Alan Wake: Microsoft preparing to leave PC gamers behind (again)

[Malo]

I dunno, without gaming on the PC you lose the mind share of many IT enthusiasts when compared to a Mac. Those enthusiasts will grow up to be the next gen of IT execs and it doesn't take much for the pendulum to start swinging the other way. The more people they influence, the more momentum is given to Apple, and thanks to the iPhone and possibly iPad, they're already winning a lot of mind share.

Its not a direct link but I still think its pretty stupid of MS to be deliberatly removing their platforms only real advantage over its biggest competitor (besides backwards compatibility).

I'd have to agree that PC gaming is one of the main things that keeps me on Windows OS. If I no longer had much in the way of PC gaming, and MMO's starting coming out with more OSX or X-Windows clients, then there's not a whole lot of reason left to stick with Windows.

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

I think that for the average consumer windows would still be the way to go. The problem with Apple is that you are forced to pay the apple tax and are limited in your hardware choice. Just take a look at their heigh end models and their price. If I compare that to the 1100 euro pc I build for my brother with a i7, 4gb ram, 24'' monitor, HD5850 etc you must hate money to buy apple. For 1100 euro's appel sells me a core2due, 9400m and a 21.5'' monitor. Even if OSX is the best thing since sliced bread you'd got the be stupid to spend so much money on hardware that wasn't even high end 2 years ago IMHO.

Than there is linux. But nobody cares about that and with all the different versions and what not even a lot of people that are more tech savvy can't be botherd learning to work with it.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Honestly, I never really understood the appeal of this game. I doubt it would sell that well regardless of how good it looked, and I'm guessing MS realized this. The fact that it's been in development for so long most likely means MS are just cutting their losses.

Yes, but it's much more fun for most people to hate MS, it's the trendy thing to do.

I also don't see this as a system mover or potential blockbuster.

I'm almost convinced that MS is going to take a rather large loss on this title. Work on the PC version was stopped sometime during the first half of last year I believe in order to reduce cost and/or focus efforts on getting the title out the door. I'm pretty sure it has missed many internal deadlines and is overbudget.

Cancelling the project never was an option as I believe this has been one of the titles MS had used during the launch and for a few E3's after to showcase the X360.

At this point it's all about trying to get it out the door and minimize losses. If there's some kind of miracle, and it actually manages to make a large profit, I wouldn't be surprised if MS greenlights finishing the PC version.

That said, since I'm doubtful MS will make a profit on this, I don't think we'll ever see a PC version.

Regards,
SB

 

[obonicus]

Yeah, yeah, and then six months later, the PC version will arrive for which we will all supposed to be thankful.

How long has it been since Halo 3? Gears of War 2? Fable 2? Halo Wars?

 

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

How long has it been since Halo 3? Gears of War 2? Fable 2? Halo Wars?

As per the rest of the post that you snipped - so what? It won't persuade me to buy a console, it's just a lost sale. There's plenty of other things to play.

 

[RenegadeRocks]

Well, I made a very angry post on the console forums when MS made that POS statement that PC lacks the intimacy or where ever. i am cooled off now, so don't need to express my anger again.
But,............................. damn you M$, us suckers, u losers, u shootheads, u bloody blood sucking three legged monsters, the most evil people on earth, the bloody bonker morons, empty headed wastebaskets, may you all die die die die and live again to die die die........... !

There, now I feel better !
but, seriously, this really really dissappoints me. Wasn't this one of the games that was actually gonna use all four of my processor cores to make awesome volumetric lighting and real time storms with tornados that would lift all moveable objects and spray them around like Xmas gifts ! This was supposed to be the gaming food for our hefty rigs after Crysis.......................but along came the most evil corporation on earth.
Up ur Arsenal Microsoft T_T ......and yeah, as Ratchet also says: Rip Ya A New One !

 

[obonicus]

As per the rest of the post that you snipped - so what? It won't persuade me to buy a console, it's just a lost sale. There's plenty of other things to play.

I'm not arguing that. I'm just saying that the idea that all MGS titles come to PC 6 months later is clearly false. If you want to play MGS titles (and you may not, that's up to you) then MS wants you to buy a 360. Just like how you need a PS system to play SCE titles (well, excluding SOE games).

 

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

I'm not arguing that. I'm just saying that the idea that all MGS titles come to PC 6 months later is clearly false. If you want to play MGS titles (and you may not, that's up to you) then MS wants you to buy a 360. Just like how you need a PS system to play SCE titles (well, excluding SOE games).

I never suggested that Alan Wake was definitely coming out on the PC - quite the opposite. In the next sentence (the one you snipped and are acting as if it never existed), I say it doesn't matter to the PC market if it doesn't come out.

Titles such as Lost Planet, GTA4, SW: Force Unleashed do arrive after a period of months and a marketing-driven lie that it "can't be done on the PC". It's a marketing strategy to maximise profit by convincing as many people as possible to buy the Xbox360 version.

Other titles like Batman:AA, Mass Effect 2, Bioshock 2, Fallout 3, arrive at the same time as the game on the consoles. There's no reason to care about Alan Wake in particular, other than the fact it was originally supposed to be a PC product until MS dollars came into play.

 

[obonicus]

I never suggested that Alan Wake was definitely coming out on the PC - quite the opposite. In the next sentence (the one you snipped and are acting as if it never existed), I say it doesn't matter to the PC market if it doesn't come out.

Why am I acting as if it never existed? You said one thing and now you're backpedaling. I don't even understand why. MGS games aren't coming out on PC and haven't been for a while. Full stop. Yes, you might not care, or it might be sour grapes, but pretending that other publishers' decisions mean anything to MS, a publisher with a console platform to push is asinine. You're pretending there's a pattern there -- 'MGS games come out 6 months later' when it's clear there isn't.

To be clear, you didn't post 'Well, I don't care if it doesn't come out', you posted 'I'll get it when it comes out in 6 months, otherwise I don't care'.

 

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

Why am I acting as if it never existed? You said one thing and now you're backpedaling. I don't even understand why. MGS games aren't coming out on PC and haven't been for a while. Full stop. Yes, you might not care, or it might be sour grapes, but pretending that other publishers' decisions mean anything to MS, a publisher with a console platform to push is asinine. You're pretending there's a pattern there -- 'MGS games come out 6 months later' when it's clear there isn't.

To be clear, you didn't post 'Well, I don't care if it doesn't come out', you posted 'I'll get it when it comes out in 6 months, otherwise I don't care'.

Look, I'll post it again, because you seem to be trying to find an argument where there isn't one. Read it slowly. Note the rolly eyes:

Yeah, yeah, and then six months later, the PC version will arrive for which we will all supposed to be thankful. If it doesn't then so what? It's not like I'm going to buy an X-box just to play Alan Wake, so it's just a lost sale. There's lots of console games that didn't persuade me to buy a console, and this one won't either.

How you can say I'm definitely claiming that all MGS games come up six months later when the very next words I write are "if it doesn't then so what?" means you're reading your own meaning into it without looking at all the words. Second sentence qualifies the first and changes the meaning, as do the rolleyes, see? C- for comprehension.

 

[Entropy]

I dunno, without gaming on the PC you lose the mind share of many IT enthusiasts when compared to a Mac. Those enthusiasts will grow up to be the next gen of IT execs and it doesn't take much for the pendulum to start swinging the other way. The more people they influence, the more momentum is given to Apple, and thanks to the iPhone and possibly iPad, they're already winning a lot of mind share.

Its not a direct link but I still think its pretty stupid of MS to be deliberatly removing their platforms only real advantage over its biggest competitor (besides backwards compatibility).

My only reason to own a copy of Windows is games.
All my other home computing is done on Macs. (At work, I use Windows for administrative tasks.)

Microsoft rely on backwards compatibility and consumer inertia to maintain their postion in personal computing, while using the profit from their OS and Office apps to try to buy themselves into other markets such as consoles and phones. Which is reasonable if there is a good payoff in their investment. Consoles, so far has failed to produce such a payoff, and seems to have been justified more as a preemptive strike vs. Sony, that threatened to evolve their Playstation products from living room entertainment devices to something that started to encroach Microsofts home turf. The really questionable thing about this whole endeavor is that the XBox is actually weakening the appeal of their primary cash cow, at least as far as consumers are concerned. A home PC has to compete against all other options to spend money - it is not just PC vs. Apple, it is PC vs. smartphone, PC vs. new TV, PC vs. DSLR, PC vs. trip to .... Weaken the appeal, and you increase the chances that consumer dollars will simply move elsewhere. (Not to mention that even those who do choose to buy a console instead will statistically buy another manufacturer 3 times out of 4, so it's not as if they regain those customers who are interested in games in particular as they leave the PC platform.)

The Sony threat is dead, if it ever really existed. If I were a strong Microsoft shareholder I would argue that the money spent on the XBox would have been better spent strengthening the Windows platform, rather than undermine it.

 

[swaaye]

For PC gaming to "die", you'd have to have a mass market switch to another platform because PC gaming consists of more than just people with $150+ video cards playing the well-known "PC gamer" genres.

As for moving to Mac, I'm not sure which company I'd rather have dominating: Apple or MS. I don't really like Apple all that much. Their ability to sell their stuff to people is astonishing of course. They are awesome at building that intangible value feeling and nuturing their cult-like fans. Under all of the fanboy bullshit, both are just companies that want your money. I buy what does what I want and that's mostly gaming, which is on the MS side for various reasons. One of those reasons is that "Mac gamers" are not and never have been much of a market. Another reason is that MS really pushed PC gaming for a lot of years, starting with Win9x and DirectX, and rather relentlessly made sure their OS was great for it compared to the competition.

Linux could be awesome for everybody, taking control of the OS out of greedy corporate hands, but the Linux community is so split up due to a childish inability to agree, that it will never go anywhere significantly, beyond server software IMO.

As for Alan Wake D), whatever I guess. Who knows what's going on there after this insane development period. It could be very retro looking at this point. The old screens make it look like it would run great on that 2005 Xbox 360 hardware. The gameplay has been rather mysterious for a long time and I'm not sure what kind of game it even is at this point.

 

[eastmen]

How long has it been since Halo 3? Gears of War 2? Fable 2? Halo Wars?

I don't recall any of these games in pc development though.


Alan wake was playable on the pc which is more than we can say about the other games.


I own all 3 consoles. I rather play the games on my pc. They look better and run better on it.

 

[obonicus]

I don't recall any of these games in pc development though.

I chose games that have had previous entries show up on PC. Whether they were in development or not is irrelevant when it comes to the fact that MS just doesn't seem interested in pushing PC as a platform. Pretending otherwise is just a path to disappointment.

 

[green.pixel]

Yeah this is a lost sale, since I along with many people whom have gaming PC's and a PS3, will never buy an XBox. MS are the biggest two-faced fools when it comes to PC gaming.

+1000. GfW is a disgrace, they should've called it Games-from-Xbox-ported-for-Windows - GfXfW.


This has nothing to do with "matching this specific game to the right platform" lolwut BS PR and everything to do with MS being M$:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend_and_extinguish


They are exploiting their monopolistic position as much as they can.

MS are 'tards like no other.

 

[nightshade]

I absolutely HATE GFW Live [with a big H]...there is no reason for such a shitty service to even exist.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

As for moving to Mac, I'm not sure which company I'd rather have dominating: Apple or MS. I don't really like Apple all that much. Their ability to sell their stuff to people is astonishing of course. They are awesome at building that intangible value feeling and nuturing their cult-like fans. Under all of the fanboy bullshit, both are just companies that want your money. I buy what does what I want and that's mostly gaming, which is on the MS side for various reasons. One of those reasons is that "Mac gamers" are not and never have been much of a market. Another reason is that MS really pushed PC gaming for a lot of years, starting with Win9x and DirectX, and rather relentlessly made sure their OS was great for it compared to the competition.

Yeah, not too fond of Apple the past decade or so. Loved them in the 80's and early 90's. What I currently don't like about them however is that they continue with false advertising (although I haven't seen those obnoxious Mac commercials in a while, hmmm) and they still insist on security through obscurity. Also recently it appears their build quality is declining which is exposing a rather draconian and harsh customer service department and mentality.

Linux could be awesome for everybody, taking control of the OS out of greedy corporate hands, but the Linux community is so split up due to a childish inability to agree, that it will never go anywhere significantly, beyond server software IMO.

It was tried and failed. Multiple times with multiple studios. I'm not sure if the Linux game publisher is still in business. They used to actively pursue devs for the purpose of porting games to Linux. The problem was that so few Linux users actually bought games for Linux that the market never really developed even when a couple devs did virtually simultaneous Windows/Linux releases of games.

User unfriendliness of Linux as well as not having a universal standardized interface and installation process will forever doom Linux to a niche player. It's great if you know what are you doing and have oodles of time to look up solutions to things when something doesn't work as expected, but that doesn't work so well in a world where the majority of computer users don't even know how to use Office as anything more than a souped up Wordpad.

Oh and there's also that spectacular failure that was the Phantom. To this day I'm not entirely sure if it was always meant to be a venture capital grab, of if they were actually serious about it taking on MS, Sony, and Nintendo.

Regards,
SB

 

[green.pixel]

User unfriendliness of Linux as well as not having a universal standardized interface and installation process will forever doom Linux to a niche player. It's great if you know what are you doing and have oodles of time to look up solutions to things when something doesn't work as expected, but that doesn't work so well in a world where the majority of computer users don't even know how to use Office as anything more than a souped up Wordpad.SB

Well, you could say the same about Windows vs. consoles plug&play accesibility . Which along with the price is the main reason why a lot of people are on consoles.

 

[Andrew Lauritzen]

Unsurprising, since frankly this game looked questionable from day one and one can only hope that by focusing on one platform they can pull together something that even begins to recoup their costs.

Well, you could say the same about Windows vs. consoles plug&play accesibility . Which along with the price is the main reason why a lot of people are on consoles.

Ironically nowadays the console experience is *worse* compared to Steam on the PC. Both the 360 and PS3 frustrate me much more than the PC nowadays, on which I seriously just click "I want this game" and I'm playing it in no time. Microsoft and Sony have both actually regressed the console experience of late, and they both need to get in gear on this front. As it stands there are very few games that I play on the consoles and they're basically all exclusives since the experience - on the TV, using a 360 controller when appropriate - on an HTPC is just better. (And it makes me laugh when Microsoft uses any argument related to controllers or couches about the console experience, as the company that made all their hardware compatible with Windows PCs...)

So honestly, I actually use and prefer consoles *less* than I did in the past... they need to get up-to-date on both the hardware and software side.

As far as Alan Wake goes, I wish the developers well but I suspect they're in a load of trouble at this point

 

[Mobius1aic]

Well, I made a very angry post on the console forums when MS made that POS statement that PC lacks the intimacy or where ever.

IIRC they stated that the PC is a very intimate experience, and Alan Wake they feel was better suited to the large TV, movie style experience. I understand this, but many PC users use HDTVs as well, though many would still be more than happy to sit up close to a screen, assuming the game is good in the first place.

For PC gaming to "die", you'd have to have a mass market switch to another platform because PC gaming consists of more than just people with $150+ video cards playing the well-known "PC gamer" genres.

Very true. Not everyone wants a gaming system, be it a computer or console, but to disregard the casual gamer is a pretty big mistake. The PC platform will always lead in this respect. Until consoles gain the consumer space of actual computers (if they ever do that is) then there is no way for consoles to take this territory from normal computers.

I chose games that have had previous entries show up on PC. Whether they were in development or not is irrelevant when it comes to the fact that MS just doesn't seem interested in pushing PC as a platform. Pretending otherwise is just a path to disappointment.

Not as interested in the PC platform for mainstream gaming, but it's still a profitable bit for them to be gaming ready. I'm sure they want to keep that part of the market as long as Apple or Linux related development doesn't truly threaten them.

+1000. GfW is a disgrace, they should've called it Games-from-Xbox-ported-for-Windows - GfXfW.

GfW is a good idea, GfW Live is not. PC gamers and gaming itself is more or less a very unsocial endeavor. If the game is meant to be social, the developer will make it so. While a hardware scoring system is good in theory, it's hopelessly inaccurate. Checking hardware, namely video hardware, should just be highly encouraged more so. Sure it may cost a bit more to take into account, but devs need to be aware of lower end graphics too. MS is reliant on a brinkmanship practice with PC gaming as long as Windows remains the main gaming OS for computers. When another OS starts to intrude, I guarantee they'll sacrifice and arm and a leg to get PC gamers back. Games for Windows at least puts PC gaming on the advertising circuit as a gaming medium and PC gaming in general. I applause the marketing for that reason. MS of course benefits from being the "gaming OS" hoping to sell more copies to true gamers and to anyone who may want to play some games on the computer.

I absolutely HATE GFW Live [with a big H]...there is no reason for such a shitty service to even exist.

There is a reason, it just doesn't really benefit the classic PC gamer.