Microsoft VP Credits Valve With "Keeping the PC Ecosystem Strong"

Andy Chalk

One Flag, One Fleet, One Cat
Nov 12, 2002
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Microsoft VP Credits Valve With "Keeping the PC Ecosystem Strong"


Microsoft Game Studios chief Phil Spencer admits that Microsoft dropped the ball on PC gaming, which allowed Valve to pick it up.

How many times has Microsoft pledged to quit dicking around and take PC gaming seriously? half-dozen [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/101550-Microsoft-Pledges-to-Save-PC-Gaming-Again]? The truth is that it's hard to say, and it's also true that people stopped taking the claims seriously years ago. After all, the best thing Microsoft has done for PC gaming since launching the Games for Windows Live service is killing Games for Windows Live.

But where Microsoft got it all wrong, Spencer acknowledged that Valve got it right. "They've done a great job of keeping the PC ecosystem strong at a time where I don't mind saying that we could have been more focused on what was going on in PC gaming," he told VentureBeat.

"We were probably too focused purely on console," he added. "With Steam, [Valve has] done an amazing job of building this thing that, in a lot of ways, we should have been building as well at Microsoft."

Spencer said Valve has a lot of work ahead of it as it transitions from a game developer to a "platform company" with SteamOS and Steam Machines, but he believes it can be done. "They're smart. They've been through it. I think they can do it," he said. "But I think it will take time."

If it does work, Spencer may find himself a little less supportive of Valve than he appears right now: A successful push into the living room with Steam Machines would put even more pressure on the console business Microsoft is so heavily invested in. Wouldn't that be something?

Source: VentureBeat [http://venturebeat.com/2013/11/06/microsoft-weighs-in-on-valves-living-room-strategy-admits-windows-gaming-should-be-like-steam-interview/]


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weirdee

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Apr 11, 2011
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I don't think steamboxes directly challenge xbones for market share any more than PCs do

it's just that xbones might be looking at the wrong part of the market share in general
 

Compatriot Block

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Man, talk about refreshing. Keep this guy around, Microsoft. More people need to be able to nut up and admit it when mistakes are made.
 

CriticalMiss

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Was this a fake article or did a Microsoft exec actually talk publically without saying something stupid or mentioning Titanfall? It must be a harbinger of the end times D:
 

oliver.begg

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Oct 7, 2010
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Droped the ball?

they tried to fucking smash it so that every one had to play on a console, preferably a xbox.

the day windows isn't the only mass market gaming OS, will be a good day
 

Rad Party God

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Feb 23, 2010
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Yup, Valve has made huge strides no thanks to you.

... Wait... did somebody at Microsoft actually admits they fucked up?... wow... definitely didn't saw that coming.
 

LordLundar

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Apr 6, 2004
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Yup, Valve did a stellar job keeping PC gaming alive and strong.

After all, it's not like Microsoft had any intention of doing so.
 

Jumwa

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Jun 21, 2010
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oliver.begg said:
Droped the ball?

they tried to fucking smash it so that every one had to play on a console, preferably a xbox.
Truly. Even Sony has done more to support PC gaming than Microsoft has, with their SOE division producing a lot of MMOs for the PC gaming crowd, even providing PC support day one with their PS4 controller, something Microsoft won't be doing. And that's just pathetic. Sony has no vested interested in supporting the PC. They could've pushed their development to all focus on the Playstation brand these years, and it might have helped them out quite a bit to do so. But they had a market there and they stuck with it.

On the other hand, Microsoft seemed to be actively sabotaging PC gaming, by paying companies not to release their games for Windows in favour of their console. What a twisted situation this has all been, and the PC will only be better off with them keeping away.
 

fix-the-spade

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Way back in the heady days of 2001, when Halo was going to kill off Counter Strike, Valve approached Microsoft (amongst others) with the idea of producing an all digital game delivery system for PC. Microsoft thought at the time that such a system was at least five years from being practical, even with Microsoft's resources. They were right, in 2006 Steam was beginning to get the big publishers on board and was truly profitable in it's own right.

They were also wrong, very wrong, it's now over a decade later and Microsoft still hasn't managed to build a practical games delivery platform for PC, great job guys!

Turning Valve away was the biggest favour Microsoft has done for anyone, ever. I can only hope that their suddenly being happy about Valve making a console isn't some kind of cosmic balance thing that means Valve is about to be swallowed by an angry Elder God.
 

synobal

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After all, the best thing Microsoft has done for PC gaming since launching the Games for Windows Live service is killing Games for Windows Live
Truth so much truth. I guess microsoft has decided that a new rival in the livingroom might not be a good thing, so maybe time to try and mend fences with the folks at valve. But he is right, Steam machines won't be a huge success right away it will take time, hell just look at steam, 10 years ago steam was awful everyone hated it.
 

mattaui

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It's really too bad that MSFT is such a siloed, schizophrenic company, but it does stupid and counterproductive stuff across all its lines, launching and killing and maiming its own products. But it manages to get a few things right now and then, which I guess by pure dint of spending so much cash they can't help but do.

I love Steam and do all my gaming on there unless I'm unable to, and I hope the Steambox really does bring it to a wider audience. That being said, it's pretty trivial to plug your TV into your PC these days so I guess it's going to come down to how useful the streaming feature is, so that you can have your big gaming rig in another room and your smaller HTPC-sized Steambox tucked under the TV and bringing the game to your big screen.
 

Britishfan

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Wait... does this mean Microsoft Studios are going to make good games for Windows and/or Steam OS now? Are they working on porting their back catalogue? How about porting the Halo series at a cut price as an apology? I'm getting carried away there, aren't I?
 

The Madman

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I gave up on Microsoft in regards to PC gaming ages ago, and I'd recommend everyone else do the same. That company has done nothing but harm to the PC platform for years now and the day I can stop using windows in favour of another practical OS can't come soon enough.
 

thiosk

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Sep 18, 2008
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Pretty clear that just about everyone wishes they were Valve. I thought I'd have origin for simcity but the problems were too severe and I'm still origin-free. And thank goodness G4WL is finally dying. That was such a catastrophe of a system, designed by committee of executives.
Praise be unto Him. (I found http://www.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/ to be too much fun)
 

TomWiley

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The Madman said:
I gave up on Microsoft in regards to PC gaming ages ago, and I'd recommend everyone else do the same. That company has done nothing but harm to the PC platform for years now and the day I can stop using windows in favour of another practical OS can't come soon enough.
Aren't we being a bit cynical? It's true that Microsoft hasn't been pushing gaming on Windows quite as much as Xbox, but they still created Windows and has with frequent updates kept DirectX the preferred choice amongst PC developers for almost a decade. Heck they even make PC games now and then. And let's not forget that Valve wouldn't even exist if it wasn't for Microsoft.
 

The Madman

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TomWiley said:
Aren't we being a bit cynical? It's true that Microsoft hasn't been pushing gaming on Windows quite as much as Xbox, but they still created Windows and has with frequent updates kept DirectX the preferred choice amongst PC developers for almost a decade. Heck they even make PC games now and then. And let's not forget that Valve wouldn't even exist if it wasn't for Microsoft.
Once upon a time Microsoft was great and published some of my favourite games on PC. Mechwarrior, Age of Empires, Microsoft Flight, Freelancer, Rise of Nations, and numerous others...

Every single one of those development studios that were with Microsoft have since been closed, regardless of profitability. Every. Single. One. Meanwhile when Microsoft does try to publish something on the PC it's with the added knife of either being OS exclusive (Halo on PC, Shadowrun, Skulls of the Shogun for example) AND saddled with the burden of GFWL, which was crap when they put it out and has remained crap ever since with not a single redeeming feature. Not one. All support for MS PC published titles is defunct, having to go through Xbox Live (I shit you not) and their attempts to consolidate the PC gaming scene would be amusing if it didn't have the potential to be so harmful.

Considering how fragmented I've heard Microsoft is, with individual divisions working almost completely segregated from one another, I'm sure there's some good will to be had. But Microsofts gaming division? Hah! They're deserving of every bit of dismissive derision I can think up for them.
 

TomWiley

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I'm honestly surprised that the software giant responds so friendly and encouragingly to Valve after Gabe publicly giving them the finger everyone time someone gives him a mic.

If I was Microsoft, I'd tell Gabe to fuck off and ask him to return all those millions of Microsoft dollars he used to start Valve with. Then I'd free him from the "restrictive" and "catastrophic" experience of Windows by banning Valve and their Steam software from our platform for good. See how well they'd be doing on Linux without that Windows user base.

Of course, I wouldn't actually do any of this because I freaking love Steam on Windows, but Christ I can't for the life of me understand how anyone at Microsoft could have anything positive to say about Valve or Gabe.
 

TomWiley

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The Madman said:
TomWiley said:
Aren't we being a bit cynical? It's true that Microsoft hasn't been pushing gaming on Windows quite as much as Xbox, but they still created Windows and has with frequent updates kept DirectX the preferred choice amongst PC developers for almost a decade. Heck they even make PC games now and then. And let's not forget that Valve wouldn't even exist if it wasn't for Microsoft.
Once upon a time Microsoft was great and published some of my favourite games on PC. Mechwarrior, Age of Empires, Microsoft Flight, Freelancer, Rise of Nations, and numerous others...

Every single one of those development studios that were with Microsoft have since been closed, regardless of profitability. Every. Single. One. Meanwhile when Microsoft does try to publish something on the PC it's with the added knife of either being OS exclusive (Halo on PC, Shadowrun, Skulls of the Shogun for example) AND saddled with the burden of GFWL, which was crap when they put it out and has remained crap ever since with not a single redeeming feature. Not one. All support for MS PC published titles is defunct, having to go through Xbox Live (I shit you not) and their attempts to consolidate the PC gaming scene would be amusing if it didn't have the potential to be so harmful.

Considering how fragmented I've heard Microsoft is, with individual divisions working almost completely segregated from one another, I'm sure there's some good will to be had. But Microsofts gaming division? Hah! They're deserving of every bit of dismissive derision I can think up for them.
Still though, why this hostility? How is it your concern that Microsoft isn't doing enough to stimulate their own gaming development on their own platform? It's certainly not harming PC gaming in general, and the fact that Windows has a bigger, more diverse market of amazing PC games than ever before is proof of that. In fact, if anyone is harmed by their recent deprioritizing of Microsoft Studios, it's (you guessed it) Microsoft.

So you're criticizing Microsoft for harming Microsoft?

Not only that, it's not like MS Studios aren't publishing and developing games on PC. I think since 2012, they've published like 80 games on Windows 8 exclusively, and even more multi-platform (not including Xbox), not to mention that they're publishing more and more on Android and iOS. No, they haven't been able to produce any AAA-hits on Windows for a while (unless you count Flight Simulator), but they certainly got a lot going on. Oh and it's really worth mentioning that compared to let's say Sony, MS has a really good track record of making their games available on many platforms, even those competing directly with their own services. When Microsoft buys IP, there's still a good chance said IP is going to show up on PC. With Sony, not so much.

And let's talk about DirectX. It's a great graphical API (lightyears ahead of OpenGL in many aspects) and the DirectX team has actually tripled in size over the years, not been marginalized. They are updating it more aggressively and are definitely working hard to make sure that it remains the preferred GAPI amongst PC developers.

So it's not like their just sitting on their asses while Windows automatically remains the biggest gaming platform. This is a platform they've been putting millions of dollars and even more manhours into stimulating for more than a decade, and it just seems like everyone freaking forgets that whenever gaming on PC is mentioned.

I don't know, everything Microsoft does these days, even when they genuinely attempt to improve their services and listen to feedback, is met with this really poisoners attitude by the entire gaming industry. Yeah they fuck up, but their intentions are genuine and have always seemed genuine to me, and that should always be met with support.
 

Imperioratorex Caprae

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May 15, 2010
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What I see: Microsoft genuinely posts an atta-boy to another company they aren't currently partnered with in the spirit of fair-play and goodwill.

What the rest of the gaming world seems to see: OMG Microsoft is evil, don't listen to them! They're just trying to make up for the Xbone disaster, blah blah blah.

Pessimism and hate seems to be the default of most "gamers" when it comes to dealing with major corporations. Is it so hard to just look at something without delving for subtext or going on a tirade of past "injustices"?
If the world acted like that there'd be a wall around pretty much every country that ever committed some form of atrocity, and international commerce wouldn't exist, nor would any diplomatic relations because they'd degenerate into tirades of historical fuckups that each side may have committed.
Sometimes we have to give things a benefit of the doubt and say "Ok this time they might be genuinely saying something nice". Doesn't mean we have to forget, but it also isn't necessarily license to list every bad thing they've ever done either.
In business, sometimes you gotta be ruthless, sometimes diplomatic, sometimes you make mistakes thinking they're good ideas. In staying in business its all about how you handle the fuck-ups and move forward with the company despite bad press. In life, holding grudges doesn't advance anything.