Microsoft and the so called investment in PC Gaming

Ever since Phil Spencer took over the head of MS XBOX division, which was almost completely destroyed by the Don Mattrick/Steve Ballmer duo, I have been hearing exciting things about how Microsoft is now giving PC Gaming the proper attention it deserves and how much MS cares about PC gamers on their Windows platform.

Then come the Windows 10 press conference in January 2015, and we see next to nothing to PC gaming there, a bunch of stuff for XBOX owners like ability to chat with your XBOX Live friends on PC, or stream XBOX games to PC, but nothing really interesting for PC gamers that dont care about XBOX.

They said afterwards that more news for PC gaming would be coming later, but nothing special was heard.

Then comes the MS E3 press conference, and bunch of exciting new Games, Forza 6, New Gears, New Halo. But none of those are coming to PC, just for XBOX. On Pc you get a bunch of old games, that either no one cares about, or have already been available for a while on other platforms.

There has been 4 Gears of war games so far, only one of those were released on the PC, now MS is developing a new one, and remastering the first one.

Instead of releasing the new one on the PC, it is releasing the remastered version of the only game of the series that already exists on the PC again, and even that is not the main focus because the XBOX version is coming months ahead.

If that is not enough of a joke, the windows store, that Microsoft has trying to promote so much is a complete mess, is that what they are trying to put in place to compete with Steam, and claim that they are giving PC the attention we deserve?

Why not release all biggest titles being release to XBOX also on PC?

Why not make the integration of Windows store with Steam and other store fronts like GoG, Origin, uPlay, maiking it easier fr the users to access all games they own and all the friends lists more streamline independent of what platform it is using?

Why keep pretending that you give a fuck to PC gaming, when in the end you just want to try to convice PC gamers should buy an XBOX, when most of us dont give a shit and will never buy one?

It's fine, PC gamers have Nvidia, AMD, and Intel. Not to mention a whole host of peripheral manufacturers.

@mortuss_zero: That's worse than just acknowledge that we are irrelevant to them. PC gaming thrives on Windows neither in spite of Microsoft nor because of them. Every few years they give us a new DirectX and a buggy OS and we just shrug and move on. At this point most PC gamers would be happy if Microsoft would just release its Xbox exclusives on the PC.

They are bringing over KI. I am not even a fighting game guy and that is by far the most exciting property they could bring over. I would also like the rare collection....

I guess they can do more, but really them releasing their xbox games on pc is not what I am looking for out of microsoft as support for the pc.

In other news, I was sure minecraft was going to be a pack in game with windows 10. Might make more sense to sell it, but still!

Microsoft focusing more on the PC market doesn't mean they should be making bad business decisions. They want people to buy Xbox Ones so making every exclusive available on PC isn't a great move. Why should they be giving Steam a cut on their digital games when they're capable of selling the games themselves.

Microsoft is doing good things for PC gamers but don't expect them to just open everything up because it's easier for you.

I feel your pain, I've been playing games on a PC since the 90's and it has been a frustrating journey with what games come and which ones don't. However you cant look at Microsoft like a big middle finger just saying no to what it is PC gamers really want. That's just not how anything works, Microsoft is a gigantic company one of the biggest in the world and if they decide not to do something there is probably a big business reason why. Not that you should care about that stuff but it is what it is.

The game situation is a mess, it always has been. But the consumer base on consoles are still the ones that need to be catered to. Microsoft spent all this money on making a system they are going to make damn sure people buy it. And with the windows store, it isn't meant to be a competitor to steam, at least not yet. That's part of the reason Windows 10 is free to get more developers on 10 to fix the abysmal app situation they have. The integration thing you mentioned sounds awesome but will never happen. Microsoft has nothing to gain by mixing games you bought from other sources. They will take every opportunity to get you to buy from them and no one else. Sucks? yes, but again, it is what it is.

Windows has come a long way in what it does from games and I think it's only getting better even if it's a bit of a slow climb.

It makes no sense for them to support PC with actual game releases of their own since they need those to sell XBOX One's.

I also remember when Vista was released, and Games For Windows Live, and how they were supposed to go all in on PC back then too. That didn't turn out so well.

They are seeing the App Store and wondering how to make money in the same way. I don't see the PC becoming anything more than an XBOX accessory with anything Microsoft is doing. Some neat stuff might still come out of that though for all the XBOX owners.

Luckily PC games are in a pretty good spot - ignoring all the BROKEN ass ports of recent years, there are a lot of native PC games that are great.

Microsoft has said they will have more PC news to announce during Gamescom. I do genuinely think Phil Spencer cares about and listens to the PC audience but that does not mean he has the power to give us everything we want.

And yeah the Windows store is a mess i really hope they are not making the Gears of War remake and KI exclusive to the Windows store.

The Xbox division always does BETTER when they have a bunch of lunatics -who give a damn about gaming- in charge with a blank check-book. I'm not entirely convinced Phil Spencer is that guy. Oh, he's miles better than Mattrick who just dripped and leaked smarey wet douche, but he's no Kevin Bachus or Seamus Blackley. Again, maybe they need better than those loonies too, but I think MS sufferers from too much iron-rod up the ass at XBox.

It's not an easy problem to solve, and simply putting everything that's on Xbox onto Windows is not the answer. Catering to two markets without one cannibalizing the other is a fine line to walk. MS has done the hokey pokey dance with PC gaming so many times, it hard to trust anything they say on the topic. It seems like every 5 years or so they alternatively want to walk hand in clammy, disgusting hand with PC gaming then have nothing to do with it. I don't know what the right answer is here from a platform holder's perspective.

This isn't a new development for Microsoft remember GFWL?

The pattern seems to be: 1 Someone at Microsoft discovers that people play games on windows computers this happens circa ones every decade. 2 They make a few clumsy steps to release some first party games. 3 then they forget about it the next 6-7 seven years.

The few xbox exclusives that hasn't all ready found its way to pc wont make a huge difference on PC gaming anyway.

Although I wouldn't mind seeing the Forza series on Pc.

Well, spencer is head of the XBox division so he probably was talking about integrating xbox related shit to pc.

Besides that, DX12 is the only new addition microsoft is going to give pc gamers. Maybe hololens will have some application on pc

DX12 represents a major shift in the level of support they are offering. They could have just iterated on the traditional DX model but instead opted to go for the kind of overhaul that developers have needed for years. It's perfectly easy to imagine a world in which 11.3 is all that exists and Vulcan starts to come to the forefront of developer API usage.

MS will port more games from X1 due to its lack luster sales. DX12 is being dramatically improved so they can shift Win10, but apart from that I'm not sure what "Microsoft investment in PC Gaming" means.

Why are you so angry about this?

Releasing Xbox games on the PC makes no sense at all business wise, why would they ever do that? It's been like 2 or 3 years? Since Nadella took over and 2 years for Spencer? You can't just say your going to do something then implement that change the next year, it takes a lot of time especially in a company as large as MS where all divisions seem to work with each other.

PC gaming is a minor diversion for them and it has been since they closed most of their first-party PC studios. If I recall correctly, Microsoft Flight is one of the only first-party PC exclusives to come out in years from Microsoft, and that thing was a train wreck (I like it, despite its flaws, but it never took off the way they wanted). Before that you've got that OK GFWL launch title 'Tinker' in 2009 (though that might have also been on Xbox 360). Then you have to go back to Age of Empires III, Rise of Nations, and Freelancer in the mid-2000's. It's been almost a decade since Microsoft put any effort into PC development.

The addition of pc software (and windows 10) sales wouldn't be bad for business. From my understanding the Xbox is (or was) losing them a good amount of money hence the regime switch(maybe?). I think pc implementations of hololens and even kinect would be a good business move as well, it's not 2004 where pc games are 99% pirated, steam and other distributors generate a lot of revenue from game sales. If they didn't i don't think a game like arkham knight would have been taken off pc. Even budget pc titles like nba 2k are getting full releases (and support?) on pc these days.

Make perfect sense MS loosing their console market share porting X1 titles to PC will boost revenue.

There are two things I want from Microsoft in regards to gaming: a fast, stable OS, and the evolution of DirectX. And they deliver on those two things already. Their store, their "investment in PC gaming" - I really don't give a shit.

The digital distribution platforms, the hardware manufacturers, the game developers - these are the folks that I want to care about PC gaming.

@oursin_360:

Boost revenue! What? You live in a gaming bubble if you think that. Most people buying computers don't care about games, hence Apple being the market leader in consumer electronics. Microsoft makes their PC money from licenses, cloud, server support, office products etc. There consumer revenue is being held up right now buy the Xbox (rev up 27%) and Surface (rev up 117%) and Bing (rev up 23%)

@zombie2011 said:

And how is creating more sources of revenue is bad? By bringing more games to the PC they are also building trust and giving more value to their biggest userbase, Windows users (over 1.25 billion).

Your argument that apple is the consumer leader in electronics proves that people don't care about games makes no sense since Microsoft does not sell PC hardware and their tablets and phones sell tiny numbers compared to Apple products. Mac computers are a small minority, barely 10% of computers run OSX.

@zombie2011: The fact that MS makes a boat load of cash is irrelevant the Xbox division doesn't have bottomless pit of money it has its own budget.

Seamus Blackley make this exact point at 38:50

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUODlNffWmU

"Boost revenue! What? You live in a gaming bubble if you think that. Most people buying computers don't care about games, hence Apple being the market leader in consumer electronics. Microsoft makes their PC money from licenses, cloud, server support, office products etc."

And what this got to do with Microsoft and the so called investment in PC Gaming.

There consumer revenue is being held up right now buy the Xbox (rev up 27%) and Surface (rev up 117%) and Bing (rev up 23%)

Revenue was down the previous quarter not sure the point being made here is. Again I will reiterate MS putting more X1 games on PC makes sense to boost revenue for the Xbox division.

How does my statement not make sense? MS produces Windows. Almost every PC runs Windows so essentially if you looks at the revenue from Windows OEM, which was down 22% due to the declining PC market, you can see that consumer based buying is focused more on Apple than PC. It doesn't matter if they don't sell the physical box, they are the monopoly when it comes to PC operating systems, Linux is no competition for Windows. Differentiating Hardware from Software means nothing since every PC that ships, ships with Windows.

10% of computers runs OSX, where did you get that number? Was that based on Consumer or Commercial sales? If your going for Commercial then yes Windows in dominant and will stay that way for the foreseeable future. However, the commercial sector aren't buying PC's so they can load up Steam.

That's not how that works, Xbox exclusives are the only thing that differentiate it form the competition. If Xbox games are available for PC why would a gamer pick it over a PlayStation? If they bring Xbox exclusives to PC they undercut the sales of Xbox, they wouldn't be gaining extra revenue they would be splitting the existing revenue, and eventually they would lose most there exposure in the console market.

@zombie2011: Exclusives are not the only thing to differentiate youself from the competition the eco system and where your friends play are also play a big part, multi platform titles drive console sales.

http://www.gamespot.com/articles/most-sold-games-of-2014-include-gta-v-call-of-duty/1100-6424680/

http://venturebeat.com/2015/07/16/june-2015-npd-ps4-beats-xbox/

"Arkham Knight had an especially strong showing on PlayStation 4. Sony has already said that the Batman bundle helped sell PS4 hardware, but despite this, the game still sold better on PS4 than Xbox One on this chart. That’s noteworthy because this NPD list does not include bundled games. So it sounds like Sony made a wise investment when it decided to help co-market Arkham Knight."

Dead Rising, Rise & Project Spark being on PC is hardly a reason not to buy the X1 or Killers Instinct, Gears of War: Ultimate Edition, Tomb Raider & Fable Legends coming to PC a reason to get a PS4. PC gaming and console gaming are very different experiences theirs no evidence to suggest that bring Xbox exclusives to PC will diminish X1 sales. Did Rocket League being free with PS Plus stop people buying it on PC?

http://steamspy.com/app/252950

So selling games on PC makes no sense? Tell that to Valve or GoG. Both are very very happy with what the PC market has to offer.

Apple are the leading consumer of electronics because of the fucking iPhone, not because of gaming hardware or PC hardware. PHONES!!! and mobile devices. There is like a ratio of 4 mobile phones per household now at least across the united states alone! I'm sorry but you will not find more than 1 PC or 1 Xbox per household per average. That was the dumbest argument I've seen on here for a long time.

To the OP - DirectX 12 is massive, developers have been needing this sort of overhaul for a decade now, you could argue that if it wasn't for AMD's Mantle, MS probably would have never done what they did with DirectX12, Mantle brought the problem developers have had for over a decade front ant center! MS are also doing other-way around backwards compatability as well, so you'll be able to stream games from your windows 10 PC to your Xbox, but that wont be released till a few months or next year. That in itself is huge! and Xbox needs to have at least "some" exclusives to make it worth while buying, and one of those gems is the Halo series. I haven't seen the windows store the OP was talking about because I don't have Windows 10 installed yet (just waiting on all bugs to be squished first and compatibility issues). but is it supposed to be the new Windows Live, so to speak?

I think it will take time for good things to start appearing on Windows 10 in form of gaming, I mean look at the HoloLens, for example. Windows 10 has ONLY just been released, you need to give these things time to develop, once we get into the gritty parts of next year, then see where this topic of discussion is at. Next years games, at least a lot of them will most likely be DX12 ready right out of the gate so wait and see.