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Does Microsoft really care about PC gamers?

ThreeDeeVision
Superstar
I am a PC gamer at heart, and have been since about 1992 when I got to try my wealthy friend's Commodore 64. I have owned quite a few consoles as well, but if I could get the game on PC, I played it on PC. Over the years, Microsoft has published many of my favorite PC games (Motocross Madness 1&2, Monster Truck Madness 1&2, Midtown Madness 1&2, Microsoft Flight Sim series, Halo 1&2, Gears of War, Train Simulator, Fable, ect...). For all the awesome titles they put out, there has been a noticeable downward trend for quite some time. Looking at the Microsoft Games Wiki, 2004 was the start of this downward trend. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_video_games_published_by_Microsoft_Studios

Being that the Xbox came out a couple years prior to this downward trend, this tells me they viewed PC gaming as direct competition to their console market and decided to pull back on making PC games for the most part. The amount of titles directly reflects this decision.

With the recent revival of VR, Microsoft is thrusting themselves into the PC gaming picture again. But are their actions actually matching their statements? They keep repeating "we care about PC gaming", yet the only thing I have seen thus far is the ability to stream a Xbox One to my Windows 10 PC (totally pointless waste of resources) and a Xbox One controller with the consumer Rift :roll:. These are not the actions of a company that wants to push PC gaming, these are the actions of a company trying to push a console.

And lets take a look at the latest console. The Xbox One itself is a hodgepodge all-in-one multimedia unit that is good at doing many things but not that great at doing the most important thing it should be doing, and that is playing games. The PS4 beats the Xbox one in every important gaming area from specs to FPS (not to mention all the awesome exclusive titles). The PS4 will have an actual VR interface next year that will provide real VR experiences, and a Virtual cinema can't hold a candle to that. I still love my Xbox 360 dearly and play it daily, but it isn't trying to be an all-in-one media unit. It does exactly what it needs to do, and does it well.

Next year will finally be the year of consumer VR, and Microsoft is showing up late to yet another ballgame. They lost out on MP3 players (Zune fail), Smart Phones (Nokia fail), and are again behind the ball on the next big technological breakthrough (Virtual Cinema fail). People are looking for the next great gaming experience, and the Star Citizen crowd funding campaign is directly a result of that. They are nearing 100 million dollars of pledge money and the game isn't even done yet! You can't tell me there isn't a PC gaming market, we have put our money where our mouths are!

Instead of providing VR Cinema Xbox streaming that totally defeats the purpose of PC VR and teasing things like "Halo 5 might come out on PC someday", they need to step up and actually do something for the PC gaming community. If you build it, they will come!
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91 REPLIES 91

ThreeDeeVision
Superstar

Boy, Microsoft really missed the mark at E3 this year compared to the competition.  Sony was all about new games and giving the people exactly what they wanted.  All sorts of new VR titles and great games to look forward to.

Xbox was all about hardware and customized controllers (wow who cares about coloring a controller)?!  I am a hardware guy and I do enjoy new hardware news, but E3 should be about giving people something exciting to look forward to.  Good software will sell the hardware, there is no need to use E3 to announce hardware unless it is a huge change (a slim XBOne and customized controller colors doesn't quite fit that bill in my opinion).  The best thing I heard from them was Project Scorpio which doesn't come out until the end of next year (this could easily have been an E3 2017 announcement instead).  The slim XBone is a nice touch, but when the competition is outselling you 2 to 1 you need to do better.

Gears of War allowing Windows 10 and Xbox One cross compatibility is another great thing I heard, but they should have been doing things like that a loooong time ago.

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Hanover
Rising Star
My gaming PC has an HDTV plugged into one of it's HDMI ports, and I use my TV for a monitor when I play games most of the time.  I use a game pad when I play games like Far Cry 4 and Tomb Raider.  So what's the difference?  

Since when have the games been less important than the hardware they're running on, even if the hardware can provide the same experience regardless?  

ThreeDeeVision
Superstar
New game > colored controller in my opinion, I thought that was pretty clear.

And your second paragraph is exactly my point.  Games are always more important, the better the hardware, the better the game.  It has ALWAYS been about the games.
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Zenbane
MVP
MVP
Microsoft was the number 1 platform for the PC gaming revolution, from MS Windows to MS-DOS: WarCraft, Diablo, Dungeon Master, Eye of the Beholder, Planescape: Torment, Fallout... the list is endless.

Giving the PC gaming industry the best memories and amazing history thanks to a platform everyone could play them on is proof enough. There was a huge shift in history that made PC Gaming less profitable than Console gaming, and Microsoft adjusted accordingly because having a caring heart doesn't pay the bills. They bought one of my favorite PC gaming designers, Bungie, and turned them in to a Console game maker. I'm okay with that.

PC Gaming is making a comeback and Microsoft will adjust accordingly. Since when is a corporation supposed to make decisions based solely on its proverbial heart? Has anyone looked in to the Oil & Gas industries that fuel your cars? lol

danknugz
Superstar
Did you guys hear that Kbm support is finally coming to xbox... After literally 10 years... If ms really cares about PC gamers, they would have supported Kbm when 360 launched.

They're only doing it now cause they've been backed into a corner. If they dominated ps4, chances are we wouldn't be having any of this PC talk. I fail to be convinced, but I would be lying if I said I wasn't excited about the potential for forza horizon 3 in VR.
A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text. Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing? A: Top-posting. Q: What is the most annoying thing on forums?

ThreeDeeVision
Superstar
My point exactly.  They showed a lot of interest in the PC market at first, then purposely nerfed it to sell more XBoxes.  Have you looked at the Windows Live Marketplace at the pitiful games selection?  Oculus Home just came out yet they are trouncing Windows Live in quality games.

It can only get better from here because as of right now it is really bad.
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ThreeDeeVision
Superstar
@danknugz, I think they are finally getting with the program.  I hear the new Gears game will be cross-compatible for Win 10 and XBOne, so they are finally doing something they could have been doing since the first XBox. 
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Zenbane
MVP
MVP

danknugz said:

Did you guys hear that Kbm support is finally coming to xbox... After literally 10 years... If ms really cares about PC gamers, they would have supported Kbm when 360 launched.



They're only doing it now cause they've been backed into a corner.


Backed in a corner? Sure, if we ignore math:

Sony net worth: 34 billion
Microsoft net worth: 400 billion

ThreeDeeVision
Superstar
PS4 is outselling the XBox One 2 to 1, yes, that obviously has made them uncomfortable.
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Zenbane
MVP
MVP
Hasn't it been that way from the beginning? The PlayStation has always been a superior console. Microsoft simply dipped their feet in the console waters; to claim that they are moving to VR Support because they are "backed in a corner" despite their overwhelmingly superior worth is fairly unreasonable. Microsoft may be successful by their own Standards; they don't have to beat Sony in order to say they achieved their goals.