MSFT's 1st-Party Strategy Won't Include Desktop Gamers
Microsoft is undoubtedly saturating the news channel with its new Xbox One console, as tons of hands-on reports stemming from the Xbox Reveal event continue to roll out and over-saturate our eyeballs. However, PC gamers are probably wondering what's in store for them with regard to Microsoft's Elite 15 exclusive titles heading to its new console. To that, we say absolutely nothing. Well, almost nothing.
Matt Booty, general manager of Redmond Game Studios and Platforms, told Shacknews during the Xbox Reveal event that the Windows 8 gamer will indeed participate in some of the content offered in Microsoft lineup of 15 exclusives, but "not in the way you might expect or want."
"We have got everything from very, very casual games, like our very much improved and reimagined Solitaire, all the way to graphically complicated games like The Harvest," he said while talking about Microsoft's strategy on Windows 8 gaming.
Seriously? The Harvest app, which was originally launched on Windows Phone 7, isn’t considered by most to be a AAA-tier title like Halo and Gears of War. Does that mean Microsoft's first-party strategy will continue to focus on the lower-end of PC gaming?
"We're talking about console games, but there could be some franchises that also end up with a PC game," Booty added. "When I think about more connected experiences across those platforms, it's things that show up within that family of devices where we've got Xbox Live, like Windows Phone and Windows 8, [and] not what you might consider a more traditional desktop PC game."
In short, it's just downright cheaper and quicker to produce AAA titles on one hardware set than it is on an infinite number of hardware configurations. That's presumably why app developers flock to Apple's iOS first despite the closed system and 30-percent cut. That said, PC gamers will still need to rely on Crytek, 2K Games, Electronic Arts and others to provide quality, AAA titles for the PC.
The Xbox One will reportedly receive fifteen exclusive games within the first twelve months, eight of which will be new franchises. Remedy's Quantum Break will be one of the exclusive titles as will Crytek's Roman hack-and-slash game Ryse. Turn 10 Studios' Forza Motorsport 5 was confirmed as a launch game during the Xbox Reveal event.
Honestly I would pay up to a $100-$150 just for a drive that played the xbox one games for my PC, that would allow to do the things I just mentioned. Better than buying a console that will be already out of date by 2015. lol.
Other than the games like Arkham City that just had DRM for Windows Live tacked on, I can't think of any I cared enough to play.
Microsoft makes far more money from Xbox gamers than they do from PC gamers. The money Microsoft makes from Windows and Office all comes from the enterprise market. The $100 you paid for Windows 7 or 8 for your home desktop is nothing compared to the $300+ people will pay for the new Xbox One plus the $60/year for Xbox Live and the cuts they get from new (and now used) game sales.
PC gaming deserves some great titles out of this generation. I don't even care if they're not exclusives like the original Crysis was. Now that the top 2 consoles will be running x86 processors and Radeon graphics cores I want to see some of the games that would normally be tied to consoles to be truly cross-platform. There is no need anymore for crappy console ports. Games in this generation should be able to run on both consoles as well as PC's.
Um, no. The OS sales profits are coming from businesses, not from home desktops. If you actually worked in IT, you'd know where Microsoft is really making their money and it's not home users.
Oh yea they suck at mobile phone/tablet OS too...
Something horribly wrong in this statement.
They can`t lock it down and I doubt PC gamers would embrace a MS version of Steam. That it would be quick easy money is beside the point as there`s little work to be done to enable PC play.
0 sales = 0 dollars. I understand that there would be some kind of cost to enable a game but it`s got the same architecure, same OS kernel, in some cases a very similar if not identical CPU and GPU - but I`d think that a PC release would just be money in the bank for MS even if they used something like Steam for distro. That would never happen but 30% of something is better than 0% of nothing or worse a lot of potential. It`s like BlackBerry and BBM which is now about 2 years too late.
Wait, what?
Response: Actually, the vast majority of PC sales go to casual gamers, people not buying PC's to play games but to use them for pretty much anything else. Windows PC's make up about 90+% of the market, the lion share of that is business purchasing desktops, then its home PC's for normal web + document + email + content (entertainment) use and then its PC gamers.
In general, Microsoft doesn't have to do anything special for gamers. The hardware industry and gaming industry is already PC centric, that is why there are 6x more games released for the PC platform than Mac OSX. With Mac OSX being the biggest competitor for Windows in the market, and only holding 8% of the market share, it is a given that PC game developers will be releasing their product for the PC platform to reach the largest audience ... so Microsoft doesn't really need to worry about that group, its a given. What they need to do is make sure the casual computer user doesn't switch to Mac OSX due to the popularity of Apple products like the iPhone/iPad. Apple has seen their market share double in the last 5 years (4% to 8%). They don't want that to get any more traction.
Actually, the reason that developers flock to Apple (and Android) is because the tools allow anyone with a computer to build a game and publish in those markets. Very few game development companies that were around before smartphone markets actually port-publish games in the mobile space. The mobile space is more indie centric game development, or first time developers. The big budget developers, putting together AAA titles don't need to concern themselves with the mobile market because to step up from the mobile market to the AAA space is the difference of a game that costs $0 to $50,000 (mobile) jumping to $15-$20 million in development costs. The investment barrier is so huge that the AAA developers are not worrying about the mobile developers cutting into their space directly. Plus the mobile developers are building for the casual gamer market, not the hard core gamer market that would drop $400 on a game console.
Lastly, the PC gamer market has been going as strong as ever over the years, retail sales decreases have been due to transitions to direct online sales, MMO subscription and F2P models. The disc driven nature of console games is keeping them tied to the retail space, though I don't expect for very long (5 years max).