Microsoft and Nvidia Quit PC Gaming Alliance - UPDATED

[Souplex]

Have people not been paying attention to the writing on the walls? This collapse has been in the works since 06.

 

[Centrophy]

The home-page short title is "Good-bye, PC Gaming"

Only reason I read the article was because of that.

Yep, that's sensationalism for you

Fixed for you. Seriously, Escapist editors/contributors really need to tone down their headlines.

 

[Sennz0r]

Then can M$ pleeeeaase drop the GFWL requirements for certain games? I don't want to use that crap. I feel like it may try to bend me over like XBL did.

EDIT: Honestly, did you have to go all The Sun on the homepage's headline, though?

 

[Jewky]

MS have their Xbox, so concerning platforms, they'd probably want to sell m0ar of that and therefore want less gaming on PC. Nvidia, well, I was never a fan of the casings/boxes of the game reading stuff like : This game runs better on Nvidia/Intel/ATI/AMD, so not such a devastating blow in my opinion

 

[Gabanuka]

No Mass Effect 3 for PC I reckon?

Well since Biowere have a record for making the PC ports of their games the best I dont think so.

 

[Asehujiko]

....what the hell is the PC Gaming Alliance? Seriously, why is this the first time I've heard this thing even existed. And as a relatively avid PC gamer, me not even knowing who the hell they are just shows what a bang-up job they're doing!

Their main "contribution" is having all the DRM license sellers among their members and cartel-ling the license cost of them all the way into the sky.

You might remember their press release last week loudly proclaiming that developers should add more DRM to the game.

 

[somonels]

What was Microsoft doing there in the first place? Still, a nice move, after announcing that Win 8 will be a capable gaming platform.

 

[Sneaklemming]

Oh yes Microsoft, the Giants of PC gaming, with the outstanding and award winning Games for Windows Live. It stands as a pillar of gaming standards; and without which the PC gaming world would surely die away.

Microsoft who with windows have built-in irreplaceable utilities for gamers into the OS.

Microsoft, the world-renowned publisher if the acclaimed Age of Empires II and Flight Sim X. Modern greats unsurpassed in technology and scope.

Yes, it is clear that Microsoft are the real heavy hitters in todays PC gaming environment...

 

[syndicated44]

Dumb question, what exactly does the PCGA do..?

 

[veloper]

Hardly. PC gaming is one of the pillars of their Windows empire.
The average consumer who doesn't game on his PC can can get by with old windows 2000 or xp and a 10 year old CPU. That will run their webbrowser and wordprocessing needs fine. Gaming is the most demanding application.
Cut out a big portion of the early adopters and the rest will be much slower to catch up. It would hurt the entire industry. Nvidia, AMD, Intel, the lot.

M$ wants both PC and xbox gaming. Their best move was making a directx console, very similar to a PC, making porting games between the 360 and the PC so much easier.

I guess that explains why they pay other companies money to not release content on the PC and only do so exclusively for the Xbox. Or having their own developers not release content for PC even though the developers planned to. All while buying out other PC game makers and having them turn what was originally a PC-only title in a Xbox only title.

Though PC gaming might be important to Microsofts business, their investment of cash speaks to the fact they don't recognize it as such.

It makes sense when you consider the PS3 and the wii.

If I were M$ I would fear the other consoles far more than fear for PC gaming minus a few ports.
They need the 360 to be succesful, both to be profitable in itself and to support the PC with easy game porting. Exclusives make the 360 seem more attractive compared to the other consoles.
It's a balance act.

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

I just recalled something, its easier to run day minus one games on the 360 than the PC, sure its single player only but WTF MS get a clue.....

Fix'd it for you. The 360 is leak central.

Ya they are just trying to ru the PC into the ground since they can not control it like a closed market setup....

 

[Jumwa]

It makes sense when you consider the PS3 and the wii.

If I were M$ I would fear the other consoles far more than fear for PC gaming minus a few ports.
They need the 360 to be succesful, both to be profitable in itself and to support the PC with easy game porting. Exclusives make the 360 seem more attractive compared to the other consoles.
It's a balance act.

And so Microsoft sabotages the PC to buoy the Xbox against its competitors. Glad we agree on my original point.

 

[duchaked]

"it's hard to imagine that the group's relevance won't become increasingly questionable."

heh ya pretty much thinking that...

 

[veloper]

It makes sense when you consider the PS3 and the wii.

If I were M$ I would fear the other consoles far more than fear for PC gaming minus a few ports.
They need the 360 to be succesful, both to be profitable in itself and to support the PC with easy game porting. Exclusives make the 360 seem more attractive compared to the other consoles.
It's a balance act.

And so Microsoft sabotages the PC to buoy the Xbox against its competitors. Glad we agree on my original point.

Keeping Fable 3 away from the PC is a bit harsh to call 'sabotage', more like a mercy really considering what a dumbed down mess that game is.

Still M$ wants to have it both ways.
You know you can plug a 360 controller in a PC USB port? It's little things like these that are for more important than a few more ports. I don't care about fable3, but the controller is nice for games that aren't RTS or FPS.
They would prefer it if cross-platform gamers didn't go the usual PC+PS3/wii, but rather PC+360.
PC gaming isn't really dying anyway.

 

[Atmos Duality]

Losing Microsoft is no big deal. Ignoring the loss of Nvidia, Microsoft leaving might've just been an indication of the positive, seeing as their goals seem to be in sabotaging the PC gaming market in favour of their games console.

Microsoft's business strategy with the Xbox series has always had this inevitable conflict of interest with PC ahead of it. I suppose now it's coming to fruition.

It makes sense because Microsoft has no real say in how to control the PC market; but they have a lot more clout (and money-mongering tactics) with their console. It's far easier to control their customers on a system that is, by design, limited and restrictive.

Funneling more customers into the 360 market is better for their bottom line because it doesn't really matter how many gamers use Windows; they will retain a massive retail-royalty-base without them (that is, Windows will be bundled onto millions of machines every year regardless of how said machines are used; be it for gaming or otherwise).

 

[archvile93]

Losing Microsoft is no big deal. Ignoring the loss of Nvidia, Microsoft leaving might've just been an indication of the positive, seeing as their goals seem to be in sabotaging the PC gaming market in favour of their games console.

Hardly. PC gaming is one of the pillars of their Windows empire.
The average consumer who doesn't game on his PC can can get by with old windows 2000 or xp and a 10 year old CPU. That will run their webbrowser and wordprocessing needs fine. Gaming is the most demanding application.
Cut out a big portion of the early adopters and the rest will be much slower to catch up. It would hurt the entire industry. Nvidia, AMD, Intel, the lot.

M$ wants both PC and xbox gaming. Their best move was making a directx console, very similar to a PC, making porting games between the 360 and the PC so much easier.

And yet few of their Xbox games ever see a PC release, and the ones that do are usually very late ports that they clearly put no effort into whatsoever seeing as they almost always run like shit. And then there's GFWL. I literally (not misusing the word there) installed it five minutes ago to play Bulletstorm, and I've already decided it's the shittiest software my poor computer has ever been cruelly subjected to.

 

[mad825]

What is Nvidia saying? some consequence two of the top major players leaving at the same time.

 

[veloper]

Losing Microsoft is no big deal. Ignoring the loss of Nvidia, Microsoft leaving might've just been an indication of the positive, seeing as their goals seem to be in sabotaging the PC gaming market in favour of their games console.

Hardly. PC gaming is one of the pillars of their Windows empire.
The average consumer who doesn't game on his PC can can get by with old windows 2000 or xp and a 10 year old CPU. That will run their webbrowser and wordprocessing needs fine. Gaming is the most demanding application.
Cut out a big portion of the early adopters and the rest will be much slower to catch up. It would hurt the entire industry. Nvidia, AMD, Intel, the lot.

M$ wants both PC and xbox gaming. Their best move was making a directx console, very similar to a PC, making porting games between the 360 and the PC so much easier.

And yet few of their Xbox games ever see a PC release, and the ones that do are usually very late ports that they clearly put no effort into whatsoever seeing as they almost always run like shit. And then there's GFWL. I literally (not misusing the word there) installed it five minutes ago to play Bulletstorm, and I've already decided it's the shittiest software my poor computer has ever been cruelly subjected to.

PC gets alot of multiplatform games: Arkham Asylum, COD series, Bioware games, Bethesda games, ports of xboxlive games like meatboy and shank, the lot.
Most of the time the average port is still better than the console version, though there are ofcourse exceptions.

Some games remain exclusive true, but I can't think of any exclusive right now that I'd really miss.

Seriously, if M$ wanted to kill PC gaming in favour of the 360, they would simply have left out direct3dx in Vista and windows 7 and for good measure block openGL and proprietory solutions. Make it impossible to game on.

WindowsXP is limited to old dx9.0c and 2GB of RAM, so by now PC gaming would have come to a complete standstill and the death blow would come a few years later with the next console generation.

 

[teh_Canape]

yeah, Microsoft

how about that Halo HD remake coming to PC?

you know, since Combat Evolved WAS, in fact, released on PC

 

[Vrach]

With that perception successfully changed, we have decided to not continue our membership and instead focus that energy on our own internal efforts, including the return of our flagship PC franchises Age of Empires and Microsoft Flight," the rep said.

I love how blind they are about the fact those two titles are virtually meaningless in the gaming world. AoE's time is long gone and their new MMO sucks, which is something pretty much everyone I've seen agrees on, from AoE hardcore fans, across news sites (Escapist included) and all the way to the rest of us (don't get me wrong, I loved the AoE games, but that was a long time ago and doesn't change the fact the MMO 'sequel' sucks). The other being a flight sim... well... need I say anything really?

Yeah, both games will have players, hell some will love them, but considering we're talking about guys with that much cash, capable of so much, who talk about pushing the PC platform forward with those two titles while they're releasing much more 'relevant' ones on their console, I can't do much more than chuckle.