Microsoft giving PC gaming another push

[CeeKay]

Starting with the Fable 3 news they promise more good news this summer.  maybe this means we'll see more 360 ports or PC exclusives from MS Gaming Studios.

[Blackjack]

I think more likely you'll see a fabulous 3-D holographic update of the "Games for Windows" labels on your boxes. But wait, you buy everything via Steam now. Too bad you'll miss out. 

[Andrew Wonser]

Every once in a while Microsoft comes out with a press statement or small event saying, hey we totally love the PC and will absolutely make games for it. Then nothing. I wish they would just admit that they don't have a clue about the PC market and call it a day. Bring back the Flight Simulator team, give the Age of rights back to whatever studio some of the guys from Ensemble hopefully started after you canned them, and maybe we will talk. Until then stick with your precious Halo and... hmm do you have any properties left or just third party (paid) exclusives at this point.

[Blackjack]

I was going to post something similar to what Andrew said, but I wanted to wait for someone else to say it first. My post would've been angrier.   The XBox360 is MS's gaming gravy train now (hell, if the "Slim" is truly quieter and doesn't constantly break, I might finally get one even). That's fine, more power to them. I just find it deeply ironic that the Windows OS creators seem to have so little PC-gaming-specific interest anymore.

As for E3, this PC Gamer blog post says it all:
Microsoft’s shameful E3 PC showing
http://www.pcgamer.com/2010/06/20/microsofts-shameful-e3-pc-showing/

Here’s a fun fact: if you tried searching for PC games at E3, you’d do a better job looking at Sony’s portfolio than Microsoft’s. For the sum total of Microsoft’s commitment to PC gaming at E3 was utterly embarrassing. Four Xbox 360s running Fable 3. It’s now absolutely clear that Microsoft have zero interest in developing or supporting PC gaming’s incredible future. Their PC E3 showing was an embarrassment to the platform.

Most of what MS proclaims to do for PC gaming seems either cosmetic/branding (Games for Windows kiosks, what a great idea!), adds another annoying layer to online PC gaming that tries to XBox Live it (Games for Windows again), or ports of console titles that barely acknowledge the existence of mice and keyboards.

C'mon, Microsoft. I've supported your bloated OS for about 18 years now. Show a little respect for it as a gaming platform.

[Purge]

Aegis Wing
Age of Empires
Alan Wake
Azurik
Banjo-Kazooie
Bankshot Billiards
BattleTech
Black & White
Blinx
Blood Wake
Blue Dragon
Brute Force
Combat Flight Simulator WWII Europe
Conker
Crackdown
Crimson Skies
D.OT.S
Fable
Forza Motorsport
Freelancer
Fuzion Frenzy
Grabbed by the Ghoulies
Halo
Hexic
Hydro Thunder
Infinite Undiscovery
It's Mr. Pants
Jawbreaker
Jetpac
Joy Ride
Kakuto Chojin
Kameo
Kinect branded games
Kung Fu Chaos
Killer Instinct
Lips
Lost Odyssey
Magatama'
Maximum Chase
MechAssault
MechWarrior
Microsoft Flight Simulator
Microsoft Train Simulator
Midtown Madness
Ninety-Nine Nights
N.U.D.E.@Natural Ultimate Digital Experiment
Perfect Dark
Phantom Dust
Project Gotham Racing
Quantum Redshift
Rallisport Challenge
Rise of Nations
Shadowrun
Starlancer
Sudeki
Tao Feng: Fist of the Lotus
The Movies
Tork
Viva Piñata
Voodoo Vince
Whacked!

Not a total AAA list of games there, but there are some fantastic licenses.

Also, the following 1st and 3rd party developers:

In-house
343 Industries: A studio set up to develop future Halo related productions[6].
BigPark: Kinect Joy Ride.
Firebird Studios: Set up to help push the visual boundaries of all Xbox 360 titles. Also working on an unannounced game.[7]
Good Science Studio: Kinect Adventures [8]
Lionhead Studios: Black & White series, Fable series.
Rare Ltd.: Banjo-Kazooie series, Conker series, Perfect Dark series, Viva Piñata series, Killer Instinct series, Kinect Sports
Turn 10 Studios: Forza Motorsport series.
Xbox Live Productions: Fable II Pub Games, South Park Let's Go Tower Defense Play!
Wingnut Interactive: A studio set up in partnership with Peter Jackson to produce "filmic games".

Third-party partners
Artoon: Blinx series, Blue Dragon.
Bungie: Halo series
Crytek: Codename Kingdoms
Epic Games: Gears Of War series
feelplus Inc.: Lost Odyssey, Ninety-Nine Nights II.
Frontier Developments: Kinectimals.
Gastronaut Studios: Gel: Set & Match, Small Arms.
Mistwalker: Blue Dragon, Lost Odyssey.
NinjaBee: A Kingdom for Keflings, Cloning Clyde, Dash of Destruction.
Remedy Entertainment: Alan Wake.
Ruffian Games: Crackdown 2.
Sarbakan: Lazy Raiders.
Signal Studios: Toy Soldiers.
Silicon Knights: Too Human.
Ska Studios: The Dishwasher
Twisted Pixel: 'Splosion Man, The Maw.

I think what MS is missing is a strong stable of 2nd party developers - in this at least they could direct some focus to PC games development.

I think that companies like Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony do not want to push PC game development too hard as it creates a greater disparity between the competing technologies (IE PC games look amazing, and the 5+yr old console hardware looks like a drooling monkey). That helps slow down the console life cycle, and allows them to make more money.

[EngineNo9]

Yeah, that isn't a bad list of development partners, though some of them haven't even released a game yet and of course they are missing the studios that they left go like Ensemble, the Flight Sim guys, Bizarre, etc. 

But how many of those have released a game on the PC in the last several years?  Let's see...Epic Games had somebody else port Gears of War to the PC a year after the original release date.  Same thing with Viva Pinata.  That was 3 years ago.  And then...Black and White 2 five years ago?  Yeah, that's some strong commitment to PCs.

[kronovan]

I'll differ from everyone here a bit, in saying I think MS is doing a great job at supporting PC Gaming through their ongoing commitment to DirectX and other development tools. In the graphics library game they persevered and beat out PowerVR, GLIDE and have kept a competitive edge over OpenGL. As long as they keep bringing advancements they make in their 360 dev kits to the PC via technologies like XNA, there'll be dev studios willing to code for the PC.

I won't argue with anyone in terms of their effort in the Marketing and development of PC games - truly lame IMO. Perhaps the lamest marketing decision was not to make DirectX 10 backward compatible with the OS's they still supported - i.e. WinXP. Much of their PC dev studio casualties were no doubt due to shortfalls in $ 's partly due to not gaining a dominant market share in the console market even after prematurely releasing the X360. Oh, and the 1 Billion they lost for the RRoD fiasco didn't help either. It's not just PC gaming though - some of their good console gaming studios didn't survive the axe. I've always been perplexed by their lame efforts at marketing PC gaming. If they put the marketing effort they have behind XB Live towards PC gaming things would be very different, but I guess that'd be a bit too much like feeding both ends of the horse for them.

[Purge]

Fable 3 is PC as well; we'll see about launch time though .

I want to see a port of B&W 2 for Kinect ... for PC!

[EngineNo9]

Fable 3 is PC as well; we'll see about launch time though .

Right, this is their one game that they are using to demonstrate their commitment to PC gamers this time.  Even though they didn't release the last one and have no announcements of other titles to bring to the PC. 

[Jumangi]

I just want MS to keep supporting DX. I don't care about Games for Windows Live when I have far superior services like STEAM or Impulse for shopping, patching, community features.

[CeeKay]

more on this 'push'.

[Wargus]

Microsoft wants to lead PC revolution
Platform holder admits it ‘needs to step up’ on PC; Fable III, Flight and Age of Empires represent investment in sector

Microsoft has hit back at criticism that it isn’t doing enough to support PC gamers.

The platform holder says it should be its job to offer leadership in the sector, and will step up with three market-leading PC titles: Fable III, Age of Empires Online and Microsoft Flight.

Color me uninterested. I see they aren't too serious about this revolution.

[jersoc]

dear ms,

you can step up by making MechWarrior again.

signed,

Gamers

[CeeKay]

dear ms,

you can step up by making MechWarrior again.

signed,

Gamers

someone is already doing Mechwarrior.

[Space Herpes]

dear ms,

you can step up by making MechWarrior again.

signed,

Gamers

someone is already doing Mechwarrior.

As long as Ceekay is granting wishes. 

Dear MS,

Please make a modern Shadowrun game that is as fun and cool as the Sega Genesis Shadowrun game.

Signed,

Gamers

PS.  Buy the rights to Interstate '76.  There hasn't been a cool car combat game in ages.

[Razgon]

dear ms,

you can step up by making MechWarrior again.

signed,

Gamers

someone is already doing Mechwarrior.

As long as Ceekay is granting wishes. 

Dear MS,

Please make a modern Shadowrun game that is as fun and cool as the Sega Genesis Shadowrun game.

Signed,

Gamers

PS.  Buy the rights to Interstate '76.  There hasn't been a cool car combat game in ages.

I'll second that wish - Make a shadowrun game that incorporates everything from the P&P rpg, the society, taking jobs from Mr Johnsons, equipment, cars, open world, flats/hideouts, outragous personalities, magic, crazy corporations with more money than god, planning of shadowruns with selecting the right crew for the job, Magic and Dragons that cant be trusted of course!

[tok]

dear ms,

you can step up by making MechWarrior again.

signed,

Gamers

someone is already doing Mechwarrior.

Is this the one that was sent a Cease And Desist? They did a gameplay trailer that shows two mechs fighting in a city.
If that is the one, I believe development is stalled on it because of a lawsuit regarding ownership of mech design copyrights.

Situation may have changed, but last I read that was the status of what was to be Mechwarrior 5. This was a while back, so I hope situation has changed and I am wrong.

[kronovan]

dear ms,

you can step up by making MechWarrior again.

signed,

Gamers

someone is already doing Mechwarrior.

Is this the one that was sent a Cease And Desist? They did a gameplay trailer that shows two mechs fighting in a city.
If that is the one, I believe development is stalled on it because of a lawsuit regarding ownership of mech design copyrights.

Situation may have changed, but last I read that was the status of what was to be Mechwarrior 5. This was a while back, so I hope situation has changed and I am wrong.

IIRC the lawsuit only referred to Mech's used in the video teaser. From what I've heard Smith & Tinker is going ahead with the game and it's being dev'd by a local studio in my city named Piranah Games. The buzz in game dev circles here is that development is still happening, but dev staff are very tight lipped here, so you rarely really know.

I can't be bothered to read the revolutionary argument, because I'm too jaded on MS. Personally, I don't see how Fable III, Flight and Age of Empires are anything revolutionary or demonstrate much commitment to PC gaming, since they're all MS licenses that have a number of prequels already published by them.

[Gryndyl]

The best announcement MS could make would be that they're abandoning Games for Windows Live as an obnoxious and intrusive unnecessary thing to saddle a poor innocent game with.

[EngineNo9]

I guess I'm the only one who doesn't mind Games for Windows Live and actually likes the fact that it ties together my Xbox Live gamertag and achievements with my Windows gaming.  I certainly think it could be improved upon and that Microsoft has done a very poor job doing so, but for what it is I don't see the problem.

[Arkon]

an obnoxious and intrusive unnecessary thing to saddle a poor innocent game with.

Funny, that is roughly how I feel about Steamworks or whatever it is called that Civ V has.

[heloder]

Yeah but the difference is, Valve is like...cooler or something.

[Blackjack]

If I had any talent as a sketch artist, I'd draw a picture of a box labeled "PC Gaming" on the edge of a tall cliff, and there'd be this guy labeled "Microsoft" and he'd be pushing the box over the cliff. Maybe with Valve, Impulse, D2D, GoG and some others on the ground holding a trampoline.  

As far as Steamworks goes, I do think it'd be nice if PC game devs gave people a choice. If you don't care about Achievements and all that stuff, you oughta have some option to not have to bother with said integration.

[Huw the Poo]

As far as Steamworks goes, I do think it'd be nice if PC game devs gave people a choice. If you don't care about Achievements and all that stuff, you oughta have some option to not have to bother with said integration.

Absolutely.  This is why I get so pissed off when it's bundled with games.  It prevents me from buying the game, and although I'm occasionally derided around here for refusing to have anything to do with Steam, I can say with certainty that I'm far from the only one.  I've loved every Civ game ever made, for example, but I can no longer buy them thanks to this.