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Forums - Microsoft Discussion - Microsoft admits 'we've lost our way' on PC games

method114 on 06 March 2015
WiiStation360 said:
Burek said:
Well, each day we see another step in the PC direction for Microsoft. It makes sense, PC gaming market is huge, and using XBox Live brand can do wonders. But I cannot shake thar feeling that MS makes all the moves toward leaving the console market, and my guess is that it is not that far off in the future.


I think we will see a gradual merging of the two platforms. (XB1/Windows 10 PC)  XB1 will becore more PC-like, and Windows 10 will become more console-like.

Give windows 10 a "big picture mode" style interface that looks like XB1.  Merge the XBox store and the PC game store into one.  

XB1 will still be the cheapest/easiest way to play the games on your TV with no configuration.  If you want to build a $2000 PC to play the same game, go ahead.

Steam machines might be taking that crown soon spend a little more get a lot of power. Personally I would rather just build my own PC but I work  in IT so it's easy for me to do that. I do think MS is positioning themselves to move away from the console market but I could be wrong will see.



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method114 on 06 March 2015
Scoobes said:
Ruler said:
Scoobes said:
Ruler said:
Kerotan said:

Microsoft picked the wrong battle to begin with. Lack of forthsight led them into a battle with Sony. They've been beaten there and now they realise they wasted so many years and so much money fighting the wrong guy. I bet Valve can't believe their luck.


Valve is actually now making the same mistakes like MS and focuses too much on steam-machine instead securing their turf. If MS really goes into PC again valve is going to lose a lot of marketshare, they have alot more money than valve

Except Steam machines also use Steam and the games on Steam are all available for Steam-machine. It's literally the same platform.

Xbox and PC have been completely seperate platforms since the first Xbox console.

Plus, MS' extra money hasn't really helped them compete in the PC space and even on consoles, they've yet to "win" a gen even though they have far more money than either Sony and Nintendo.


Its not the same platform one uses linux the other uses windows. Most games are not avaible on steamOS yet. Xbox and pc are seperated but most share now the same games as both are popular in gaming, steamOS isnt and probably never will be. Its easy for MS to implemend crossbuy for both pc and xbox, and they are the one who own DX and windows. There are a lot of things who speak for MS over steam.

Lol, you talk about cross-buy as if Steam doesn't even do that already. The whole point of SteamOS is that games you buy on PC or Mac versions of Steam are already available (assuming hardware support). Even the Playstation version of Portal 2 was effectively cross-buy. Nearly 1000 titles are currently available for SteamOS before its even reached a full commercial release and includes some big PC franchises like Civ Beyond Earth, Total War, Metro, Football Manager and all Valve games. 

You say SteamOS will likely never be popular but people were saying that about Steam as well. I see it experiencing slow and gradual growth, which is actually all it needs. You keep your library regardless of hardware. It's the same idea as Android Play Store/iOS app store and in the long-term it works.

I honestly don't see SteamOS becoming popular either. People want windows, people who are into PC gaming like to do other thigns with their PC other then gaming and most of the time they want to do that in windows where it's easier. For instance using emulators. Your right people might have said the same about Steam but now were talking about switching people out of windows and no one has had success doing that except for maybe Mac which I wouldn't call success but they've come the closest.

Plus honestly I just see no benefit from it. Why would I leave my windows enviorment when I can do everything SteamOS does plus more. I enable big picture mode on my gaming PC and it's great and I leave it like that until I need to do something in windows and I exit.



Kerotan on 06 March 2015
KingdomHeartsFan said:
Ruler said:


Valve is actually now making the same mistakes like MS and focuses too much on steam-machine instead securing their turf. If MS really goes into PC again valve is going to lose a lot of marketshare, they have alot more money than valve

Just curious what should Steam be doing that they are not already doing to secure their turf?  

Also I think a lot of people are looking this over, PC gamers can use Steam's service for third party games and Microsoft's for first party games, PC gamers are in no way required to pick only one service.  The only way Steam is gonna lose any marketshare is if MS's service offers games cheaper than Steam.


Steam takes a 30% cut.  Microsoft should only take a 10% cut.  STEAM either cut their profits greatly or lose marketshare.  That should be Microsofts first move.  



archer9234 on 06 March 2015
Kerotan said:
AlfredoTurkey said:


Steam is entrenched with PC gaming to the point of no return. The only thing that can take them down is themselves. 

What if EA,  UBISOFT,  ACTIVISION, SONY, MICROSOFT,  TAKE 2 NINTENDO etc all team up and launch their own steam where they share the 30% cut they previously had to give 
. You're right that STEAM looks untouchable but sony did sony in the TV market once and Nokia with phones. 

That's like if DC, Marvel, Dark Horse etc. made a joint comic venture series. This is virtually impossible because of the revenue cut between them gets arguments. Sony wouldn't care, they're leader. Nintendo wouldn't; they don't even port their stuff to anything else 99% of the time. You can get rid of a phone/TV. People aren't gonna give up a 1000 game collection.

Kerotan said:
KingdomHeartsFan said:

Just curious what should Steam be doing that they are not already doing to secure their turf?  

Also I think a lot of people are looking this over, PC gamers can use Steam's service for third party games and Microsoft's for first party games, PC gamers are in no way required to pick only one service.  The only way Steam is gonna lose any marketshare is if MS's service offers games cheaper than Steam.


Steam takes a 30% cut.  Microsoft should only take a 10% cut.  STEAM either cut their profits greatly or lose marketshare.  That should be Microsofts first move.  

That could work. But could backfire, if people still say I don't care. Think of the spite towards Origin.



Kerotan on 06 March 2015
archer9234 said:
Kerotan said:
AlfredoTurkey said:


Steam is entrenched with PC gaming to the point of no return. The only thing that can take them down is themselves. 

What if EA,  UBISOFT,  ACTIVISION, SONY, MICROSOFT,  TAKE 2 NINTENDO etc all team up and launch their own steam where they share the 30% cut they previously had to give 
. You're right that STEAM looks untouchable but sony did sony in the TV market once and Nokia with phones. 

That's like if DC, Marvel, Dark Horse etc. made a joint comic venture series. This is virtually impossible because of the revenue cut between them gets arguments. Sony wouldn't care, they're leader. Nintendo wouldn't; they don't even port their stuff to anything else 99% of the time. You can get rid of a phone/TV. People aren't gonna give up a 1000 game collection.


That 1000 game collection will be pretty irrelevant if almost every new AAA release was on another platform. If it meant the publishers could get some of the 30% cut to STEAM they might do it.  



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Aura7541 on 06 March 2015
Scoobes said:

Lol, you talk about cross-buy as if Steam doesn't even do that already. The whole point of SteamOS is that games you buy on PC or Mac versions of Steam are already available (assuming hardware support). Even the Playstation version of Portal 2 was effectively cross-buy. Nearly 1000 titles are currently available for SteamOS before its even reached a full commercial release and includes some big PC franchises like Civ Beyond Earth, Total War, Metro, Football Manager and all Valve games. 

You say SteamOS will likely never be popular but people were saying that about Steam as well. I see it experiencing slow and gradual growth, which is actually all it needs. You keep your library regardless of hardware. It's the same idea as Android Play Store/iOS app store and in the long-term it works.

Not sure how SteamOS will fare, but it will benefit greatly from the announcement of Vulkan. OpenGL is a very versatile API and is used for more than just gaming. However, because of this versatility, OpenGL has a lot of baggage that games don't use. Difference between Vulkan and DirectX 12 is that Vulkan is platform agnostic, so Macs and Linux OS's can also use this API.

Personally, I'm very interested in how SteamOS will fare and how it will affect Linux gaming, in general. It is barebones compared to other distros like Arch, Mint, Ubuntu, and OpenSUSE, so I hope Valve will refine their OS a bit more.



KingdomHeartsFan on 06 March 2015
Ruler said:
KingdomHeartsFan said:

Just curious what should Steam be doing that they are not already doing to secure their turf?  

Also I think a lot of people are looking this over, PC gamers can use Steam's service for third party games and Microsoft's for first party games, PC gamers are in no way required to pick only one service.  The only way Steam is gonna lose any marketshare is if MS's service offers games cheaper than Steam.

They dont have exclusives because valve doesnt make any games anymore and they lack the features like shareplay.

Exclusives dont matter for Steam, read the second paragraph in my post.



Ruler on 06 March 2015
Scoobes said:
Ruler said:
Scoobes said:
Ruler said:
Kerotan said:

Microsoft picked the wrong battle to begin with. Lack of forthsight led them into a battle with Sony. They've been beaten there and now they realise they wasted so many years and so much money fighting the wrong guy. I bet Valve can't believe their luck.


Valve is actually now making the same mistakes like MS and focuses too much on steam-machine instead securing their turf. If MS really goes into PC again valve is going to lose a lot of marketshare, they have alot more money than valve

Except Steam machines also use Steam and the games on Steam are all available for Steam-machine. It's literally the same platform.

Xbox and PC have been completely seperate platforms since the first Xbox console.

Plus, MS' extra money hasn't really helped them compete in the PC space and even on consoles, they've yet to "win" a gen even though they have far more money than either Sony and Nintendo.


Its not the same platform one uses linux the other uses windows. Most games are not avaible on steamOS yet. Xbox and pc are seperated but most share now the same games as both are popular in gaming, steamOS isnt and probably never will be. Its easy for MS to implemend crossbuy for both pc and xbox, and they are the one who own DX and windows. There are a lot of things who speak for MS over steam.

Lol, you talk about cross-buy as if Steam doesn't even do that already. The whole point of SteamOS is that games you buy on PC or Mac versions of Steam are already available (assuming hardware support). Even the Playstation version of Portal 2 was effectively cross-buy. Nearly 1000 titles are currently available for SteamOS before its even reached a full commercial release and includes some big PC franchises like Civ Beyond Earth, Total War, Metro, Football Manager and all Valve games. 

You say SteamOS will likely never be popular but people were saying that about Steam as well. I see it experiencing slow and gradual growth, which is actually all it needs. You keep your library regardless of hardware. It's the same idea as Android Play Store/iOS app store and in the long-term it works.

It wont work without any exclsuives or reasons why a PC gamer should use it over windows, the reason why steam grew is because PC gamers didnt lose all their library by using it. They could still play and buy regular PC games on their OS along what steam offered.

Also most of these steamOS games are also indie titles and not AAA games.



Why i left PC gaming

 

(2015) Question for PS4 owners: if the situation would be reverse? would you still play on PS4?

(2015) The "I don't care PS4 is the most powerful console" thread