Microsoft vs Valve - On Treatment of Indie Devs

[Squilliam]

dahuman said:

Squilliam said:

Well for some reason he seems to think that at any point that Valve and Microsoft are compared in the same context and sometimes when they are not he has to make a post about it. Yet on the other hand he never seems to make such threads about Nintendo or Sony. Maybe the issue is that Valve and Microsoft are based in the same state given the fact that Valve employees are often ex Microsoft employees.

Anyway it is two different systems. On the one hand you have a tightly controled box and the user experience Microsoft is going for and a much more open PC platform where anything goes. Both have their pros and cons but you can't take it as a personal insult that the Xbox 360 by nature isn't as open. Some things need to be closed down to focus on user experience and some things need to be opened up for freedom of development. You could say the same about a Windows PC vs Apple iPad. Whether one is better than the other is up for debate, however having both systems enriches the end user by giving them a choice.

tbh I'd go for an iPad like Windows 7 platform just because I can fuck around with it, iPad is something I'd buy for my Mom lol. So what you are saying makes a lot of sense, people who want flexibility and power would go PC, and people who are scared of that flexibility that might potentially screw them over would go 360 even though PC is cheaper in the long run unless all you do is rent games.

Personally if I went that route I would have an iPad for a tight user experience on a form factor which would normally never yield such a good experience. Anyway if the iPad was available in a laptop or destop form factor I would give it to my mother in a heart beat in order to stop getting called at random hours with computer trouble. "This thing has popped up and I don't know what to do".

Anyway the reason why the PC is cheaper is because the licensing fee is a one off and the producer of Windows has no stake in the content displayed. On a console the model has been ever since the NES that the producer of the console has a stake in the content and subsidises the hardware in order to make it up with in software, a more inflexible business model. If that model were to change, and it might, then you would see a change in the PC vs console dynamic. Microsoft for one doesn't need it anymore so long as they have marketplace fees and Xbox Live subscriptions.

Overall though it does seem that the PC as a platform itself is a dying breed. It far exceeds the needs of end users and both Microsoft and Valve ought to be concerned by this. This is the reason why Windows for ARM is going to be coming in 2012 and likely the reason why Windows 8 will be a different beast entirely compared to Windows 7. Computers are really for most people overpriced internet and word processing appliances which are too hard to use. Personally I wouldn't mind a system which overlayed a simple iPad like user interface for the average user and locked everything down unless specificially opened up by someone who wanted to be a power yser.