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[Derrick01]

You guys are ridiculous. What do you want them to say/do?

Stay out of PC gaming forever. With Xbox they started courting all of the PC developers to flock to consoles and make heavily streamlined and dumbed down games and in the 360 era they tried to bring their garbage Live service to PC and make people pay for online gaming. The service itself was a mess that to this day still locks people out of their legally purchased games and is hated even more than Origin/Uplay.

If they want to port some games over and use Steam to do it, that's more than fine. But other than that they need to keep their poisonous company far away from the PC industry.

 

[tinfoilhatman]

Well with the X1 set to tank with the hard core they better find someone somewhere on SOME platform to buy their games.....PC is it because hey they don't have a choice!

 

[speculawyer]

Yeah, you tried. It was called "Games for Windows".

I don't even know if it still exists. I hope it does not.


Edit: Does this guy even know that GFW existed?

 

[-tetsuo-]

youdontsay.jpg

 

[Mistah]

resurrection of windows live is coming.

 

[NervousXtian]

If MS wanted to support the PC and the Console Eco-System, the megaton would have been ability to stream PC games through your Xbox One and have native use of the Xbox One controller with it.

That would have been a megaton of awesome.

 

[sibarraz]

I'm still bitter about Ensemble studios. It's best if MS stay out of the PC world and continue fucking up with consoles instead.

The closure of ensemble wasn't microsoft fault though, even those from the studio had said that the studio had to be closed because they always had larger development times than promised and than overall, the studio wasn't that profitable

 

[Not a Jellyfish]

Well no shit because steam is successful and extremely profitable.

 

[Horse Detective]

I think having a variety of choices for clients would be ideal, but knowing that exclusives would factor into this makes me want to say "Please don't."

 

[Zuhzuhzombie!!]

Shoulda Woulda Coulda is always MS' story. 15 years from now "We shoulda made the Bone a more powerful, gaming orientated machine."

 

[rothbart]

Totally and completely Microsoft. "We should've done what someone successful did. Except do it our way... so we profit and everyone else gets an inferior experience."

 

[UrbanRats]

That battle of the bands salt.

 

[Moonstone]

Just publish your games on Steam.

They don't make PC games anymore.

 

[Grayman]

All I want from MS on PC gaming is to keep delivering the most useful operating system for it. I don't want them to start having some default OS level gaming service, I don't use their browser, media player, or current game shortcut thingy and don't want more of that shit added to windows. At this point in time all a microsoft gaming service has to offer is painful fragmentation. Given that Live was scuttled they are probably going to stay away from doing that type of thing again.

Now if MS wants to put games on their app store non exclusively that is sweet. Valve and EA may even give free key options if MS wants them.

 

[la flama blanca]

O FUCKING RLY

 

[Jotamide]

NO SHIT

The reporter should have shouted this out loud.

 

[Saintguine]

Coulda, shoulda, woulda. You make a shit service, fail to provide games, kill off major PC developers and now you're crawling back? Sorry, a burnt bridge doesn't fix itself over night and not with cheap PR words that are like Zimbabwe Dollars.

 

[citroen-e402]

As with many things lately, they don't care until it's too late.

Microsoft has been late to too many parties in the last decade. Arrogant until soundly outmatched. Too many examples to list. Wonder what the new CEO will do.

 

[forrest]

Okay then, let's have Halo 5 release for PC the same day that it releases for XB1.

 

[Mace Griffin]

It's a good job they missed the boat, they would have ruined it.

 

[Barzul]

Microsoft the solution is quite simple, buy Valve.

 

[tensuke]

They really should have instead of that GFWL crap. I mean, they're so close to Valve HQ. They should have formed some kind of partnership since they could literally go over there whenever they want to get things running smoothly. Would have been a massive boon. Instead...we got what we got from MS...

 

[Dictator93]

Stay out of PC gaming forever. With Xbox they started courting all of the PC developers to flock to consoles and make heavily streamlined and dumbed down games and in the 360 era they tried to bring their garbage Live service to PC and make people pay for online gaming. The service itself was a mess that to this day still locks people out of their legally purchased games and is hated even more than Origin/Uplay.

If they want to port some games over and use Steam to do it, that's more than fine. But other than that they need to keep their poisonous company far away from the PC industry.

I actually agree with this.

Do not mind any ports they want to throw our way though.

 

[Nevasleep]

Imagine Microsoft steam style sales?..............Yeah, I can't either lol.

 

[jaundicejuice]

You guys are ridiculous. What do you want them to say/do?

Actually it's Microsoft that's ridiculous. Maybe, just maybe this statement and the many, many similar ones that they have made virtually every year for almost the last decade would bare some weight if Microsoft ever actually followed up these statements with meaningful actions. But they haven't. As one poster in this thread has clearly demonstrated by linking to each of these statements.

Each and every year a different talking head trots out, makes some noise about how important the PC market is to Microsoft and then nothing substantive ever follows.

Last time such a statement was made, for one of many abortive re-launches for Games For Windows Live, they added a web store (with software that was not competitively priced, Steam and retail were cheaper), made no substantive improvements to their deeply flawed client and released a slap-dash port of Fable 3 (in the shadow of The Witcher 2 no less), Age of Empires Online and the free to play Microsoft Flight, both of which they've since shutdown if I'm not mistaken.

About the only positive thing Microsoft has done for PC gamers in the last few years in shutdown Games For Windows Live.

 

[Palette Swap]

I like how he completely glosses over their ham fisted attempt at making PC an extension of Xbox and fucking PC gaming over in the process.
It reads like DBZ dialogue "I wasn't really trying".

 

[rudieboy77]

I guess MS doesn't think PC gaming is slowing down.

 

[Sentenza]

So let me get this straight. After gutting their PC studios and running their PC games platform into the ground, they're now saying they need to refocus on PC and create a viable ecosystem.

Cool.

Yeah, I think that's the important part to stress: Microsoft didn't lack a strong PC gaming presence.
They *deliberately* killed their (successful) PC franchises to push the Xbox brand.

 

[DXLelouch153]

too late for them
anything they would try would get crubstomped into the ground by Steam

 

[unholyrevenger72]

And when they do try and catch up it will be the death cry of PC Gaming. Then with a roar be reborn as Steam Gaming for all eternity.

 

[Acosta]

My first successful "first post" in all these years, keeping our great tradition. So proud *sniff*

 

[Rogue_Ledr]

Microsoft Steam ripoff confirmed/incoming

They'll put it on Xbox One and then brag about pioneering it in the industry.

 

[Black-Box]

All they have to do is 1 price and play on phone, Windows and Xbox.

It is just that simple.

 

[Whipped Spartan]

They should have embraced steam and made it the official outlet for their games and windows games support once it was apparent it's what fans wanted. Them trying to fight steam makes less sense then EA with Origin.

 

[inm8num2]

The context of isn't quite right but I keep wanting to say, "But you are, Microsoft! You are in that chair!"

 

[Bedlam]

As people have already mentioned, they couldn't have done it. The closest thing they could offer was GFW and that was shitty due to their overall corporate strategy. They want that walled garden, with walls as high as possible, to charge people as much as possible for as little as possible. That's always their first goal, not providing a great service. And that is why Steam worked out while GFW crashed and burned.

MS would've had to be a completely different company in order to create something like Steam.

 

[nictron]

And the final answer is...

NO SHIT

We can go home now right?

 

[SparkTR]

The only good thing Microsoft could've done was create a Windows variant that was suited towards TVs to create a stronger market for living room PCs. In fact that's probably what they should've done, it would have played into their main strengths (Windows/software) and they could have saved themselves the loss of billions that the Xbox caused them.

Though I'm not sure if that would be worth it if it meant Steam was killed off.

 

[ArjanN]

I think they're completely missing the point.

Valve (not just them but since we're talking about them already) knows their strengths. It's not just that they have a client or store, it's that PC gaming is what they do and they build things to take advantage of these strengths.

MS is, and this is not unique to them either, just trying to be #1 in everything. You can't look at the end result and say "that's what we should have done." Without the process that led you there it wouldn't have worked at all, this wouldn't build on MS's strengths or competence.

It's like a bunch of general managers not even caring about specific markets, just assuming everything is the same because that's what they learned in business school.

Very well put.

They'd be much better off focusing on their console and just also release stuff through Steam. Sure, it might require them to swallow some pride, but it's a much better strategy than spending a bunch of money to force yourself back into the ecosystem with your own store/GFWL2 only to fall flat on your face again.

To be fair they might have quietly adopted that strategy already, we'll see once the console is out for a bit.