Dear Microsoft: So You Want to Support PC Gaming Again?

[Darkness665]

Good points, Shamus. I suspect that it will fall on deaf ears.

A true case: I was working on verifying that products worked on the upcoming W* release. W98, was going to be a big leap forward and my company didn't want our products to get hammered when it was released. So, we are at a conference for that very purpose. Lots of companies, lots of devices and several actual MSFT devs. My favorite conversation related to the system saving energy. As in, if the user wasn't actually interacting with the system it would spin down the drive and blank or power off the monitor. Really trippy way back then. Sure laptops did that but few desktops. I tell the MSFT guy, "Thanks, that explains the bug I reported. I cannot download files from MSFT without the beta shutting down the HDD. Of course, I wasn't interacting with it! I was waiting for MSFT servers. Then the download failed because the drive was offline."

The look on his face was priceless. Two builds later it was fixed.

They still don't understand how a user actually wants to use W*. Their data is only on how the user can make W* do something close to what they want.

 

[Mikeybb]

They won't listen. They are already making DX 12 and a game windows 10 exclusive, despite me barely seeing any game use DX 11 in the years on windows 7.

They call operating systems "visions". They are lost.

I'll still hold out hope, but I can't dig up much to counter your point sadly.

The statement that windows 10 will be the last windows release, moving on to an apple style system of updates, puzzles me.

Conceptually, having everyone on the same release would streamline the process for software development somewhat.
Granted, there are is still the variety available in hardware to make it all complicated, but at least they wont have to deal with ensuring compatibility with 7,vista,8 and ten, not to mention throwbacks still clutching on to windows xp after being so badly burned by a dalliance with vista.

However, I'm not sure I trust microsoft enough to have all us users sequestered in one place, as it were.
Once everyone is using 10, how long until it shifts onto a yearly subscription pattern of revenue?
Perhaps I'm being overly untrusting and their motives are pure.

 

[Veylon]

That "Windows Button while Fullscreen" issue would be simple enough to fix by simply not going to windows unless you double-tap it. Sometimes you really do want windows to pop up and minimize the game. Maybe it froze up or something. If you do, your first instinct upon receiving no response is to hit it a whole bunch of times. It's not terribly likely that someone is going to hit it twice in a row quickly by accident. It'd be a simple enough fix.

Unnecessary replacement. It's already just the same thing as ctrl-esc, after all. Removing it altogether doesn't lose any functionality, and saves a lot of headaches. If you want to get out you can press ctrl-esc, or alt-tab, or ctrl-shift-esc, or ctrl-alt-del...

And then there's Windows-M and Windows-D and Windows-T and Windows-Tab too.

But most people using Windows aren't all that savvy about it. They know that the Windows button brings up the Windows menu and that's about it. If it doesn't do that, they're going to be stymied and mystified. Is my keyboard broke? Is the machine froze up? You can't very well pop up a window to tell them the Windows button isn't working when the whole point of this scenario is for Windows to keep a low profile while the full-screen app is running.

And yes I suppose you can say that everyone who uses a computer ought to know the ins and outs of it the way anyone using a car ought to know about proper alignment and how to refill the battery and change the oil.

I kind of wish that Windows would come with it's own tutorial to explain all this stuff a little at a time the way many games do so that the user gradually becomes familiar with useful features and shortcuts so that we wouldn't be having these kinds of conversations. Maybe it could put little hints and tips down at the bottom of the sign-in screen or something. How else would the casual user learn that Windows-Home minimizes all unfocused windows or that Windows-Shift-Arrow moves windows between screens? It's not exactly intuitive.

 

[Torchiest]

Wow, just wow. That link to your story from 2010 about GFWL is the best thing I've read in a while.

 

[Nergui]

A bit off topic, but what game is in that screenshot from page two?

 

[mew4ever23]

Agreed, the best thing MS can do for PC gamers, is make the OS smarter about Drivers, VC re-distributables, and full screen gaming, then STAY OUT OF THE WAY.

 

[Something Amyss]

I kind of wish that Windows would come with it's own tutorial to explain all this stuff a little at a time the way many games do so that the user gradually becomes familiar with useful features and shortcuts so that we wouldn't be having these kinds of conversations.

Man, I how I get an achievement for pressing the Windows button.

Tooltips or something would be great, in seriousness. I recently made a joke about how it's been years that we've been able to bring up the task manager from the taskbar, and I still go what I find to be the long way of CTRL ALT DEL and then selecting it because I forget that it's an option, and a bunch of my friends were like "you can DO that?" and then a discussion broke out over other functions we might not know.

And these weren't even like beginners. Some of these folks are pretty savvy. But they know one way to navigate, or access X or do Y.

 

[SecondPrize]

I lost the ability to access an email account and became unable to play online in Dark Souls or save my progress. I have trouble believing that the same company who begat GFWL into the world is capable of doing anything gamers would want other than easing the fuck back and sitting on their hands.

 

[SecondPrize]

I lost the ability to access an email account and became unable to play online in Dark Souls or save my progress. I have trouble believing that the same company who begat GFWL into the world is capable of doing anything gamers would want other than easing the fuck back and sitting on their hands.

I SEE EVERYTHING TWICE