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Jul 24 / Ozymandias

Games for Windows Articles

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Michael Wolf posted some good links to recent Games for Windows articles over on Gamerscoreblog.com, and I wanted to make sure you guys were aware of them. There’s been a lot of good work to make Windows Vista a really compelling platform for both game developers and gamers, and these articles will give you a good overview why.


Some of “big deals” in my mind include the revamped Games Explorer, which basically has become a one-stop shop for all your gaming-related activities in Vista, and the fact that we’ll be doing a lot to promote Windows gaming (or PC gaming, however you like to call it) at retail. Over the years the latter has been a bit of a weakness as Windows gaming didn’t have a clear platform champion (as do consoles), and I believe this should help support the retail PC market a great deal. Of course, don’t forget the huge changes DirectX 10 will bring as well. I’ll point you to Dave’s post on that (including links to a great article on ExtremeTech).


Later I’ll have to post some thoughts on the ramifications of Live Anywhere, our initiative to bring Xbox Live to Windows and other devices in the future. While not directly tied to Windows Vista, you’ll begin seeing the tip of the iceberg as Live Anywhere games ship for Vista, and I think you’ll be pretty excited what the future might bring there.

Related posts:

  1. Finally! The solution to playing Windows games on Linux!
  2. Windows Vista Coming Together
  3. Vista Game Doctor
  4. Panorama = Beginning of Live Anywhere
  5. Want to Make Games for Windows Phone? Go to GDC!

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  • yo

    animo!

  • http://www.alijahgreen.spaces.msn.com Alijah Green

    I was wondering if direct x 10 possible on the xbox360.

  • animo!

    is it?

  • bean

    I’m just not impressed.

    1. An ad campaign to get more shelf-space for PC games in brick & mortar stores is good, but I don’t need a new OS to benefit from this.

    2.  I don’t care about a Games Window or about a direct-to-play function for loading up saves after loading up the game.  I actually don’t even really like the idea if it allows games to place these on my desktop automatically. . .  the clutter would be annoying.

    3.  The 3D windows. . .  gimmick, and not a very good one.

    4.  DirectX 10.  Crytek looked awesome at E3.  I’ll want Vista when I can buy a DirectX 10 graphics card.  Of course, they’ll probably all be PCI-E, and I have AGP slots only, so I’ll need to upgrade that too.  Really, I may be stuck using DX 9 and Windows XP until I’m out of college and can afford a whole new box instead of the ~$300 I can afford to put into it each year that keeps it a middle-of-the-road gaming machine.  

    I know that Microsoft is trying to sell their product, but these features seem really out of touch with what PC gamers issues with Windows are.

    What Microsoft COULD do to make my life easier and better is:

    1.  Stop all obtrusive crap.  Let me decide what starts up when I turn on the computer.  Don’t let programs do this without my express consent and allow me to remove them easily.

    2.  Work to make PC-gaming affordable. . .  actually this would never work.  At least, not with technology that is still improving so quickly.  Still, the market for PC gaming is always going to be relatively small while it remains so expensive to maintain a gaming PC.

  • http://www.mdxinfo.com Rim

    "Still, the market for PC gaming is always going to be relatively small while it remains so expensive to maintain a gaming PC."

    Unfortunately that’s probably a difficult problem to solve, because the push for the biggest, greatest gaming pc comes primarily from the gamer himself. People just won’t be content with less-than-uber graphics and since they can see that the options are there, most (harcore?) gamers will want to use them even though no current, somewhat affordable PC can run them.

    It’s an attitude problem I think. Even with my very decent rig, I’m not able to run Oblivion at full detail. But why should I care? People keep hammering that gameplay is more important than the graphics (to which I agree), so this shouldn’t really be an issue at all, right? As I was playing GTA:SA on the XBox again the other day, I was thinking it doesn’t look quite as good as various PC games. The same might be said of WoW, which is a great game, but it doesn’t do anything superflashy compared to various FPS’s or even other RPG’s. But they’re fun games nonetheless.

    So, shouldn’t we just make our own life easier by just enjoying games, instead of contemplating how good it would look on a $4000+ XPS or Alienware rig?

  • Ozymandias

    Hey guys – just wanted to let you know I’m asking around on the DX 10 question. I’m not certain, and wanted to get facts first.

  • http://www.alijahgreen.spaces.msn.com Alijah Green

    thanks for looking into this for me.