision still releases its games on PC. Ubisoft still releases its games on PC. I could go on. Take Two is probably the biggest publisher that still drags its feet about releasing games on PC, with Red Dead Redemption never releasing on PC and GTA V unclear on if it will ever reach PC.

I mean, just from a glance at my Steam library, I have...

Bioshock series
Mass Effect series
Dragon Age series
Deus Ex Human Revolution
Elder Scrolls series
Fallout series
Batman Arkham series
Tomb Raider 2013
XCOM: Enemy Unknown
Total War series
Crysis series

and more.

Now you can quibble about the actual quality of these games on PC, the aptitude of their control schemes, etc. But that doesn't change the fact that the PC is a platform that AAA publishers are still very keen to make sure their games are available on PC. And for good reason. Some of the most popular games right now are either PC/Mac exclusive (League of Legends) or rose to popularity on PC (Minecraft).

Now, has Microsoft helped this in the past few years? Heck no. The main driver for the continued vitality of PC gaming has been the rise of of digital distribution, simplified one-stop-shop online stores, primarily Steam. Microsoft at best has had a hands-off approach to the PC as a gaming platform, at worst trying to tie it in to its console platform when no one wants it (GFWL). If there was no one else driving PC gaming, Microsoft's actions very well could have lead to the decline and death of PC gaming. But, praise be to Gaben, PC gaming is arguably more popular now than it's ever been.

 

[Venomous]

OK, I was short sighted, and did not think of normal users having to "hack" their games. Which is silly to forget, because I had to do this to make Simcity 4 work with my 2560x1440 monitor.

If they are going to sell games that have to be "hacked" to be used on proper hardware then they either need an internal way to deal with that, or stop trying to make money off of software that their anti-cheat software is incompatible with.

I am not the rabid Steam fanboy type, as I still remember when their software was very buggy and aggravating to use, so be aware I am not trying to attack you, just relaying my experience in the last couple years with Steam, including long spats of offline mode.

To add, I have never been banned or threatened ban in my 10 years on 2 different steam accounts (I sold one of them, which I am pretty sure is bannable?). Although, I have only had to modify the one game, Simcity 4, to use the native resolution.

They don't ban the account , just the game they assume you cheated in. VAC blows, it really does.

 

[Morbus]

I reject your premise. AAA gaming is as strong on PC as it's ever been. EA still releases its games on PC. Activision still releases its games on PC. Ubisoft still releases its games on PC. I could go on. Take Two is probably the biggest publisher that still drags its feet about releasing games on PC, with Red Dead Redemption never releasing on PC and GTA V unclear on if it will ever reach PC.

I mean, just from a glance at my Steam library, I have...

Bioshock series
Mass Effect series
Dragon Age series
Deus Ex Human Revolution
Elder Scrolls series
Fallout series
Batman Arkham series
Tomb Raider 2013
XCOM: Enemy Unknown
Total War series
Crysis series

and more.

Now you can quibble about the actual quality of these games on PC, the aptitude of their control schemes, etc. But that doesn't change the fact that the PC is a platform that AAA publishers are still very keen to make sure their games are available on PC. And for good reason. Some of the most popular games right now are either PC/Mac exclusive (League of Legends) or rose to popularity on PC (Minecraft).

Now, has Microsoft helped this in the past few years? Heck no. The main driver for the continued vitality of PC gaming has been the rise of of digital distribution, simplified one-stop-shop online stores, primarily Steam. Microsoft at best has had a hands-off approach to the PC as a gaming platform, at worst trying to tie it in to its console platform when no one wants it (GFWL). If there was no one else driving PC gaming, Microsoft's actions very well could have lead to the decline and death of PC gaming. But, praise be to Gaben, PC gaming is arguably more popular now than it's ever been.

Praise be to Gaben.

All in all, the most successful and most sold games are still PC only, namely Diablo and The Sims, although they do have their (largely pointless and unsuccessful) console spin-offs. Diablo 3's console port is mostly the same as in PC, but Diablo 3 is about as good as any Diablo clone released in the last decade, so it doesn't really matter.

 

[HeXen]

They don't ban the account , just the game they assume you cheated in. VAC blows, it really does.

Yeah, they don't want to risk not getting any more of your money in the future for other games.

 

[CrackRabbit]

Doesn't everyone have a touch screen in their server rooms? and the metro interface is so handy with RDP. /sarcasm

I feel your pain man. I am always baffled when a BILLION dollar company makes mistakes a basement start up knows better than to do.

All it would take to make it right is a bit of market segmentation.

Windows 8 Home - Touch screen capable with Metro UI that could be disabled by the user if desired.

Windows 8 Professional - Does away with the Metro UI and adds stuff like RDP.

Windows Server 2012 - Builds on professional to support server level tasks.


That way everyone wins. Sadly I don't work for Microsoft :/
Though if there is anyone there left with a brain I can hope that Windows 9 follows that path.