Shouldn't the X1's game store be full of PC games?

[blakjedi]

Games for the PC architecture, running any recent variant of DirectX should have been made available for Xbox. If there are any games for windows 8 or 8.1 I also think they should have been there day one. I am very intrigued/disturbed by the fact that MS hasn't leveraged their already existent content and code to bolster the appeal of their box.

Am I not thinking about this correctly?

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

Because the Xbone one isn't a pc and while the hardware and OS might be very similar it would probably still take a reasonable amount of effort (and money) to get things running properly.

Then there is the issue of how many ports of a game that is already available on ps360 and pc you can sell on a new console with a small userbase.

 

[Davros]

If ms wanted they could of made the xb1 pc compatible (at least when it comes to running games)

 

[AlphaWolf]

If ms wanted they could of made the xb1 pc compatible (at least when it comes to running games)

Yes but there's no profit in that.

 

[Cyan]

If ms wanted they could of made the xb1 pc compatible (at least when it comes to running games)

Perhaps when the Threshold project becomes a reality the Windows 8 apps will work on the Xbox One. Full fledged games seem to be a different kind of kettle, because of the architecture of the Xbox One, mostly the memory setup.

 

[blakjedi]

I don't get it. The memory setup is mostly transparent isn't it? PC's have split memory pools now.

How could it not make sense to get marginal sales from high end ports of already existing IP?

If I were Microsoft I would have made as many PC games compatible with XB out of the gate as possible.

That unification strategy is more than a year away.

 

[pcchen]

In theory, Microsoft could make a virtual machine running a copy of Windows 8 to run PC games. But if they do that, that'd destroy a lot of incentive for developers to port/develop games for Xbox One, and that's certainly not in Microsoft's best interest.

 

[eastmen]

Yes but there's no profit in that.

That's not true. Look at how successful the virtual store was on the wii or even stuff like steam or gog on the pc.

some people might want to play 10 year old pc games for $5 bucks on the one.

 

[pcchen]

That's not true. Look at how successful the virtual store was on the wii or even stuff like steam or gog on the pc.

some people might want to play 10 year old pc games for $5 bucks on the one.

That's true, but the case for Nintendo is quite different from the case for Microsoft.

Those virtual store games for Wii are mostly for NES or SNES. There are already very good emulators for these consoles, and the control are basically the same, and many of these games were developed by Nintendo itself. Therefore, it's pretty easy for Nintendo to prepare an old game for virtual console.

However, for Xbox One, those old PC games are mostly not developed by Microsoft, and are probably designed for completely different controllers (keyboard + mouse). These games are also likely need to be "cleaned" to even be able to run on modern OS, not to mention a virtual machine running some version of Windows on Xbox One.

Of course, it's not impossible, but since Microsoft wouldn't be able to charge a lot for these old games, I don't see how it's best for them to invest extra resources to make this happen. Maybe (much) later, but not now.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Games for the PC architecture, running any recent variant of DirectX should have been made available for Xbox. If there are any games for windows 8 or 8.1 I also think they should have been there day one. I am very intrigued/disturbed by the fact that MS hasn't leveraged their already existent content and code to bolster the appeal of their box.

I think there are probably very few games that exist only within the DirectX API, you'd likely need a bunch of the WIN32 APIs and WINSOCK too. The point is, because games for Windows can use any and all of the Windows APIs as they wish, you probably need a bunch.

And remember the CPU cores in the Xbox One (and PS4) really aren't that powerful by PC standards and I doubt that performance would be great if you just throw generic 80x86 code at it.

 

[Shortbread]

Games for the PC architecture, running any recent variant of DirectX should have been made available for Xbox. If there are any games for windows 8 or 8.1 I also think they should have been there day one. I am very intrigued/disturbed by the fact that MS hasn't leveraged their already existent content and code to bolster the appeal of their box.

Am I not thinking about this correctly?

Let's see...
1) MS doesn't want the headache of supporting older PC wares, that are littered with updates "dealing with performance".
2) MS doesn't want the stigma of the XB1 being labeled a cheap underpowered gaming PC. And those comments will come for sure....
3) No money in it. MS will essentially waste time and money on getting these games to work "properly" within the given system spec, only to earn less than a percentage that original IP/developers would earn.

MS just needs to concentrate on improving their current APIs / tool chains / Kinect 2 apps on proving that the XB1 is a great gaming machine - not a dumping ground for bad PC ports.

 

[eastmen]

That's true, but the case for Nintendo is quite different from the case for Microsoft.

Those virtual store games for Wii are mostly for NES or SNES. There are already very good emulators for these consoles, and the control are basically the same, and many of these games were developed by Nintendo itself. Therefore, it's pretty easy for Nintendo to prepare an old game for virtual console.

However, for Xbox One, those old PC games are mostly not developed by Microsoft, and are probably designed for completely different controllers (keyboard + mouse). These games are also likely need to be "cleaned" to even be able to run on modern OS, not to mention a virtual machine running some version of Windows on Xbox One.

Of course, it's not impossible, but since Microsoft wouldn't be able to charge a lot for these old games, I don't see how it's best for them to invest extra resources to make this happen. Maybe (much) later, but not now.

Meh , I can run the majority of dx games on my pc without much of a problem. A lot of older fps games could simply be remaped on a controller.

I'd agree on other games like civ or something that needs a lot of keyboard commands.

 

[Exophase]

I don't get it. The memory setup is mostly transparent isn't it? PC's have split memory pools now.

No, the eSRAM isn't transparent like a cache, it has to be manually managed.

Discrete GPUs on PCs have enough VRAM to allow for all the render targets, textures, vertex data/geometry and so on to be loaded as the game requires. XBox One doesn't. The DX drivers could probably manage putting things in the eSRAM to some extent but no where close to efficiently enough to really allow heavy utilization of the graphics hardware.

You could still run games on it, the performance just wouldn't be close to normal game performance. Could probably still rise above the capability of APUs today. The real problem is going to be getting those games into the store, MS themselves doesn't have much leverage for it and letting people install/run PC games from physical media is a non-starter (they can't make any money off of it). If the games have to be placed on the store by the IP holders (mostly not MS) then they'd probably prefer to go with a proper port.

 

[blakjedi]

In theory, Microsoft could make a virtual machine running a copy of Windows 8 to run PC games. But if they do that, that'd destroy a lot of incentive for developers to port/develop games for Xbox One, and that's certainly not in Microsoft's best interest.

Wouldn't Xbox one just be another config for the software to check?

 

[pjbliverpool]

But they'd run horribly. PC games aren't as well threaded as console games so the whole CPU burden would sit on only 2-4 of those jaguar cores and without the console specific optimisations most games would run like a slide show. Add to that the inability to make use of the esram and the myriad if interface issues (many PC games have windows based launcher front ends that require a mouse click to get into the game) and it just seems way more trouble than it's worth.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

And remember the CPU cores in the Xbox One (and PS4) really aren't that powerful by PC standards and I doubt that performance would be great if you just throw generic 80x86 code at it.

Very much. 1.6 GHz versus the typical 2.5+ of a PC. Single core performance will be poor, and games would have to be written multithreaded across the 8 cores. Old games on old, non-multithreaded engines will be CPU starved.

 

[Gitaroo]

didnt mark cerny said porting pc games should take a month or 2 for PS4? They can consider bringing some of the PC classics like Return of Castle Wolfenstien, Max Payne 1-2, System shock 2, deux ex 1-2 etc over to PSN for 5-15 bucks or same price as GOG. The system should be powerful enough to run those games in 1080p 60 fps even without lots of optimization.

 

[blakjedi]

didnt mark cerny said porting pc games should take a month or 2 for PS4? They can consider bringing some of the PC classics like Return of Castle Wolfenstien, Max Payne 1-2, System shock 2, deux ex 1-2 etc over to PSN for 5-15 bucks or same price as GOG. The system should be powerful enough to run those games in 1080p 60 fps even without lots of optimization.

I'm thinking this exactly.

 

[tuna]

A lot of older fps games could simply be remaped on a controller.

Remapped by who?

 

[tuna]

didnt mark cerny said porting pc games should take a month or 2 for PS4? They can consider bringing some of the PC classics like Return of Castle Wolfenstien, Max Payne 1-2, System shock 2, deux ex 1-2 etc over to PSN for 5-15 bucks or same price as GOG. The system should be powerful enough to run those games in 1080p 60 fps even without lots of optimization.

Is there a market for those games? Why won't people who wants to play those games do it on Windows?