It will be interesting to see how MS react to all these announcements. They have had a troubled relationship with PC gaming since they announced the Xbox, that is for sure. Many of their attempts to push it into the direction they want, with Xbox live, using DirectX updates and game exclusives to push new OSes etc have mostly been poorly received to say the least. And their half hearted attempts to capitalize on the market such as their recent ill fated F2P push have fallen flat.
But I think they have always taken that they had PC gaming on lock with Windows, with DirectX on windows being the defacto choice for developers on PC. But Valve's push for Linux (OpenGL) and the SteamOS, AMD's new (platform agnostic) low level graphics API could threaten their iron grip on the market. Now in the overall PC market gaming is just a relatively small niche but it is also one of the few market segments that is growing. And with PC's and in turn Windows being leeched by the new and booming mobile market that MS are struggling to gain a foothold in. I am not sure that MS can afford to let any market slip through their fingers in the current market.
Moves like locking the latest small DirectX revision behind a Windows 8.1 seem a tad short sited in the big picture. With the cross platform Mantle and OpenGL both being pushed by major players in the industry locking small improvements may not be the best way of keeping developer support for their platform going forward. Valve and AMD are both promising enhanced performance over DirectX and easy porting from DirectX. It may be time for a major overhaul of the whole system to keep DirectX relevant.
Not that the PC gaming market is going to abandon Windows overnight, the number of people still using XP shows how resistant most are to new platforms. But it sure should be something that MS should be considering in their plans for the future of the platform.
@TheVoxelman on twitter
