MS on PC Gaming

The Verge reports on some comments made by Microsoft's Phil Spencer at E3 about the company's Xbox app for Windows 10 and PC gaming. Answering a question on the topic, Phil indicates their ongoing neglect of the PC gaming side of things is leading to the newest version of their commitment to remedy this. Phil explains they are taking a step back to reevaluate:
"I’d say our early work in... Xbox Live stuff for Windows was well intentioned, but anybody that’s a PC gamer (I play a lot of PC games myself) saw this kind of imposter console work coming over," says Spencer. "You’ve probably seen us slow down on some of the progress we’ve made on some of our apps, and some other things because we’re reworking how we’re thinking about the PC audience to try to be more reflective of the PC community that’s out there instead of trying to pull people into the things that come from the console space."

Spencer also notes that efforts like Discord and Xbox Live integration is an example of "recognizing infrastructure that exists on the PC side, apps that exist, and services that exist and try to be inclusive of the things PC gamers are about." Microsoft is slowing down on changes to its Xbox app right now, but "the long-term goal is for us to be much more native in the PC gaming environment, as opposed to this thing that feels slightly different than what PC gamers are looking for."
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60.
 
Re: It Came from E3 2018, Part 5
Jun 15, 2018, 13:14
Kxmode
 
60.
Re: It Came from E3 2018, Part 5 Jun 15, 2018, 13:14
Jun 15, 2018, 13:14
 Kxmode
 
Nullity wrote on Jun 14, 2018, 14:14:
Kxmode wrote on Jun 14, 2018, 14:05:
Nullity wrote on Jun 14, 2018, 13:25:
Kxmode wrote on Jun 14, 2018, 12:10:
HorrorScope wrote on Jun 14, 2018, 11:39:
How many chances does this guy get? How many?
As many as they want. It's their world (platform). We just play on it.
Except we don't, which is the issue.
The majority of PC gamers play on Windows, and the majority of Windows gamers play on Steam. Them's the facts.
Yes of course, but I meant that for the most part, PC gamers aren't playing games through the MS store.

Or maybe we're saying the same thing? I'm not sure.

Probably. It wasn't clear.
"...and in stonks, Fizzy Squeezy Stocklebocks leaped over Droopy Whoopy Bondfluffs, hitting 300-gigglebits to their 150-snorebucks. Meanwhile, in Whimsyland's market, the pancakes reached parity with pogo sticks."
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59.
 
Re: MS on PC Gaming
Jun 15, 2018, 08:49
Prez
 
59.
Re: MS on PC Gaming Jun 15, 2018, 08:49
Jun 15, 2018, 08:49
 Prez
 
Slick wrote on Jun 14, 2018, 13:01:
I don't know what you guys are complaining about, what he said is actually right on the money, the only shame is that it's taken them so long to realise this.

The "eureka" moment is when they realised that PC gamers don't want to log into a fucking Xbox app, or manage an Xbox account, or go to the Xbox store on PC. They thought that their existing branding was a feature, but it's always been a bug for PC gamers.

For all their fuckups, I'm pretty happy to be able to finally buy a game once which works on my Xbox and my PC (and migrates save files automatically to boot). I think we've all been there at one time or another, debating whether to have to re-buy a game we already own cause we want to play it on a different platform. There's only a handful of games (mostly first party titles) that use this "play anywhere" program, but it's fucking great and very consumer-friendly. Also, it supports cross-play. I play Gwent on Xbox and PC and I can play PvP against people from either ecosystem. I think Forza 7 works the same way too.

I see the upside for XBox owners (I'm not one of them) and in a vacuum what Spencer is saying would be a welcome breath of fresh air. But we don't live in a vacuum; we live in the world where Microsoft, once a fantastic PC game publisher, abandoned the market entirely for the greener pastures of consoles (Fair dues, that's their right to do so obviously) but then, realizing they aren't good at competing in that space, comes back every 12 to 18 months and "recommits to PC gaming" but does fuck all in that regard. The massive collective eyeroll that the latest recommiting line is eliciting is MS proving itself to be all talk and no action time and time again and people are wise to their bullshit. You need to look no further than GFWL and the dumpster fire that is the Windows10 store for a glimpse at how inept modern day Microsoft is at PC gaming.
“The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.”
- Mahatma Gandhi
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58.
 
Re: MS on PC Gaming
Jun 15, 2018, 02:04
Slick
 
58.
Re: MS on PC Gaming Jun 15, 2018, 02:04
Jun 15, 2018, 02:04
 Slick
 
Slashman wrote on Jun 14, 2018, 19:42:
Just for the record, I was not saying that Windows 10 was a shitty OS. I was referring to MS exclusivity regarding it and their games along with DirectX exclusivity.

Although I really don't like the sneaked in updates when I turn my back. Why the hell are you asking me permission for some updates and then totally ignoring my opinion for others MS?

Ahh, I see now how I misread your earlier quote.

In principle I think the idea of getting everyone on one OS like Apple has been doing for the past decade+ is a pro-consumer, pro-developer move to make. The problem is that Win10 has some serious quirks re: updates. I personally don't care, I have a google home that spys on me 24/7, and I'm pretty sure my Chinese phone is sending all my data back to China HQ, so just having Win10 updates set to "sure" is the least of my worries. I can see how it would irk some people, but I just don't have time to give a shit about it.

*Also I'd like to state that for the record I still want to punch Phil Spencer in his punchable face with that shit-eating grin whenever I see him on stage... but I've been following what he's been doing since he took the reigns, and he's actually turning the ship around. He's like the Obama of the gaming world, he inherited a fucking mess that was none of his doing, and he's slowly turning it around. So I don't know, I know they all lie, but I've come around to giving him, in particular, a modicum of faith, or at least the benefit of the doubt. He certainly turned things around with MS's E3 conference this year, which was widely heralded as superior to Playstation's. That's no small feat. So I hope when he's indicating that he sees that PC gamers don't really give a fuck about Xbox branded shit, that he's probably at the least sincere, and he's probably figuring out how to turn that around too.

Someone on here once said that he has the face of a hybrid between Jon Stewart and Mike Rowe from "dirty jobs", and I can never get that out of my mind now whenever I see him... but I've started to see him as more human overall.

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57.
 
Re: MS on PC Gaming
Jun 15, 2018, 01:06
57.
Re: MS on PC Gaming Jun 15, 2018, 01:06
Jun 15, 2018, 01:06
 
wrlwnd wrote on Jun 14, 2018, 23:27:
I'm still using Visual Studio 2008 and just laugh at how poor their VS offerings have been the last 10 years.

At work our laptops have Visual Studio 2003 and up installed
We also have VB6... oddly enough the wiki on VS calls that Visual Studio 6.0 but the executable is simply VB6.exe
We have a lot of legacy software that still needs to be maintained at every possible release version given the nature of our product.
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56.
 
Re: MS on PC Gaming
Jun 14, 2018, 23:27
56.
Re: MS on PC Gaming Jun 14, 2018, 23:27
Jun 14, 2018, 23:27
 
MS used to get a good deal of money from me.

Whether I was buying a console (XBOX 360), or games for it, or Visual Studio products (2005 and 2008), or one of their OS's (Windows 95, Windows XP, Windows 7), or a Windows Mobile device, or some flavor of their office products. They were doing pretty well having me as a customer.

But I haven't purchased a single product from them in years.

I'm perfectly content now playing on Windows 7 with Steam and its huge offering of great games. I'm also very happy with my PS4. I'm still using Visual Studio 2008 and just laugh at how poor their VS offerings have been the last 10 years. I use an Android phone and Google office products.

MS has dropped the ball completely. They could disappear altogether and I really wouldn't care. Frankly I don't see what the hubbub is from pretty much anything they say or do these days. They just aren't relevant anymore.
55.
 
Re: MS on PC Gaming
Jun 14, 2018, 19:42
55.
Re: MS on PC Gaming Jun 14, 2018, 19:42
Jun 14, 2018, 19:42
 
Just for the record, I was not saying that Windows 10 was a shitty OS. I was referring to MS exclusivity regarding it and their games along with DirectX exclusivity.

Although I really don't like the sneaked in updates when I turn my back. Why the hell are you asking me permission for some updates and then totally ignoring my opinion for others MS?
54.
 
Re: MS on PC Gaming
Jun 14, 2018, 19:06
54.
Re: MS on PC Gaming Jun 14, 2018, 19:06
Jun 14, 2018, 19:06
 
Slick wrote on Jun 14, 2018, 15:44:
Slashman wrote on Jun 14, 2018, 14:49:
Slick and several more people on here are acting like MS hasn't done this shit already!

Fallout 3 on Games for Windows Live sure was lovely right? The Arkham games on Games for Windows Live were divine weren't they? I'm sure we all lamented when GFWL got removed from these and Red Faction Guerilla.

This has nothing to do with wanting MS to sell through some one else's store, it has to do with the fact that they keep proving they are shitty at managing their own. And to answer your questions Slick, I do not buy through Origin or play EA games pretty much ever because Origin itself keeps flagging my geographical location incorrectly and charging me stupid extra.

If you want to use the wonderful Windows store, go ahead. I, on the other hand, have no interest and don't want the bother.

The shitty OS and DirectX exclusivity is yet another reason for me to take a step back from this. Jesus Slick, do you just post for the sake of being the contrarian?

I mean I honestly have no idea why I should give a flying frak about poor, downtrodden MS taking whatever hit the other digital stores charge. I'm a consumer. I consume what is best for me. Others have that right and I'm fine with people who use Origin or the Windows store, it just won't be me. And from the looks of things, I'm not alone.

First of all, I like that you said my name 3 times in your post. It's where I draw my power from. I'm like beetlejuice, only less handsome.

Anyways, to your points:

1) I never said their store wasn't shitty, infact I've offered evidence of how shitty it is. That being said, it has improved since the days of GFWL. They're like a big dumb dinosaur, they're slow, but they're learning.

2) There's no love lost for a giant megalithic corporation. I'm just refuting the line that people (one in particular in this thread) say that they'll only buy from Steam. The irony of only buying from one multi-billion $ corp over another is usually lost. My point has always been that devs/bankrollers have the right to sell their own wares. If people GENUINELY want the product, then the store they buy it from shouldn't be too much of an obstacle. If it is, then I'd argue that they didn't REALLY want it that badly in the first place.

III) Also, that sucks about your Origin woes, I never heard of that bug. I know that all the stores have different region pricing. You can always try a VPN or just get a key from a grey-market site like Kinguin. But again, I'd be willing to bet that you prooooobably don't really want to play any of EA's games that badly

D) Windows 10 isn't a shitty OS. It's the best OS for gaming, and I like playing games. Sooooooo that's pretty much a non-starter. Also, DirectX has it's pros and cons, it saved the PC gaming industry from a fragmented scenario and did a better job than OpenGL. If Vulkan gets traction I'm all for that too. I don't really give a flying fuck to be honest. What game doesn't use DirectX? DX12 actually has alot of that good low-level shit developers have been wanting after seeing it with Mantle. The holdup is mostly nVidia with zero fucks given to Async compute, and developers not wanting to re-invent the wheel mid-console cycle. Around 2020 we'll see DX12 take off if Vulkan doesn't beat them to it (they won't), and then we'll see some shit. But really, who the fuck cares about APIs? And how is that a contrarian view? I have actual contrarian views you know... just enjoying PC gaming isn't one of them.

If windows 10 would get out of my fucking face and let me play games I would say it is a great OS for playing games. Multiple times this year I've lost a day or 2 fixing something that they broke when they forced through one of the overnight updates after I said "don't fucking update" enough times that they decided my "no" meant "yes". Or I've had a subpar experience for a couple weeks until I got around to fixing it.
53.
 
Re: MS on PC Gaming
Jun 14, 2018, 18:56
53.
Re: MS on PC Gaming Jun 14, 2018, 18:56
Jun 14, 2018, 18:56
 
Slashman wrote on Jun 14, 2018, 12:02:
For me it comes to down the fact that there is nothing I really want from Microsoft except non-exclusivity of their games on the console side.

Just make your games and then port them to PC and sell them through Steam, GOG and other established retailers.

What MS keeps trying to make fit is some kind of return to Windows Live that nobody liked or wanted. Your store will never be the cool thing you want us to believe it is. Stop getting involved in aspects that don't matter to us. We have GOG, Steam, GMG and a host of other, better digital retailers.

All MS has to do is decide if they want PC gamers to enjoy the same games they are putting out for console and if so, then just stop getting in the way of that. We don't want your shitty store and its front end.

All of this! Stop trying to BE pc games, and just DO pc games really well. You can do it Microsoft, you've done it before... Before all this xbox nonsense.
52.
 
Re: MS on PC Gaming
Jun 14, 2018, 18:32
52.
Re: MS on PC Gaming Jun 14, 2018, 18:32
Jun 14, 2018, 18:32
 
Mr. Tact wrote on Jun 14, 2018, 18:10:
Late to the topic... can I assume the response to this announcement is as repetitive as the announcement itself?

As I'm sure someone has said, what MS needs to do is stop talking, and start walking. Make a great game and gamers will beat a path to your door. Or more to the point, STFU.
Make a great OS and people will install it for free. Or don't make a great OS and trick peeps into installing it.
The micro$sloth way.
"I expect death to be nothingness and by removing from me all possible fears of death, I am thankful to atheism." Isaac Asimov
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51.
 
Re: MS on PC Gaming
Jun 14, 2018, 18:18
51.
Re: MS on PC Gaming Jun 14, 2018, 18:18
Jun 14, 2018, 18:18
 
Rhett wrote on Jun 14, 2018, 17:35:
The loops we had to jump through just to play a simple multiplayer game of State of Decay 2 was staggeringly ridiculous. Had to go into the command prompt to disable the Teredo adapter, open ports, enable the windows firewall (ENABLE it... not just allow the game, or disable my firewall, but ENABLE another firewall), restart the computer etc.

Mind you, five different people had to do this or had different problems. Every single person had to do, adjust, or fix something related to the network just to either connect to someone else, or host.
Yep, this is exactly what I was referring to. We had the same issues with both State of Decay 2 and Gears of War 4. SoD2 we at least got working, but as you pointed out, it's a buggy mess. GoW4 we could never get to work and ended up refunding it.
Avatar 58038
50.
 
Re: MS on PC Gaming
Jun 14, 2018, 18:10
50.
Re: MS on PC Gaming Jun 14, 2018, 18:10
Jun 14, 2018, 18:10
 
Late to the topic... can I assume the response to this announcement is as repetitive as the announcement itself?

As I'm sure someone has said, what MS needs to do is stop talking, and start walking. Make a great game and gamers will beat a path to your door. Or more to the point, STFU.
“Extinction is the rule. Survival is the exception.” -- Carl Sagan
49.
 
Re: MS on PC Gaming
Jun 14, 2018, 18:08
49.
Re: MS on PC Gaming Jun 14, 2018, 18:08
Jun 14, 2018, 18:08
 
Overon wrote on Jun 14, 2018, 17:54:
Phil Spencer is a bullshitter. How many times has he said this? Why doesn't someone in the bullshit games media call him out on this?

There's no such thing as games media. They're freelance marketting teams used by publishers. You can't call the BS of the people who put food on your plate.
Avatar 56211
48.
 
Re: MS on PC Gaming
Jun 14, 2018, 18:04
48.
Re: MS on PC Gaming Jun 14, 2018, 18:04
Jun 14, 2018, 18:04
 
Overon wrote on Jun 14, 2018, 17:54:
Phil Spencer is a bullshitter. How many times has he said this? Why doesn't someone in the bullshit games media call him out on this?

Didn't they a couple years back get nasty with him about it? I seem to vaguely remember some heated exchanges for a few days coming out of conference.
Avatar 17232
47.
 
Re: MS on PC Gaming
Jun 14, 2018, 18:01
47.
Re: MS on PC Gaming Jun 14, 2018, 18:01
Jun 14, 2018, 18:01
 
Rhett wrote on Jun 14, 2018, 17:35:
I recently got an Xbox Game Pass trial recently since it was $1/free trial, to try State of Decay 2 (and play Sea of Thieves, because I wouldn't buy it atm)...

The loops we had to jump through just to play a simple multiplayer game of State of Decay 2 was staggeringly ridiculous. Had to go into the command prompt to disable the Teredo adapter, open ports, enable the windows firewall (ENABLE it... not just allow the game, or disable my firewall, but ENABLE another firewall), restart the computer etc.

Mind you, five different people had to do this or had different problems. Every single person had to do, adjust, or fix something related to the network just to either connect to someone else, or host.

Every experience I've had with the Xbox app and the Microsoft Store app has been abysmal and hilariously underwhelming. State of Decay 2, even, is the single buggiest game I've played in years. And it wasn't even early access! At least it's only $30, and it's... playable... to say the least.

I sincerely hope they take a long, hard look at this garbage because I'm seeing more and more people pissed off at MS on PC.

Edit: Also tried Gears of War 4 again (bought it early on), and it's still just filled to the brim with lootboxes.. I thought people were up in arms about that from the start? And you have to buy every map individually for $5 a piece?!

I hate you for being so descriptive, Games for Windows Live syndrome is rising up within me again!
Avatar 17232
46.
 
Re: MS on PC Gaming
Jun 14, 2018, 17:57
46.
Re: MS on PC Gaming Jun 14, 2018, 17:57
Jun 14, 2018, 17:57
 
Slick wrote on Jun 14, 2018, 15:12:
If you're referring to the MS store, it's embedded, and very limiting. I bought 2 games from it, and for the life of me I can't figure out where the fuck they are if I delete my desktop shortcut. There doesn't seem to be a "my library" section, I have to search for it like I'm using the android play store then try installing and it's like: "OH WAIT! you totally have this game! nice!" It's garbage.

But I wouldn't count them out, they have unlimited resources, and an unlimited timeline. There's no good reason why they won't turn it into the "app store" equivalent eventually.

Speaking of apps. IMO that's their biggest missed oppertunity. There's so much software sold on PC, and I have to make a new account for each company. just for plug-ins, audio, video, productivity etc. There's no central hub where all that lives like on iOS or Android. If MS was smart and just charged developers a reasonable 5% fee on gross, then they'd take that shit over in no time. And I'd actually be happy to see that happen. No reason I have to make a new account to buy some random whatever from some boutique VST plug-in developer. It's honestly easier to torrent it. That's a problem you'd think devs and consumers would be happy to have fixed.

This is a much fairer reply. You acknowledge it needs work, a decades old theme to MS store fronts on the PC. It's like they must put 2 jr programmers on the project, then tells those at conferences, "We are really focused this time". Same two juniors.

As for time and money, yes they do have that, but at the core they need to realize what the market wants and deliver it.

One person did share a good reason, cheating is harder. Good, there's one thing with what they have, everything else isn't close to the best. There was then a nice descriptive post talking about how they do their own networking thing. I was thinking, well can't they make the standard game run on regular Win32 and still use their own network protocol? But then sad realities came in with another talking about how hard it is to get connected with others and it is probably all around their own network thing. So a mixture still probably brings too many problems with it.

Then you talk about long term how they could take over, I'd be very ok with this if I really could trust them to do the right thing. Lets say they were reasonably priced to publish on and carried the savings to the people. Once they had the market, could we trust them to stay reasonable overall? I don't know.

They missed having the control those other platforms have (Apple/Android). What they can and should have continued to embrace as a selling point was openness, openness, openness. That is what made windows what it is.

The only way I get inline is perfection in execution and amazing price/performance ratio of the products. I really don't need another store front, so you have to give me the unquestionable best overall. They aren't even close right now.

This comment was edited on Jun 14, 2018, 18:09.
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45.
 
Re: MS on PC Gaming
Jun 14, 2018, 17:54
45.
Re: MS on PC Gaming Jun 14, 2018, 17:54
Jun 14, 2018, 17:54
 
Phil Spencer is a bullshitter. How many times has he said this? Why doesn't someone in the bullshit games media call him out on this?
44.
 
Re: MS on PC Gaming
Jun 14, 2018, 17:45
44.
Re: MS on PC Gaming Jun 14, 2018, 17:45
Jun 14, 2018, 17:45
 
Cutter wrote on Jun 14, 2018, 14:59:
Slick, you're the one missing the point here. Phil has said this how many times now? Half a dozen or so over the last decade or so? Every couple of years he trots this exact same shit out. How they've dropped the ball but this time they're really gonna' make it work finally! Yeah, this is the one. This time it's really gonna' happen!

Right as best now this mother fucker needs to shut up, deliver and let the product do the talking if and when it gets good. He is a liar in the words he has spoken on the pc end, when do you trust a liar? He's now a terrible face to have on the pc front, when I see him and I doubt I'm alone, here comes Mr. Blah Blah, promising and under delivering, have to assume those that interview him feel the same.
Avatar 17232
43.
 
Re: MS on PC Gaming
Jun 14, 2018, 17:38
43.
Re: MS on PC Gaming Jun 14, 2018, 17:38
Jun 14, 2018, 17:38
 
I missed the point, comment removed.

This comment was edited on Jun 14, 2018, 18:02.
Avatar 17232
42.
 
Re: MS on PC Gaming
Jun 14, 2018, 17:35
42.
Re: MS on PC Gaming Jun 14, 2018, 17:35
Jun 14, 2018, 17:35
 
I recently got an Xbox Game Pass trial recently since it was $1/free trial, to try State of Decay 2 (and play Sea of Thieves, because I wouldn't buy it atm)...

The loops we had to jump through just to play a simple multiplayer game of State of Decay 2 was staggeringly ridiculous. Had to go into the command prompt to disable the Teredo adapter, open ports, enable the windows firewall (ENABLE it... not just allow the game, or disable my firewall, but ENABLE another firewall), restart the computer etc.

Mind you, five different people had to do this or had different problems. Every single person had to do, adjust, or fix something related to the network just to either connect to someone else, or host.

Every experience I've had with the Xbox app and the Microsoft Store app has been abysmal and hilariously underwhelming. State of Decay 2, even, is the single buggiest game I've played in years. And it wasn't even early access! At least it's only $30, and it's... playable... to say the least.

I sincerely hope they take a long, hard look at this garbage because I'm seeing more and more people pissed off at MS on PC.

Edit: Also tried Gears of War 4 again (bought it early on), and it's still just filled to the brim with lootboxes.. I thought people were up in arms about that from the start? And you have to buy every map individually for $5 a piece?!
Avatar 55108
41.
 
Re: MS on PC Gaming
Jun 14, 2018, 15:58
41.
Re: MS on PC Gaming Jun 14, 2018, 15:58
Jun 14, 2018, 15:58
 
VaranDragon wrote on Jun 14, 2018, 15:54:
Yeah I get what you're saying, what I wanted to add to that was that most of the complaints raised here would be moot if MS just made their store work like Origin, or Steam or GOG or whatever.

Other than the Win10 requirement (which Steam is up to Win7, so not way off) it's not much different. Well, the Windows store has a lot more crap on it and you have to search for what you want, which is a bummer, but luckily there aren't many "real" games on there anyway. If they keep putting everything Xbox on PC they do need to eventually make that store more accessible. People seem to finally be accepting the idea of each big publisher having its own store, so I don't think MS needs to back off on it.

I haven't made a purchase there yet but Gears of War 4 for $20 is tempting right now, and I am sure I will buy the next Halo (or even better the Halo collection) there if they release it.
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