On the one hand, devs can make games that run on XB1 and PC simultaneously. They don’t need to pay extra money for porting it to PC. As a PC gamer, this is very exciting. I’m looking forward to playing Forza and Killer Instinct on PC.
On the other hand, if MS is too heavy-handed with distribution, no publisher will want to fund real PC ports.
Gaming thrives on an open platform, even if we have to deal with cheating, drivers, and several storefronts.
As a game dev, no, that’s not how it could work. The XB1 is a radically different platform from PCs, which have keyboards, different monitor sizes, aspect ratios, video cards, mice, gigantic hard drives, etc.; and of course by mid-to-end cycle, gaming PC CPUs and video cards will again vastly outclass the XB1, which is necessarily stuck with a particular configuration. And, as always, gamers will demand that their hardware be exploited to the fullest.
Microsoft’s plan is skating to where the puck was several years ago. “Apps” – the bundling of everything into one little nugget, priced at 99 cents and delivered into a giant undifferentiated vending machine – no longer work as a commercially viable business model for 99.999% of software development houses; the race to the bottom has been spectacularly achieved through the use of an intermediating rentier walled garden. So Microsoft Apps™ is not going to assist Microsoft in this competition. It’s like declaring you’re going to become a lumberjack after the world has been deforested by your competitor. The trees are all fucking gone, guys.
Microsoft’s problem is that they reflexively leap at everything to maintain monopoly preservation. Browsers, ipads, iphones. Hell, I remember when they did it with AOL (“Blackbird” and MSN). MSNBC! They can afford to do it, but so often they think it’s a gamechanger enough that they fuck their core product as a result, which is now a hemorrhaging mess of conflicting design ideas and UX confusion on the front, and woefully decrepit on the back.
They should do the opposite of what they think they should do. They should just say, we’re built on the backs of all the developers. Our store will be free. We will create trustable computing using all the research and tech which we’ve amassed over the years. Development is what we do, and we’re going to make it work for 2020 and beyond in ways that Apple never could.
For games specifically, I think Steam rather than app stores is the walled garden they want to displace. Unlike app stores, it seems to still be attracting a lot of developer mindshare (and is hugely profitable). Now whether Microsoft can displace it (even a little bit) is another question.
Its going to take a lot more than that to displace Steam though, since its not just an app store, its also a distribution center for beta software and a community content agregator (reviews, guides, mods…)
I think MS' biggest enemy will be Valve’s “PC Master Race” fans that will immediately be suspicious of any “console” like efforts in the PC space from MS. They’re already suspicious of Windows 10, yet dependent on it.
Ok, ok, before I make the following friday night comment, I’ll just preface this by apologising up front for the straw man that’s ahead: sorry.
With that off my chest, I just want to share this recurring thought I have about MS: it would be such a great thing if Microsoft would decide to become a hardware-only company. Ain’t gonna happen, I know. But although their software is something I learned to stay as far away from as I can, their hardware, ok, peripherals at least, never let me down. Top notch stuff.
And the thought of an Earth without Microsoft ruining all the nice things.. Well, it does sound really nice, doesn’t it? Oh well. One can dream.
Given this sort of move, I think it would be somewhat likely to see Valve and others dumping further funding into platforms like ReactOS–alternative operating systems that let them continue leveraging their back catalog of legacy games while still retaining control over newer deployments.
See update from the author here after Microsoft response: https://mobile.twitter.com/TimSweeneyEpic/status/705802742883864576
Via https://www.thurrott.com/xbox/65099/thurrott-daily-march-4
How this plays out will be very interesting.
On the one hand, devs can make games that run on XB1 and PC simultaneously. They don’t need to pay extra money for porting it to PC. As a PC gamer, this is very exciting. I’m looking forward to playing Forza and Killer Instinct on PC.
On the other hand, if MS is too heavy-handed with distribution, no publisher will want to fund real PC ports.
Gaming thrives on an open platform, even if we have to deal with cheating, drivers, and several storefronts.
As a game dev, no, that’s not how it could work. The XB1 is a radically different platform from PCs, which have keyboards, different monitor sizes, aspect ratios, video cards, mice, gigantic hard drives, etc.; and of course by mid-to-end cycle, gaming PC CPUs and video cards will again vastly outclass the XB1, which is necessarily stuck with a particular configuration. And, as always, gamers will demand that their hardware be exploited to the fullest.
Microsoft’s plan is skating to where the puck was several years ago. “Apps” – the bundling of everything into one little nugget, priced at 99 cents and delivered into a giant undifferentiated vending machine – no longer work as a commercially viable business model for 99.999% of software development houses; the race to the bottom has been spectacularly achieved through the use of an intermediating rentier walled garden. So Microsoft Apps™ is not going to assist Microsoft in this competition. It’s like declaring you’re going to become a lumberjack after the world has been deforested by your competitor. The trees are all fucking gone, guys.
Microsoft’s problem is that they reflexively leap at everything to maintain monopoly preservation. Browsers, ipads, iphones. Hell, I remember when they did it with AOL (“Blackbird” and MSN). MSNBC! They can afford to do it, but so often they think it’s a gamechanger enough that they fuck their core product as a result, which is now a hemorrhaging mess of conflicting design ideas and UX confusion on the front, and woefully decrepit on the back.
They should do the opposite of what they think they should do. They should just say, we’re built on the backs of all the developers. Our store will be free. We will create trustable computing using all the research and tech which we’ve amassed over the years. Development is what we do, and we’re going to make it work for 2020 and beyond in ways that Apple never could.
For games specifically, I think Steam rather than app stores is the walled garden they want to displace. Unlike app stores, it seems to still be attracting a lot of developer mindshare (and is hugely profitable). Now whether Microsoft can displace it (even a little bit) is another question.
Its going to take a lot more than that to displace Steam though, since its not just an app store, its also a distribution center for beta software and a community content agregator (reviews, guides, mods…)
I think MS' biggest enemy will be Valve’s “PC Master Race” fans that will immediately be suspicious of any “console” like efforts in the PC space from MS. They’re already suspicious of Windows 10, yet dependent on it.
Ok, ok, before I make the following friday night comment, I’ll just preface this by apologising up front for the straw man that’s ahead: sorry.
With that off my chest, I just want to share this recurring thought I have about MS: it would be such a great thing if Microsoft would decide to become a hardware-only company. Ain’t gonna happen, I know. But although their software is something I learned to stay as far away from as I can, their hardware, ok, peripherals at least, never let me down. Top notch stuff.
And the thought of an Earth without Microsoft ruining all the nice things.. Well, it does sound really nice, doesn’t it? Oh well. One can dream.
The sky is falling! Why does Microsoft get hate for this when Apple has wrecked Mac OS for the last few years in the same way?
Given this sort of move, I think it would be somewhat likely to see Valve and others dumping further funding into platforms like ReactOS–alternative operating systems that let them continue leveraging their back catalog of legacy games while still retaining control over newer deployments.
I highly doubt this; ReactOS probably isn’t going to be fully Windows-compatible for some time. Plus, it’d be a pain for users to move to ReactOS.