Microsoft lied, the horror

[Alyeska]

Its not secret, I am a PC gamer. That said, I've been looking at a new piece of technology called the XIM3. That's beside the point though.

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/3061 ... Gaming.php

Microsoft claimed that they are reaffirming their commitment to PC gaming. When that happened it looked like Microsoft admitted they slipped and let PC gaming slide. Seems like they were going to reverse course and at least spend some effort on PC games. Even if its just a port, its a release.

I contend that Microsoft was lying.

E3 2011

Not a single listed PC game for Microsoft. None.

E3 2010

One PC game. Thats it.

If Microsoft doesn't want to release games on PC, that's their choice. I don't like it, but they don't have to release on platforms they don't want to. But lying to PC gamers? Seriously. What was the purpose? What does it gain? Its not like its going to get extra sales, they aren't even releasing games to PC fans to sell copies in the first place. One game in the last 2 years does not make for a good platform to use lying to get sales.

Sure, Microsoft is working on a new Mechwarrior title that's a PC release and the new Microsoft Flight. But those are more distant releases. Those games don't even have release dates, and its just two games.

Since E3 2010 Microsoft has managed to be part of a single PC release and with two more supposedly in production but no release date given. That warms the heart to know Microsoft has a strong commitment to further support the future of PC gaming.

[Akhlut]

My guess is that the PR people didn't want to get bad press by saying that they were essentially abandoning the PC for game development, so they lied in order to keep there from being too much bad press.

Also, there's the plausible deniability factor: if they release games 2 or 3 years hence, they can say "see, we never abandoned you! we just took a while to deliver a quality product!".

[Alyeska]

The sales will be pretty pathetic, really. I guess they are spending just enough effort to keep the lights running in case they change their mind. Maintaining their resources at a minimum so if they change course they don't have to rebuild from scratch.

[Admiral Drason]

The sales will be pretty pathetic, really. I guess they are spending just enough effort to keep the lights running in case they change their mind. Maintaining their resources at a minimum so if they change course they don't have to rebuild from scratch.

I have a buddy from college who now works at MS and thats exactly what he said when I asked him what was the deal with MS Live, he admitted that for the most part its all half assed anymore so that MS can say that it has its hands in the PC pie but not really put any real resources in it.

[Alyeska]

No wonder Steam is smoking Live in the PC market. Microsoft is deliberately not competing. They are in the race for the sole purpose of advertising they are in the race with no intent to do well or compete with anyone. This makes Microsofts statement about re-affirming PC gaming to be a PR statement because it would be somewhat embarrassing if Microsoft admitted it wasn't backing one of its environment.

I question the value of that. Does this statement have any affect outside of the PC gaming community? I don't think Sony or Nintendo particularly care. People who primarily game on consoles or just casual game on the PC probably don't give a shit. Microsoft wants to avoid embarrassment? What cost would it be to them to admit they don't care about PC gaming when they effectively aren't making games? The few games they are making probably won't get boycotted because of their niche market. The alternative is to publicly state they have other priorities not compatible with PC gaming at this time. That also probably wouldn't affect the sales on the handful of titles they release.

Making a PR statement like that is usually an intent to help an investment. If Microsoft had intended to dump a ton of very shitty ports on the PC they could use that statement to encourage sales and use the games to claim they are supporting PC. Cheap and pick up sales for several games. But it would backfire if too many bad releases hit. Releasing good ports or dedicated released with that PR statement makes more sense, but costs money Microsoft seems unwilling to spend.

I wonder if the entire position is an attempt to protect their "Games for Windows" brand. Games not released by them but with their official seal.

[Skgoa]

Windows (and especially it's libraries like directX) is the de facto industry standard in PC gaming. They might loose a whole segment of the market - i.e. gamers - if PC gaming dies or is even only percieved to be dying. Since if more games get published for OSX(or Linux for that matter), a big reason to always use the latest Windows vanishes. Blizzard, Valve and a couple of other big names have started to release Mac versions of their games at launch and most new Macs come with respectable grafics chips. So they are already under threat.

[Stark]

Yeah, they simply have little interest in staking their cash on PC releases. I'd be surprised if they didn't continue to build and update DX etc, and they're not going to discourage PC gaming. They've just got better things to do than waste money on a market they don't control.

In this scenario they need to reaffirm that PC gaming is important with regard to some of their products, but it's becoming pretty clear that doesn't include actually making games. Is his really a problem? Does MGS make any games PC gamers feel like they 'miss out' on?

Its worth remembering that MS seems to be a highly factionalised and personality-driven company. The Xbox guys are certainly in the spotlight now, and the PC guys (and whoever is in charge) has been treading water for some time. This could change at any time, and MS aren't losing the skills to make games.

[Alyeska]

In this scenario they need to reaffirm that PC gaming is important with regard to some of their products, but it's becoming pretty clear that doesn't include actually making games. Is his really a problem? Does MGS make any games PC gamers feel like they 'miss out' on?

On a personal level, I can honestly say I miss several games. I am a Halo fan. That puts me in a position I dislike. Fable 2, Gears of War 2, Halo 3, Halo Wars, Halo ODST, Halo Reach. Yeah, I've missed out on some games. And because I do not play console games nor own a current generation console, they won't make that money off me through console sales.

There is clearly money to be made off PC gaming. Dedicated releases are still being made. Microsoft certainly has a finite amount of resources which can explain deciding not to make PC games. But some of those titles I mentioned were only co-produced by Microsoft and they could contract out porting work. And these days the differences between PC and console has diminished given the architecture being so similar and using the same engine on multiple platforms. The cost to port a game has decreased. Activision could care less about the PC as anything but simple money. They design a game around the console and then expend relatively little effort to get it over on the PC for some extra sales. That's more than Microsoft has been doing.

Looking at the E3 list there is a pretty clear trend. Sony and Nintendo do not produce any PC games. Sony and Nintendo have their own consoles. Makes perfect sense. Microsoft owns X-Box. But Microsoft also owns windows. However, they are only supporting one category. The independent publishers? They multi console release almost everything. EA, Activision, and Ubisoft all have significant PC releases on their multi titles while the smaller publishers still have upwards of 50% release on PC.

But as you have said, MGS is dominant on the 360 and that drives their demands. So Microsoft acts more like Sony and Nintendo and less like EA and Activision.

[Stark]

I think that given the difficulties and costs in the PC market, and a round of bad ports (like Gears1 and other games of that period), they may have simply decided to cut their losses. PC sales might have accounted for only a small revenue stream for MGS (or whoever) and they decided it wasn't worth the QA or poor port backlash. However, I was under the impression the console market wasn't really that profitable; perhaps due to factionalism the MGS guys want to buff their balance sheet by cutting PC game development, or whatever.

What may upset you is that it appears there is a trend starting in console-only indie or 'light' games. Everything from Kill Team to Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet are console-only. XNA allows indie guys to release on both PC and 360, but they often choose no to anyway.

[Alyeska]

I think that given the difficulties and costs in the PC market, and a round of bad ports (like Gears1 and other games of that period), they may have simply decided to cut their losses. PC sales might have accounted for only a small revenue stream for MGS (or whoever) and they decided it wasn't worth the QA or poor port backlash. However, I was under the impression the console market wasn't really that profitable; perhaps due to factionalism the MGS guys want to buff their balance sheet by cutting PC game development, or whatever.

Entirely possible. GOW was an unusual release and handicapped in ways that still have me scratching my head.

What may upset you is that it appears there is a trend starting in console-only indie or 'light' games. Everything from Kill Team to Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet are console-only. XNA allows indie guys to release on both PC and 360, but they often choose no to anyway.

Funny thing is its the opposite for me. I usually don't care about the indie games and get upset about not getting a taste of the AAA titles. Not entirely rational because I know there are several very good indie titles these days.

[Stark]

I wonder if developers leaving the PC market makes the others think they should leave, or actually makes them more secure? The large third-party developers by definition have to run QA and ports etc, and they're likely not as internally divided as Microsoft.

[Vendetta]

There's a bunch of stuff that Microsoft didn't talk about which will impact gaming on PC. Like, for instance, Xbox Live connectivity being built in to Windows 8, with many of the cloud services (that they also didn't talk about) being fully cross platform. (so you sign up to some subscription service like Netflix through your Live account and you can use it on any device that account is signed in on).

That might even include some kind of cross platform game purchasing, like the PS3 version of Portal 2 coming with a key for the Steam version in the box, but more seamless (buy one game through the Live service, download it to as many platforms as you like, play it on any one of them as long as your Live ID is signed in there. Hell, with cloud based saves you could even carry on your saves between platforms. Some PS3/Vita games will do that).

At the end of the day though, the PC market is different and Microsoft's strategy to it is different. They build Windows, they build platforms and technologies within Windows that games on the PC will use like DirectX, and that's all very dry and dull and does not make for engaging PR material at an event like E3.

If you want to play MGS games, buy an Xbox.

[Stark]

It's arguable that even that is simply due to their Windows 8 project of bringing all 'windows' together; it's probably aimed much more at the 'Windows phone' than the 'Windows Desktop'.

Since most of the games that never come out on PC are fundamentally designed for a gamepad, it's easy to see how they'd merely be lambasted as 'consolised' if they were ported.

[Edward Yee]

There's a bunch of stuff that Microsoft didn't talk about which will impact gaming on PC. Like, for instance, Xbox Live connectivity being built in to Windows 8, with many of the cloud services (that they also didn't talk about) being fully cross platform. (so you sign up to some subscription service like Netflix through your Live account and you can use it on any device that account is signed in on).

Only as long as this means Xbox LIVE and not Games For Windows LIVE...

[Alyeska]

More proof of the obvious.

In 2007 Microsoft released 6 titles on the PC. In 2008 they released nothing. 2009 to summer of 2011 they have released a total of 5 titles. Only one of which could be classified as AAA.

That just about coincides with the X-Box 360. It came out in 2005. The PC games that released in 2006 and 2007 were games already in the pipe. After the dismal sales of Halo 2 and Gears of War on PC microsoft just gives up. All future work is dedicated on the 360.

The X-Box is where the money is, so that is where Microsoft is divesting its resources. Since they don't actually make multi-platform games like other producers, they don't have the resources to retool a game for a different platform. That actually makes sense. Activision, EA, Ubisoft, THQ, they have incentive to release on every platform. Microsoft would never release on Nintendo or Sony. And with restricted resources as a result, the required effort to port on PC for relatively little additional gain just isn't worth it.

So there you have it. Its just not worth the effort for Microsoft because the X-Box is a bigger money maker and has a higher profit margin. Simple as that.

[weemadando]

There's a difference between:

"Commitment to PC gaming"

and

"Releasing PC games"


Microsoft is a platform holder for PC, but they don't want to get involved with the games software side too much... So what? They're still actively supporting a lot of developers in their platform with stuff like new Direct X revisions and the like.

You look at Apple and see Steve Jobs who continues to insist that the iOS devices are not and should never be viewed as gaming platforms despite them being massively successful in that space, so support for game developers on their platforms is weakened.

[Stark]

Lots of third-party devs support all kinds of MS-driven PC development (even if stuff like UDK is also squarely aimed at the mobile market). If MS didn't have a commitment to PC gaming, maybe we'd slip back into the bad old days of 1994 where playing games on the PC was an adventure in both sucking and blowing.

All this seems a bit irrelevant, though, since an 'X-Box' costs about the same as a decent monitor. Just buy one, hide it in a drawer, nobody ever has to know. If it wasn't for the powerpack difference, you could have one of mine; I'm replacing both with the Gears 3 LCE in September. Sadly, MS is too dumb to follow Valve's pricing on direct download games, but at least you can still rent console games.

[Bounty]

I'm not really seeing "the horror" here, or the lies. Microsoft is still offering oodles of support to PC gaming even if they're not developing the games themselves, and it doesn't make any sense for them to port their titles to the PC when they're pushing the 360 as the go-to platform for gaming. It's a perfectly sound decision on their part and getting upset about it is just ridiculous.

[aussiemuscle308]

on a positive note, it might mean the end of crap like Microsoft Live for Games on pc. ooh, i hate that crap software so much.