Windows Vista as virtual console(?)

[Carl B]

I haven't been keeping up with the Vista news as I should, but there's one aspect that has been of particular interest to me over the past year or so: The whole 'Vista PC as virtual console' thing.

I haven't seen much in the way of rumors, and not much concrete in terms of official announcements, which is why I'm wondering if there's something in particular I may have missed in the last two weeks - anything 'key' I should refresh myself on.

As it stands now, however, my understanding is that we'll have:

1) A PC environment that, functionally, is more akin to a console. Where supposedly a game will not have to be installed, as such, before gameplay can begin. One will just put the disk in and go as the game self-installs in the background.

2) Compatability with the XBox 360 controllers.

3) Compatability with XBox Live!; I haven't heard much on this particular facet in a while, but I do remember it being mentioned back in the day

4) A graphics setup where the differences between the card feature-sets of various GPU/card manufacturers are more or less nullified in a gameplay environment and the differences are seen simply in 'performance' levels.

5) XNA increasing the level of PC<--->360 development

6) DirectX10 (as it's back to being called) and everything that entails that didn't fall into one of the above categories...

I have several theories and thoughts on it all, a lot of them far reaching and not all of them related.

I wonder if with Vista's new DRM features, implemented through hardware, whether PC game piracy will subsequently become much more difficult.

I wonder if Microsoft has a plan at work here to make 360/XBox more of a 'platform' independent of the actual console itself. Could it be implemented within an x86 environment? Since the easy answer would seem to be no - are the dual strategies of pushing PC gaming and console gaming conflicting? Are they complementary?

Anyway I guess I'll stop for now. I get the sense that there is something larger than meets the eye at play here, it's just a mental excercise on my part to try to call what it is before it gets announced a couple of months from now.

 

[pc999]

That is a good thing IMO, usually PC do have a lot of problems anything that reduce that is a good thing. Live compability is not a big suprise, specialy after Allard talked about a game here in PC it is a RTS and in consoles a F/TPS, that and a altered versions would be nice (although it should be possible make that only on PC/console).

 

[ERP]

MS does want to make PC gaming into a platform, but it's outside the scope of the X360 project.

PC gaming has been declining and MS wants to get people back gaming on the PC, and they believe that a more "console like" experience is the way to do that.

 

[Carl B]

MS does want to make PC gaming into a platform, but it's outside the scope of the X360 project.

PC gaming has been declining and MS wants to get people back gaming on the PC, and they believe that a more "console like" experience is the way to do that.

I'm not sure that it is outside the scope though; or rather, maybe the scope/focus has changed. Gates and Ballmer are both, obviously, heavily involved in Vista development - and they take an active interest in XBox as well. I just feel as if there must be a unified vision of an 'end-game' in all of this. Otherwise I feel promoting two different platforms that, while increasingly similar in experience, are at odds with one another in terms of canabilization; especially if the titles of the games themselves are increasingly shared between the two.

EDIT: On the other hand, I see where it could just be for it's own benefit. As long as the similarities are there, there's no harm in making it easier for developers to make games for both in order to allow a wider net to be cast. The net gains should outway any 'install base' losses due to gamers being drawn from one platfrom to the other.

 

[Martin Eddy]

Anything that takes market share away from Sony is good for microsoft. I wouldn't be surprised if the whole idea of the XBOX, XBOX 360, XBOX whatever the next one's called, is to lure game developers back to the (Windows Based) PC IMHO.

 

[Java_man]

Anything that takes market share away from Sony is good for microsoft. I wouldn't be surprised if the whole idea of the XBOX, XBOX 360, XBOX whatever the next one's called, is to lure game developers back to the (Windows Based) PC IMHO.

Close to my thoughts.
I think that that Xbox 360, XNA and Vista gaming optimisations are designed to lure both developpers and gamers back to PC gaming.
However ,I also think that the MS plan is more complex.

 

[blakjedi]

Close to my thoughts.
I think that that Xbox 360, XNA and Vista gaming optimisations are designed to lure both developpers and gamers back to PC gaming.
However,I also think that the MS plan is more complex.

would you be willing to explain further? what level of complexity do you think MS has planned... once upon a time I explained my idea of microsofts plan but never really included vista into because i didnt really understand it then...

 

[Java_man]

would you be willing to explain further? what level of complexity do you think MS has planned... once upon a time I explained my idea of microsofts plan but never really included vista into because i didnt really understand it then...

It is just an hypothesis.
I think that MS is perhaps trying to develop a new kind of gaming and of entertainement by combining both PC and Xbox 360 console.
In fact i really thought that there would never be a Windows Vista MCE but that the Windows Vista Home Edition will feature all the "advanced" multimedia features.
Then combining a Windows PC and a Xbox 360 you will get a very powerful entertainement hub.
However there will be a Vista MCE thus the plan of MS have become nebulous for me.
Anyway,back to my hypothesis.
With a great interoperability between PC and Xbox 360,thanks to XNA,it should be possible to design games which would require both PC and Xbox 360 to achieve the optimal effects.
I have only two examples of such kind of game:
*one given by MS themselves where a RTS is played on the PC and games much more action and console oriented,fully related to the RTS,is played on the XBox(either 360 or 1,but more likely 360).
*Another in the same league where you build a world or a city and some consoles games(such as GTA,JSFR or Fable) are influenced by your modifications on the PC side.
The gaming optimsiations on Vista should be both for more convenient,seducing PC gaming and to make easier the developpement of those kind of games.
Then you will have the ability to use the XBox 360 has a client,for more of thing than the XBox 1,while the Server will be a Vista PC.
With the power and optimisations of the XeCPU,it should be possible to send a much higher quantity of datas,thanks to high level of compression,from the PC to the XBox 360 and get these data uncompressed on the fly on the console.
I even wonder if you can not use the Xbox 360 to stream TV content to a Vista PC where they will be recorded on the fly.
Etc,...

 

[NavNucST3]

Microsoft Meltdown 2005

This may help explain what MSFT has in-store for Vista. I thought it was a good read, although it looks like we are still going to have a pissing match with PC gamers vs. Console gamers; with comments like these:

DirectX 10 started by fixing what was broken in the previous APIs, like some stability problems and small batch performance, and then removing old unnecessary parts of the API (like the fixed function transform and lighting calls). This served as the foundation for a graphics API that could radically change the way games look and really take PCs to that next quantum leap, even over next-generation consoles.

Suffice it to say: When DirectX 10 games hit us, they're going to be of a quality that next-gen consoles can't touch.

All in all I still found the article to be very interesting.

 

[Carl B]

I'm a fan of this thread - as one can imagine - so I thought this would be the most appropriate place to put this:

Microsoft's current plan for OpenGL on Windows Vista is to layer OpenGL over Direct3D in order to use OpenGL with a composited desktop to obtain the Aeroglass experience. If an OpenGL ICD is run - the desktop compositor will switch off - significantly degrading the user experience.

In practice this means for OpenGL under Aeroglass:

* OpenGL performance will be significantly reduced - perhaps as much as 50%
* OpenGL on Windows will be fixed at a vanilla version of OpenGL 1.4
* No extensions will be possible to expose future hardware innovations

It would be technically straightforward to provide an OpenGL ICD within the full Aeroglass experience without compromising the stability or the security of the operating system. Layering OpenGL over Direct3D is a policy more than a technical decision.

So looks like Microsoft has another card in it's deck designed to marginalize the DirectX competition. It will be interesting to see how this plays out in the dance between the 360, PS3, the new 'Vista Console' system (as I'll off and on refer to it), and the various ports between the three. I'm not sure if I should include PC/XP as a seperate category, but it seems moot since Vista will be the dominant PC patform (at least for high-end game development) for the majority of these cosnoles lives.

 

[Mefisutoferesu]

In the end it won't matter, since most (nVidia does a good job while ATi is catching up) provide their own openGL drivers and always have, since MS's has always sucked... now it'll just be crippled. Granted this is no "Move along, nothing to see here", but it's not going to bring OpenGl to a stand still in gaming... I imagine nVidia will push it even harder (because of their work with Sony) and ATi will follow to avoid any possiblity of being one-up'ed.

Policy-wise, well, heh... since I don't think this is the place for those kinda words, I'll leave it at "I'm not very happy with MS". I know it's in their best intrest to have all competition driven before them, but really I just once would like to see them not be wankers about standards and competition.