Video: The Horrible Future for Windows Gaming
Looks like Microsoft is bringing the same casual interface to Games for Windows - Live that's currently used on the Xbox 360 console (NXE).
There's a possible dark cloud looming on the horizon, a cloud full of despair and hopelessness that is beginning to circulate across the PC gaming community. Its name is the "Windows Gaming Experience," and it may be heading to Games for Windows – Live in the near future.
While the PC side of Microsoft's LIVE network is in dire need of a major overhaul to even come close to what Xbox 360 gamers already experience, the proposed change is not quite what we expected.
The looming dread stems from a leaked Microsoft Windows Gaming eXperience (WGE) internal video pasted below. If the three-plus minute clip is indeed real, Microsoft is bringing the exact same watered-down casual experience that infiltrated the Xbox 360 back in November 2008: aka the New Xbox Experience. Although the new interface brought major improvements to the Xbox 360, the overall casual appearance "dumbed down" the console, made it more "general" than "hardcore," essentially mimicking Nintendo and its Mii setup on the Wii console.
Now it seems the same casual interface is heading to the Games for Windows – Live client. In the video pasted below, Microsoft opens up the demo with Farmville and then switches over to an American Idol contest hosted by the "Idol Moms Group." The video then transitions into Avatar customizations, displaying a message that the Avatar "represents my style, attitude, and character. I can see and personalize my Avatar on the web, my PC, or while playing a game."
This of course means gamers will have the ability to purchase clothes from Microsoft's virtual Avatar shop using Microsoft points, just like Xbox 360 gamers. At the moment, PC gamers can only purchase games and DLC within the client.
The leaked video progresses into another aspect of the new interface: Bing. Apparently the search engine will be incorporated into the client, allowing the user to search for "Bejeweled" and see that 2674 people are currently playing the popular casual game. The user can then search for something similar that's already been rated by friends, and then select it to play.
The actual core gamers aren't represented in the demo until the very end in the portion called "transaction." The core gamer is shown to be slacking off at work and receives a desktop notification from a friend currently playing Battlefield 2. To help out, the "working" gamer purchases a better weapon and sends it to the player who in turn shows his gratitude by insulting us all by misspelling "pwn3d." That in itself is a perfect example of the looming dark cloud rising in the horizon for Windows-based PC gamers.
Ultimately the leaked Microsoft video was broken down into four main components: Social, Identity, Search and Transaction. "The future of PC gaming is upon us," Microsoft claims in the video. "The question is, who will lead and who will follow? Are you ready to change the world? We are."
Welcome to the new (cartoony) Windows Gaming eXperience. Release date? Hopefully never in this form.
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Thank god that we still have Steam as an alternative!
oh...OH GOD NO!
seriously pc isn't a console and will never cater to the same crowd. think of something better. some awesome desktop kinect integration, minority report style? i wouldn't mind a casual game or two that lets me flail my arms around... while im sitting down of course, i think it would be fun to play whilst inebriated
Does anyone actually use Games for Windows - Live? Until Steam does something like this, color me completely apathetic.
Luckily that will take my pc further away from Games for Windows Live and closer to Steam, GoG, Impulse and many others
It sounds like a horrible future, but that future is irrelevant since no one ever uses GFWL anyways.
my face hurts from my hand slapping to my face so hard
The experience of the Wii, Now available on a PC costing many times more, and several years too late!
If Games for Windows - Live is going to be integrated in Windows, then GG for Steam.
This is great news
...for steam.
Why oh why did Microsoft reinforce the pro-war USA lifestyle by mocking up an overexcited smiling kid inside Battlefield 2.
Bad PR Microsoft, Bad.
If Games for Windows - Live is going to be integrated in Windows, then GG for Steam.
Beware, I think there is a troll about.
This has xbox live all over it in a bad way.
I'll just keep buying from steam, no big deal. MS should stick to their OS only.
I don't need all this garbage, just let me play the game!
Well have you visited the Age of Empires Online site?
AOEonline is a Games for Window Live only game. Quite a departure from the first three AOE titles. Definitely targets at younger, up and coming crowd. The market has saturated serious gamers. Now devlopers are trying to attract everyone else. I like the idea of your personal avatar being the actual in-game character.
The New Xbox Experience dashboard update for the Xbox 360 was a welcome addition to the system when it was released in 2008. The OP must have been smoking something when he said, "The overall casual appearance dumbed down the console". The old Xbox dashboard was a convoluted, slow, ugly mess of a UI for the system. The new dashboard sped things up considerably, and made getting to the market and settings made much more sense. So what if they made avatars? Every one of my friends loves to customize their avatars with items unlocked from game purchases. The new dashboard is a great addition to a console system.
Now is this good for the PC? I don't think so. Steam does a great job replicating the same functionality with their client, sans avatars. The PC market is a much different environment from the console one. Just give us a fast and intuitive interface, and we'll love it.
If Microsoft releases this and it catches on I think I'll kill myself.
Microsofts *New* GUI for the 360 is fucking retarded, plain and simple. Seriously, it feels so Wii'ish it's pathetic. Sometimes I wonder if Microsoft knows they have something good or not, and if so why they insist on making it into a piece of crap when it's great.
remember the first ui for the 360? i loved that because everything was easy to find, you had to have serious mental problems to not be abler to find things, and every update has gotten progressively worse. you know what its like to have someone 10 years yonger than you have to show you how to start a damn game and where demos are located because you just give up? sense the most recent update i went to ps3 exclusively, because i wont put up with that crap any more.
if this crap ever takes off and "hardcore" is a dead term, ill just put a gun in my mouth and pull the trigger.
steam sucks and valve sucks harder
you you dont like the new wgx stick to a ipad losers
And in other news, For a low $59.99 you get a year of GFWL service (doesn't double as 360 subscriptions) .............
The New Xbox Experience dashboard update for the Xbox 360 was a welcome addition to the system when it was released in 2008. The OP must have been smoking something when he said, "The overall casual appearance dumbed down the console". The old Xbox dashboard was a convoluted, slow, ugly mess of a UI for the system. The new dashboard sped things up considerably, and made getting to the market and settings made much more sense. So what if they made avatars? Every one of my friends loves to customize their avatars with items unlocked from game purchases. The new dashboard is a great addition to a console system.Now is this good for the PC? I don't think so. Steam does a great job replicating the same functionality with their client, sans avatars. The PC market is a much different environment from the console one. Just give us a fast and intuitive interface, and we'll love it.
made more sense? the red tab was for live, and it had sections on it for demos, game videos, and non game videos. EASY TO USE.
green was for games
purple was for tweaking system settings, and storage management.
i forget what orange and yellow were for, i never used them much at all.
I have died and gone to Hell.
NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Now they'll start charging us for their crappy services too, we're doomed.
P.S. I love Gabe Newell
LoL, epic win for the marketing idiots that got paid to come up with this idea... i'm sure it'll attract a ton more 12 year old girls & bored housewives into using games for windows live, with the awesome cartoony looking avatar junk (i feel the need for a cartoon man wearing an evening dress & a top hat just for laughs)
as for the rest of us, we'll just carry on as normal, even if mircodick try to curtail all games that get installed into windows live games crap, we'll just carry on using a shortcut or executable to fire up our games directly rather than having anything to do with the recommended ms way. hell, even if ms get bitchy about it & try to force it, there's legions of peeps out there that will happily make exe cracks to get around any involvement with it
Well if MSFT screws up everything for windows then there will be a competitor that caters to the hardcore gamers there to soak us up. I am not worried about it, things always go to $hit and then something new and better arises.
Usually, I just want Apple to fail. Now Microsoft- this is terrible I don't think I have ever wanted them to fail before.
humphreybot- what's with all the hate- Steam is fantastic- fast loading and it has superb features not to mention I never have to use Daemon Tools or no-cds again.
I do not understeand anything over here .. EX. I bought dirt2 trough steam BUT to be able to play and save my game advances, I must log on or make a new account in microsoft xbox not even pc LOL !! in order to put the key and be able to play the game online. so it is the same %$#/$#.
If microsoft forces us to use this in windows 8 i'm not upgrading. not worth it.
Microsoft may have made directx but steam made the client to supply games for it. It will always stay that way. pc isn't like a console where it can be restricted. the reason it succeeds is because its not like mac and you can do whatever the hell you want. Microsoft, do this and you lose over 80% of your users. We use pc because its complex, because its fun that way. If you restrict us to things than you are no better than mac and we will all leave for linux or something better.
microsoft wont FORCE us to use this. they are not like Apple....and i hope it stays that way.
microsoft wont FORCE us to use this. they are not like Apple....and i hope it stays that way.
But the problem is that we aren't sure of that. They control the OS and they could if they wanted to... Hopefully you are right though and it does stay that way.