Steam

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Was it really universal, or was it we support xbox and compatible controllers only no direct input controllers for you...

It was XInput only. Logitech and other companies made Xinput controllers that didn't work on Xbox but worked on PC. This is still the case, in fact, as most "PC" controllers are XInput but don't work on Xboxes. Many 3rd party Switch controllers have an XInput mode, usually activated by holding down Home or Sync and the X button on the controller.

 

[hughJ]

Tbh I don't think it was a particularly common feature with GFWL, and honestly it's kinda useless. Installing games doesn't take that long. Halo 2 Vista is the only game I can remember that had it.

Yeah. In that GDC talk they're using 512kbit as the baseline for "broadband". Their sales pitch for Steam was the promise of it being cheaper, faster, and simpler than physical media. The only way a digital download over a 512k connection was going to be anywhere close to a CD installation is with some kind of smart delivery system. And it would have been a natural fit for games of that era like Quake/HL/Source where you had sequential levels broken up into discrete .bsp map files.

Once Steam moved to being the all-encompassing third-party game store that didn't make a lot of sense. There's a huge value to UI/UX consistency when you're in the content delivery business. Having a game able to launch before it's fully downloaded is a cool party trick, but not if it impacts performance of the game while you're playing it, or limits you to a subset of the features on a game-by-game basis, or introduces expectations with the user that every game they buy will work that way. It's more desirable to have a uniform process across all content (purchase -> download -> wait -> play).

The only case where I'd maybe see it being worth it would be for console launches where you're really trying to execute on that first impression of unbox -> plug-in -> play. I'm sure product designers cringe at the mental image of a Christmas present opening being followed by 4+ hours of the family watching a download progress bar.

 

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The only case where I'd maybe see it being worth it would be for console launches where you're really trying to execute on that first impression of unbox -> plug-in -> play. I'm sure product designers cringe at the mental image of a Christmas present opening being followed by 4+ hours of the family watching a download progress bar.

In our all streaming future you can spend those hours waiting in a queue waiting for your turn to play.