Leaked Microsoft Video Reveals Horrible Future for PC Gaming

[Kathinka]

I think you are reading too much into this. PC is an open platform. It's not like MS can actually impose this to anyone who doesn't want to use it. Look at Live for Windows... Look at Steam, for that matter...

It's not like Xbox360 or any other closed platform that the manufacturer has full control.

If it is crap, there is no real way to impose it.

Don't sweat it.

it's not so much about the "imposing" and more of what is happening to gaming thanks to that notion, the consolisation of pc-gaming for the sake of profit. look at the battlefield-series for example. once the pinnacle of complexity and grandism in pc-first person shooters. now we have bad company 2, a brilliant game in its own right, but look what happened to the innovation. the technical side is almost in stagnation, so the outdated hardware of consoles can run it; the game gets more and more simplified so it is playable on consoles. going prone? nope sir, no button on the gamepad left. mods? nienté. custom maps? nada. dedicated servers? kindof, but only if you rent them from our super trusted partners.

and the metastasis of the cancer that is the microsoft-point system, that started to grow on the xbox, took a foothold too. in bad company 2, to stay with our example, it's still just cosmetical stuff, the specact-uniforms and weapon skins. but how long until i can buy double damage for 24 hours for 3 bucks?

and it's not just that game, this is what happens to many, many major pc game series. even trusted pc-fossils like half life are starting to crumble, with the overpriced-mini-content-in-episode-form-system.

so yeah, there is no way they can force us to buy their farmvile-shit. but they won't have to, because at the current rate there won't be any more serious games when they have their way with us.


regarding captcha: nobody and nothing here can beat the "university of cocks" i had the other day!

 

[Lovesfool]

it's not so much about the "imposing" and more of what is happening to gaming thanks to that notion, the consolisation of pc-gaming for the sake of profit.

I really disagree with your point of view.

At the end of the day, nobody imposes anything. It is us that choose with the way we spend our money.

Sure, gaming has become simpler, but that is because the users have led to that by spending money to simpler games (me being one of them, even though I play for over 20 years).

There will always be a niche market for complicated games. As long as there is demand, there will be content (or the other way around when we are talking about things like Live for Windows).

 

[Kathinka]

it's not so much about the "imposing" and more of what is happening to gaming thanks to that notion, the consolisation of pc-gaming for the sake of profit.

I really disagree with your point of view.

At the end of the day, nobody imposes anything. It is us that choose with the way we spend our money.

Sure, gaming has become simpler, but that is because the users have led to that by spending money to simpler games (me being one of them, even though I play for over 20 years).

There will always be a niche market for complicated games. As long as there is demand, there will be content (or the other way around when we are talking about things like Live for Windows).

sure there will be a niche, but at the end of the day we will have, say, 10 "serious" games a year, as opposed to 150. niche is good and fine, i don't say that complex games will go extinct. i'm just saying that complex gaming will suffer losses due to that developement. you should read the entire post^^

 

[phYnc]

Hey Look! Microsoft wants to turn the PC into the Xbox! I'll be busy using steam, thank you very much.

Theres a reason I quit using my xbox and went back to PC. Ill stay with Steam and I really hope that if we put up with this sort of cr*p it gives PC game developers more incentive to make more good games and take PC more seriously which recently has been lacking.

Edit: worst case scenario would be the opposite and PC gaming dies and is turned into this joke from M$

 

[TheAngryMonkey]

This ad is for women or moms.
It's no coincidence that the avatars were all women, minus the 2seconds at the end.
That's right ladies, Microsoft thinks your nothing but money spending, virtual farming,"OMG that dress is so pretty," users.
I'd be pissed.

 

[Kathinka]

it's not so much about the "imposing" and more of what is happening to gaming thanks to that notion, the consolisation of pc-gaming for the sake of profit.

I really disagree with your point of view.

At the end of the day, nobody imposes anything. It is us that choose with the way we spend our money.

Sure, gaming has become simpler, but that is because the users have led to that by spending money to simpler games (me being one of them, even though I play for over 20 years).

There will always be a niche market for complicated games. As long as there is demand, there will be content (or the other way around when we are talking about things like Live for Windows).

sure there will be a niche, but at the end of the day we will have, say, 10 "serious" games a year, as opposed to 150. niche is good and fine, i don't say that complex games will go extinct. i'm just saying that complex gaming will suffer losses due to that developement. you should read the entire post^^

It's not like complex gaming will suffer losses, is that demand for those kind of games will be insignificant in comparison with the casual market needs.

exactly. this is why i think this developement is bad for serious gaming. how many developers will waste time and resources making complex epic games when they can make huge profits by creating some cheap casual minigame-stuff with those instead?

 

[commodorejohn]

Microsoft has been making idiot plans that never go anywhere for decades now (anybody remember .NET Passport? No, I thought not.) Still, if this ever goes anywhere, it'll only strengthen my conviction that independent, small-scale PC game development is where the future lies.

 

[HyperionToASatyr]

Not worried at all. Of course they're marketing it more heavily towards the casual games market--it's an emerging market that will get Microsoft tons of money. And yeah, microtransactions and social-network crossover can be minorly annoying, but let's not kid ourselves here--we've all done it (whether by buying DLC or Facebooking about how much you love the new CoD.) So what I see when I look at this, horrible non-Miis aside, is a further-integrated virtual network, one small, tenative step closer to something like what authors like Neal Stephenson and William Gibson were describing in the 80s. Just a little.

 

[YukoValis]

well I am glad stuff for bored house wives/husbands is getting an upgrade. Me I'm looking forward to PC stuff like portal 2, serious sam 3, and heck maybe for the first time in 10 years duke nukem.

 

[Virgilthepagan]

I think I'm echoing the feelings of a lot of people here, but I'm not sure who they're targeting... people on facebook are one group of casual gamers and socialites, and even if it connects to their profile who wants the additional bit of hassle?

And people who, you know, play games are on Steam if they've got a PC (whether they want to or not, most PC exclusives/favored games end up on there).

So where does that leave our little fledgling microsoft project? I think they're going to try and shoehorn this crap into everything they can, like GFWL. It's not filling a niche per se, it's the program that won't have a chair when the music stops.

 

[ultratog1028]

No! You've corrupted xbox with this avatar crap, please don't touch my Pc.

Well, I'm pretty sure this is targeting the only people who actually use Windows Live instead of Steam; The Casualist of the Casuals. The ones who couldn't hold a controller or even know how to build an SCV in Starcraft.

 

[dakorok]

I hate this excessive tilt towards casual gaming.

 

[dcrane]

Actually, this looks a pretty viable plan for casual gamers, especially if it's targeted at handheld gaming systems, cell phones and iPad clones. But if they're intending to convert PC and XBox users, this a huge FAIL in the making.

 

[Mad Hamish]

If this video is about Microsoft's plans for the PC then why did the majority of the video show things that require only a tiny fraction of a PC's processing power?