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Microsoft confirms no PC Alan Wake: Reasoning? "LOL, COMFY COUCH".

I'm going to hate myself for being baited and responding to such a blatant troll but:

NIGHT- said:
Honestly some of those PC guys are full of shit.. 'You really need at least $800 dollar PC to get the performance they are bsing about

And for that kind of money I would rather own all 3 consoles.
A $600 PC will destroy PS3 and 360 performance and you can buy games for literally peanuts via Steam sales. In the long run you will end up saving money compared to buying all three consoles, Xbox Live and $60 games.
 
SmokyDave said:
But is it? If MS need more exclusives for the 360 (and to my mind, they do) then this is actually a very good business strategy. Revenue from PC Sales obviously isn't enough to counteract the 'exclusive effect' or MS would make it happen, they're all about the money after all.

It may suck for consumers but for MS it looks like a smart move. I expect there will be a contingent of PC Gamers that suck it up and buy an arcade 360 and Alan Wake. Then when the next 360 exclusive hits...

Exactly. The same guys bitching about this are the guys that bitch about 360 not having enough exclusives. So of course this is a smart move from Microsoft's perspective.


A $600 PC will destroy PS3 and 360 performance and you can buy games for literally peanuts via Steam sales. In the long run you will end up saving money compared to buying all three consoles, Xbox Live and $60 games.

A $600 dollar PC in no way would destroy console performance except in few cases like Dragon age and Mirrors edge . It may be some what better in multiplatform games, but I don't see the pay off worth it. I find the console exclusives more appealing than PC exclusives.

As far as sales go, I picked up Crackdown for $10 dollar on newegg last year. Better deal for me than anything I've seen on the steam sale.
 
epmode said:
Which one doesn't work? I haven't found any, myself.

But I guess we're just REALLY LUCKY. How else can you explain all of the horror stories?

Magic the Gathering, it's an old game from Windows 95 which I'd hate to part with, fun to play from time to time and there's nothing like it anymore. Have to run it through a VM, it's a 16-bit installer so it won't even install... and when I googled it, it seemed to have a ton of problems with XP, so I didn't even bother looking for solutions to get it running. It works perfectly through Win 98 VM, so I have one game which I have to rely on an older OS. So I don't count it, as you can't tell people they have to buy a different OS as a solution to get their game running :lol

The horror stories do humor me, I always think when someone goes off like that they probably weren't all that interested in the first place and just looking for an excuse. PC gaming is filled with way too many gems to pass over for me. That's not to say console gaming isn't, there are just as many... but with so many pc games, I really don't need another 300 console games in my collection, and I do prefer the games and gaming on a PC.
 
I got a question to the PC-crowd, since I see the k+m argument thrown around. But, what about the PC-players who get's really pissed about no 360-pad support and stuff for some games? Wouldn't they be happy that one can use the better k+m instead? (I agree that keyboard and mouse is the more precise control though.)

This is a serious question which I am curious about. Maybe those are rather "new" PC-players though.
 
NIGHT- said:
Exactly. The same guys bitching about this are the guys that bitch about 360 not having enough exclusives. So of course this is a smart move from Microsoft's perspective.
Nonsense. Microsoft should put emphasis on the strong exclusives. Alan Wake is an incredibly weak one. To most people, it'll be considered 'just some game' at release. Mostly because the Max Payne reference is lost on most people.

Microsoft should hit hard with Natal, with the new Game Room, with Fable 3, Gears 3, Halo Reach, stuff like that. Alan Wake plays second fiddle here at best.

This right now merely looks like a Heavy Rain counter of sorts. A complete waste of the efforts of Remedy if it doesn't click with the 360 crowd, yet it was almost guaranteed to hit big in PC land.

NIGHT- said:
As far as sales go, I picked up Crackdown for $10 dollar on newegg last year. Better deal for me than anything I've seen on the steam sale.
So ridiculous. You're just trolling right now.
 
KAOz said:
I got a question to the PC-crowd, since I see the k+m argument thrown around. But, what about the PC-players who get's really pissed about no 360-pad support and stuff for some games? Wouldn't they be happy that one can use the better k+m instead?
Because different people like different things. Some people prefer to play with a gamepad, or play games on a console.
 
NIGHT- said:
How is it ridiculous? I honestly find that more appealing than anything I've seen on the steam sale.
Well, that's okay. You shouldn't proclaim this as a general rule though.. So it's not really clear why you would bring it up after all.

I don't like Crackdown at all. I buy more PC games, and I like buying them cheap. So? Doesn't mean that everyone does it like that. So why would I bring it up? We're not counting the ranks here.
 
NIGHT- said:
How is it ridiculous? I honestly find that more appealing than anything I've seen on the steam sale.

Honestly, guy, you're better off being seen as a troll in this situation rather than someone who meant for that to be a serious comment.
 
Am I the only person who prefers gaming on consoles, yet still thinks it's wrong to yank the PC version away from other gamers? I don't see why battle lines are being drawn here.
 
wmat said:
Well, that's okay. You shouldn't proclaim this as a general rule though.. So it's not really clear why you would bring it up after all.

I don't like Crackdown at all. I buy more PC games, and I like buying them cheap. So? Doesn't mean that everyone does it like that. So why would I bring it up? We're not counting the ranks here.


Because your bringing up the Steam sale as if there isn't sales on console games. And I just pointed out an example of getting a very good console game for a cheap price.
 
Lostconfused said:
Because different people like different things. Some people prefer to play with a gamepad, or play games on a console.

Very true and fair point. Sometimes, the simplest answer is the one that is hardest to think up at the time. :lol
 
wmat said:
Nonsense. Microsoft should put emphasis on the strong exclusives. Alan Wake is an incredibly weak one. To most people, it'll be considered 'just some game' at release. Mostly because the Max Payne reference is lost on most people.

Microsoft should hit hard with Natal, with the new Game Room, with Fable 3, Gears 3, Halo Reach, stuff like that. Alan Wake plays second fiddle here at best.

This right now merely looks like a Heavy Rain counter of sorts. A complete waste of the efforts of Remedy if it doesn't click with the 360 crowd, yet it was almost guaranteed to hit big in PC land.
Ok, so why do you think they've done this? If keeping Alan Wake as a 360 exclusive is out of the window, what is left? MS don't like leaving money on the table so they obviously see some sort of incentive not to release this on PC.

I propose that the chance of drawing some PC Gamers to the Xbox 360 platform and then eventually, through other exclusives, to an Xbox Live Gold membership is more important to MS than the revenue from a PC version of Alan Wake.

Your last paragraph kind of supports my assertion too, Sony have had a good string of top notch exclusives lately and seem to have many more in the pipeline. Countering these exclusives will require exclusives. It seems natural that MS would want to shore up 2010 a little more as right now they have Crackdown 2 and Halo Reach.

Edit: Oh and honestly, Steam sales are ridiculous. They're pretty much giving the games away sometimes. I think PSN has good sales but Steams are insane.
 
NIGHT- said:
Exactly. The same guys bitching about this are the guys that bitch about 360 not having enough exclusives. So of course this is a smart move from Microsoft's perspective.

Why would you think that it's the same group bitching? How is this logical at all?

NIGHT- said:
As far as sales go, I picked up Crackdown for $10 dollar on newegg last year. Better deal for me than anything I've seen on the steam sale.

THQ complete pack is currently $50 on steam. Comes with 18 games including Company of heroes series, Red Faction series, Titan Quest + expansion, STALKER:ShOC and the Warhammer 40k DOW series.

That's one of the best deals I've ever seen. So I disagree with you.

Oh wait you put "for me".......
 
NIGHT- said:
Because your bringing up the Steam sale as if there isn't sales on console games. And I just pointed out an example of getting a very good console game for a cheap price.
One example. It's one example. The Steam sales are hundreds of examples, some of them being brilliant games. I don't even need to bring up an example, it's generally understood as being so.

And again, this thread isn't about whether or not consoles are cooler than PC from some random angle. You can always make a point for your preference, surely. But that doesn't factor into the decision we're discussing here. Alan Wake isn't exclusive to 360 because the platform is so much more awesome or something. I'm sure that deep inside, you agree with that.
 
NIGHT- said:
A $600 dollar PC in no way would destroy console performance except in few cases like Dragon age and Mirrors edge . It may be some what better in multiplatform games, but I don't see the pay off worth it. I find the console exclusives more appealing than PC exclusives.

We are talking about hardware that is based on the Geforce 7 series (RSX http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSX_'Reality_Synthesizer') and the ATI 2XXX series (Xenos http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenos_(graphics_chip) and http://www.beyond3d.com/content/articles/4/1. Graphical hardware from two generations ago. Now seeing that the RSX is based on the Geforce 7 series, lets compare it to the geforce 8 series ( http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=319&type=expert&pid=10 ). Not only does the, at the time top end card, 8800GTX destroy a single 7900 it matches the 7950 in performance. The 7950 was two 7900 on a single card. In term of raw power, the PC will not only have the graphical advantage but also the memory advantage over the consoles. It's likely that a $600,- pc will have the advantage over the PS3 and Xbox360 in raw performance. However debating if a 600 dollar PC will crush a console is useless without benchmarks backing up claims from both parties. Now trying to find benchmarks for the consoles is sadly impossible.
 
NIGHT- said:
Exactly. The same guys bitching about this are the guys that bitch about 360 not having enough exclusives.
This doesn't make any sense at all. None. No sense. Whatsoever.

The comment about Steam sales was also pretty rad but I think I'm done responding to you. At least other people have legitimate gripes.
 
badcrumble said:
Am I the only person who prefers gaming on consoles, yet still thinks it's wrong to yank the PC version away from other gamers? I don't see why battle lines are being drawn here.

You're not the only person who feels that way. There is a "battle" because some posters here seem to be sociopaths. Sure there are some PC gamers who seem to have a sense of entitlement, but in the case of Alan Wake it makes some sense and the reasons have been stated countless times in this and other threads. Problem are the people who jump in here to white knight a company because...I can't really say why, they bought a 360? that wouldn't make sense because there are certainly many rational people here who own a 360. They're a bit insane, I guess.
 
SmokyDave said:
Ok, so why do you think they've done this? If keeping Alan Wake as a 360 exclusive is out of the window, what is left? MS don't like leaving money on the table so they obviously see some sort of incentive not to release this on PC.
Bringing it to PC would introduce development overhead at this point. Maybe they don't want to take a risk there.
I propose that the chance of drawing some PC Gamers to the Xbox 360 platform and then eventually, through other exclusives, to an Xbox Live Gold membership is more important to MS than the revenue from a PC version of Alan Wake.
But that's just the thing, MS isn't alone in this. It seems to me that they overruled the developer, which isn't a good thing in my opinion.
And Gold isn't attractive to either a player of Alan Wake or a guy having a PC. At least as I see it. I _once_ bought a 3 month membership for GTA, that was it. And I was rather disappointed with what I got.
But that's just me, of course.
Your last paragraph kind of supports my assertion too, Sony have had a good string of top notch exclusives lately and seem to have many more in the pipeline. Countering these exclusives will require exclusives. It seems natural that MS would want to shore up 2010 a little more as right now they have Crackdown 2 and Halo Reach.
The decision between a 360 and a PS3 doesn't hinge on Alan Wake being available on PC, I think. But sure, you could sorta make a point for it. For that being the case though, awareness would have to be way higher than it is right now.
So I'm just not seeing the hard benefits here, apart from the reduced risk, of course.
 
Minsc said:
Magic the Gathering, it's an old game from Windows 95 which I'd hate to part with, fun to play from time to time and there's nothing like it anymore.
Ah, that sucks. Magic the Gathering is an all-time favorite for me. I miss Microprose.

Actually, I love Magic so much that I bought Elemental sight unseen.
 
NIGHT- said:
A $600 dollar PC in no way would destroy console performance except in few cases like Dragon age and Mirrors edge.
It also depend on your knowledge of balancing hardware components. I happen to have played the PC version of Dragon age on a $600 PC. After some tweaking, the performance/quality was the same as the PS3 version.
 
wmat said:
Bringing it to PC would introduce development overhead at this point. Maybe they don't want to take a risk there.
Yeah, I guess that's entirely possible.
But that's just the thing, MS isn't alone in this. It seems to me that they overruled the developer, which isn't a good thing in my opinion.
And Gold isn't attractive to either a player of Alan Wake or a guy having a PC. At least as I see it. I _once_ bought a 3 month membership for GTA, that was it. And I was rather disappointed with what I got.
But that's just me, of course.
It might be to the guy that bought an arcade for Alan Wake and then forgot about it until Gears Of War 3 or Halo Reach.
The decision between a 360 and a PS3 doesn't hinge on Alan Wake being available on PC, I think. But sure, you could sorta make a point for it. For that being the case though, awareness would have to be way higher than it is right now.
So I'm just not seeing the hard benefits here, apart from the reduced risk, of course.
I'm honestly not sure, it just seems the likeliest to me.

EmCeeGramr said:
corporate shaft still being vacuumed?

*checks*

yep
Where are you seeing this? People attempting to explain this move don't have to agree with it by default you know. There are alternatives to blind nerd-rage.
 
wmat said:
Nonsense. Microsoft should put emphasis on the strong exclusives. Alan Wake is an incredibly weak one. To most people, it'll be considered 'just some game' at release. Mostly because the Max Payne reference is lost on most people.

So AW is no longer a strong exclusive? Almost 30 pages of 'debate' tells that it is.

Also where in the marketing for Alan Wake have they referenced Max Payne?
 
SmokyDave said:
Where are you seeing this? People attempting to explain this move don't have to agree with it by default you know. There are alternatives to blind nerd-rage.
I don't think anybody's misunderstanding the reasons why Microsoft did this.
 
Dabanton said:
So AW is no longer a strong exclusive? Almost 30 pages of 'debate' tells that it is.
.. from the perspective of NeoGAF forumites, it really may be considered a strong exclusive. I doubt it'll reach the Madden crowd though, like Gears did.
Also where in the marketing for Alan Wake have they referenced Max Payne?
They didn't (and really shouldn't). The fact that Remedy is responsible for MP (and the fact that it's an awesome, revolutionary game) is unknown in the general populace. So they don't get many autosales through that, I think.
That's what I was referring to. Probably not worded that well.
 
badcrumble said:
I don't think anybody's misunderstanding the reasons why Microsoft did this.
Would you care to explain them to me? I'm not being wilfully ignorant, if it isn't to secure exclusives for the 360, I've no idea what it is. I'm certainly not buying the 'comfy couch' reasoning.
 
SmokyDave said:
Would you care to explain them to me? I'm not being wilfully ignorant, if it isn't to secure exclusives for the 360, I've no idea what it is. I'm certainly not buying the 'comfy couch' reasoning.
I don't think anyone's genuinely buying the 'comfy couch' thing - what happened here is that a game that had been demonstrated on PC and was confirmed to be in development for it has had that version yanked in order to give the 360 an exclusive, and there's no way in which it benefits gamers, nor is it somehow saving Microsoft or Remedy from bankruptcy.
 
wmat said:
.. from the perspective of NeoGAF forumites, it really may be considered a strong exclusive. I doubt it'll reach the Madden crowd though, like Gears did.

They didn't (and really shouldn't). The fact that Remedy is responsible for MP (and the fact that it's an awesome, revolutionary game) is unknown in the general populace. So they don't get many autosales through that, I think.
That's what I was referring to. Probably not worded that well.

Serious question, how is it a revolutionary game? Seems like survival horror with a light/dark mechanic, nothing really groundbreaking.

On the subject of exclusives, I think at this stage in the generation there is not much impact an exclusive can have. The trajectory of the generation has been determined, and it is going to be damn near impossible to change. Gears 1 was an impactful exclusvie, I don't think any exclusvie these days can do much.
 
SmokyDave said:
Would you care to explain them to me? I'm not being wilfully ignorant, if it isn't to secure exclusives for the 360, I've no idea what it is. I'm certainly not buying the 'comfy couch' reasoning.


Microsoft own both platforms, both the 360 and the PC.

To push the PC platform it can sell more copies of windows with the latest iteration of directx to get gamers onboard as early adopters.

To move a PC exclusive game to the 360 and then make it a 360 exclusive it speaks of abandonment for the windows platform as a gaming platform.
Thats why us PC platform centric guys are pissed. If you own both platforms then that is the most likely explanation, especailly after the "game for windows" crap. Is Microsoft even apart of the PC platform alliance thingy anymore? If I remember correctly they quietly left that without making a noise.

Everything else is in this thread just random bollocks pushed by both sides.

EDIT
I was wrong, it wasnt microsoft that left the PC Gaming Alliance, it was Acti-Blizzard + Acer
 
SmokyDave said:
Would you care to explain them to me? I'm not being wilfully ignorant, if it isn't to secure exclusives for the 360, I've no idea what it is. I'm certainly not buying the 'comfy couch' reasoning.

That's the fucking bizarre thing, a year or two ago i'd say it's because they wanted pc gamers to buy 360's, at this point any "hardcore" who wanted one probably has a 360.

this year though they're going for a whole new approach with that natal wankery. They seem completely and wholly focused on it that i'm surprised they've not pulled out from publishing this.
 
fizzelopeguss said:
That's the fucking bizarre thing, a year or two ago i'd say it's because they wanted pc gamers to buy 360's, at this point any "hardcore" who wanted one probably has a 360.

this year though they're going for a whole new approach with that natal wankery. They seem completely and wholly focused on it that i'm surprised they've not pulled out from publishing this.

MS abandonment of the PC platform is forcing me to become a Sony fanboy. Maybe Sony will release their own gaming OS to compete with Windows, that would be fantastic. :lol
 
badcrumble said:
I don't think anyone's genuinely buying the 'comfy couch' thing - what happened here is that a game that had been demonstrated on PC and was confirmed to be in development for it has had that version yanked in order to give the 360 an exclusive, and there's no way in which it benefits gamers, nor is it somehow saving Microsoft or Remedy from bankruptcy.
I see. That's exactly what I said was the case, I thought you were disagreeing and I was missing some 'bigger picture'. Cheers!

Edit: Sh1ner, I just read and agreed with your post. Didn't want you thinking I'd skipped / ignored you.
 
AstroMan said:
First people bitch that Xbox 360 games aren't really exclusive since most of them release on the PC, now people bitch that Xbox 360 games are exclusive and wont come to the PC.
.


Literally no one has bitched about that.
 
dionysus said:
Serious question, how is it a revolutionary game? Seems like survival horror with a light/dark mechanic, nothing really groundbreaking.
I was talking about Max Payne. It was revolutionary in a few ways, particularly the effects system, the storytelling and the awesome slomo mechanics.
 
SmokyDave said:
Would you care to explain them to me? I'm not being wilfully ignorant, if it isn't to secure exclusives for the 360, I've no idea what it is. I'm certainly not buying the 'comfy couch' reasoning.
Maybe they're canceling/delaying the PC version to keep the xbox360 release on schedule?
 
NIGHT- said:
A $600 dollar PC in no way would destroy console performance except in few cases like Dragon age and Mirrors edge . It may be some what better in multiplatform games, but I don't see the pay off worth it. I find the console exclusives more appealing than PC exclusives.

As far as sales go, I picked up Crackdown for $10 dollar on newegg last year. Better deal for me than anything I've seen on the steam sale.

Obvious troll is obvious. For your own well being, apologize and take back these two comments because 1) there is an entire thread on this very forum about $500-600 PCs that smoke consoles and 2) there was an entire Xmas Steam thread with sales that blew away any console game mark downs/Black Fridays/anything ever.

Just stop, rewind, take it back and talk about Alan Wake or something because your blood will be spilled this day.
 
M°°nblade said:
Maybe they're canceling/delaying the PC version to keep the xbox360 release on schedule?

I think a lot of people would accept a delay of the PC version however MS has shown a precedence recently of just not releasing a PC version.
 
hamchan said:
I think a lot of people would accept a delay of the PC version however MS has shown a precedence recently of just not releasing a PC version.

I get a feeling I'll be waiting indefinitely for my Fable 2 PC. ='(
 
Macmanus said:
Literally no one has bitched about that.

You obviously haven't been reading NeoGaf for long then as it used to be a 'classic' talking point when someone most innocently would ask what exclusives MS would have for any given year.

Any mention of a 360 game which was also on PC would more often than not be labelled not an exclusive.
 
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