"Games for Windows"

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Burrito
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"Games for Windows"

Post by Burrito »

I went out of town for the weekend and picked up the latest PC Gamer at the news stand at the airport. There was an article about this 'Games for Windows' initiative and it actually sounds quite intriguing. I think a lot of it is marketing hype, but with the release of Vista and 'Games for Windows' it actually might just have some meat to it.

wondering what all of your thoughts on it were (if you've even heard of it...I hadn't prior to Thursday night 8O ), and if you think it'll make a difference in the reign for gaming supremacy (PC vs Console).
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MrPotatoes
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Post by MrPotatoes »

what is this initiative?

i just wished developers would just cross develop. i mean, the Mac is beefy now and it's also Pentium. bringing it over is a no-brainer. and just as easy as cross dev for *nix
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Luke
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Post by Luke »

You'd think they would... it's a pretty big market to just ignore... especially considering most gamers are the types to actually know the pitfalls of Windows.
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jayshields
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Post by jayshields »

The Ninja Space Goat wrote:especially considering most gamers are the types to actually know the pitfalls of Windows.
I disagree. Maybe the "serious" gamers are the types to actually know the pitfalls of Windows, but maybe those same people are the ones more likely to pirate computer games too. Speaking from experience, I have met more people that don't know anything about Windows who play games than people who know alot about Windows.
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Post by Burrito »

The Ninja Space Goat wrote:especially considering most gamers are the types to actually know the pitfalls of Windows.
I would strongly disagree with that statement 8O

Potatoes, info on games for windows can be found here: http://www.gamesforwindows.com/

basically it's an initiative by Microsoft to, believe it or not, create some standards in the PC gaming industry. It's really a branding effort to bring people who may have given up on PC games in favor of console games back into the fold. The requirements for a game to be called a 'game for windows' are more strict than most games on the market today. A couple that caught my eye were: it must support widescreen resolution (thank the good lord), it must fit within the 'game explorer' that will be introduced with Vista (which actually is going to be super cool)....there were more which I can't remember but they may be on that site I posted above.
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Luke
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Post by Luke »

If you picked a gamer at random, there is a much higher chance he'd know something about windows than your average computer user.
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Burrito
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Post by Burrito »

The Ninja Space Goat wrote:If you picked a gamer at random, there is a much higher chance he'd know something about windows than your average computer user.
again, I disagree....I know a lot of gamers (the majority in fact), that can barely turn their pc's on and fire up their games.
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Luke
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Post by Luke »

The average user could not even install a game... let alone play it... anyway, I'm steering away from the topic... continue... :D
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Post by RobertGonzalez »

Think back to the days when you were a newbie web page maker. Did you know a ton about your operating system? I didn't. Hell, I didn't learn nearly as much as I should have until I started coming here. I would venture to say that a good number of of computer users, whether it be gamers, new developers, shoppers or emailers, would not necessarily know that much about their system as they know how to get to what they want as fast as possible. Just a thought.

PS | Ninja, have I thanked you yet for turning me on to Pandora. That site is freaking rad. I am loving it. Thanks dude.
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Mordred
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Post by Mordred »

MrPotatoes wrote:i just wished developers would just cross develop. i mean, the Mac is beefy now and it's also Pentium. bringing it over is a no-brainer. and just as easy as cross dev for *nix
I do hope you're joking :)


@all: Here (Bulgaria) hardcore gamers are among the most knowledgeable about hardware and OS tweaking, it costs a lot to buy a serious (preconfigured) gaming machine, and maybe down to a half if you know your stuff and properly combine parts for best overclocking results and 3d performance.

Because of the "moving ceiling" with PCs, PC game developers can make radically better games than the console people. Console people do that only once, when a platform is new, after that it's technologically all the same, performance ceilings are reached fast, and from then on the PC wins the race.

Of course, the most important part of a game is the game design, which doesn't care much if it's implemented on a PowerPC or a PC or the crazy iron Sony makes for its consoles. But inexperienced gamers won't pay attention to that, they want flashy graphics and they are ready to buy raw horsepower for that.
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Post by Ollie Saunders »

For me PC games are dieing. For years and years the APIs/libraries for writing games were always best on the PC and so developers liked to develop with it. It rather look like XBOX has changed that. Microsoft being a software company has actually bothered to provide developers with a set of tools better than those available for PC devlopement. I can only see that sort of thing happening more and more; its all about competitive advantage.

Also I can go out spend £275 on an XBOX 360 and effectively get myself a pretty damn good PC which would cost much much more. You can't get a decent graphics card for less than £200 and then you've got all that other stuff and you still can't play in your living room, set up online games as easily, rent a game for it, etc etc.
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Post by Luke »

ole wrote:For me PC games are dieing. For years and years the APIs/libraries for writing games were always best on the PC and so developers liked to develop with it. It rather look like XBOX has changed that. Microsoft being a software company has actually bothered to provide developers with a set of tools better than those available for PC devlopement. I can only see that sort of thing happening more and more; its all about competitive advantage.

Also I can go out spend £275 on an XBOX 360 and effectively get myself a pretty damn good PC which would cost much much more. You can't get a decent graphics card for less than £200 and then you've got all that other stuff and you still can't play in your living room, set up online games as easily, rent a game for it, etc etc.
I don't agree that PC games are dying, but all of your points about consoles are why I always disagree when people say consoles are dying... they ARE NOT! People! You have to remember... a lot of console gamers are young kids who don't have the money (and nor do their parents) to spend on a high-end gaming PC and even if they did, they would never be able to build and maintain it. Both have their niche... and I believe (for a while anyway) that is how it will stay.
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Post by Jenk »

Games for Windows is just a rehash of the up-until-now-known-as "Microsoft Published Game" label, aimed specifically at PC platform.

It's no suprise.. Vista will be the only DX10 enabled OS, adding yet another hotel to MS's monopoly board.
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Case-
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Post by Case- »

They dont develop games cross platform because it's expensive and 99% of the gamers use windows.
So there is no point developing them for every platform, and example for linux people makes their own import.

You can use pc for many other things, paying bills, sending email, surfing etc...
Strong side of pc gaming is netgaming, free games etc...
Strong side of console gaming is that it's easy, just put the game in and start.

Im waiting for the nintendos wii, because the controller sound cool :D.
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Post by feyd »

Case- wrote:Im waiting for the nintendos wii, because the controller sound cool :D.
I can confirm that it is indeed cool, however you will likely be a bit sore after the first day of playing with it, depending on how sensitive you set it. :)
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