@Rask: It's not a question of whether Vista is a good OS or not...
I don't think there are any tech bloggers that would still say that Vista is an inferior OS to XP (unless you're talking about putting it on very low spec devices)...

The question is whether or not it's $300 better than Windows XP for the hundreds of thousands of people who already use XP.

And the answer to that question is clearly "No" for the vast majority of users.

phor11

After the meetings, the fights, the disagreements, the lost sales, the forced relationship strain with our players, and not least of all the long, late extra nights and weekends spent at the office implementing all the retarded restrictions between "Gold" and "Silver" players in our GFW title, it's nice to know they've seen the light....

Rjak

If I have to buy a new video card, I'll be pissed.

ircmaster

[www.unscripted360.com]

i wrote an article asking about why should LIVE be free? just because GFW LIVE is (which should've always been)

DeaconBlade

@M-26-7: People are buying cars and houses and boats for hundreds of thousands of dollars and complain for $50 a year for Live? If anything, Live should also cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, no?

I even know what you're going to respond! You'll say I'm comparing things that really cost a lot of money to produce/maintain to something that costs nothing. Well, you did the same.

mizeriq

nice, so I don't have to worry about my brand new Crossfire 4870 being out of date when DX11 works on them fine?

Floreum

@Sammo21: companies wont save PC gaming before JOHN CARMACK saves PC gaming! look how he is already steering ray tracing technology and forming company policies on his opinion alone!

to everyone else: DX11 will be the last intermediate step before some severe and radical changes happen. it is understood in popular knowledge (meaning i am totally open to being wrong against someone who REALLY knows) that the current architectures are nearing their limits. 2 cores 4 cores 8 cores tandem GPU's will only get you so far by brute force and horsepower.

Crazy_Buffet_Happens

@Sullyville: If windows xp wasn't "powerful" enough to handle Halo 2, an Xbox game from 2004, I doubt we'll be seeing Halo 3 ported to anything less than Windows Neural Interface

bhlaab

@Leanid: People are willing to pay what $15 a month for WoW and people still complain about $50 a year for Live. You know what? I get what I pay for. I'm not a fanboy or a huge microsoft supporter, but I've had live since maybe 2005 and have had almost no problems. It's a lot more fluid than the pc server system in many cases and there's always less lag. If you're too cheap to spend $50 a year on an excellent gaming service than just shut up and stop caring what other people do with their money.
Also the whole console-tard arguement is dated and cheap, so if you really want to argue a point you should probably find something less cliche and more inventive

M-26-7

oooh..sexy...tesselation, thats a great idea. plus better multi-core support and FOLDING!!! whoopeee!..
but a live marketplace on the pc....kinda fail..but wtf, HD Content!!!

pissa

@EdwinJ85: As a pc gamer i voted with my pocket and refused to buy any games that required live to play online.As of last week i`m now a 360 owner too and feel the same way.I cant even be bothered to use the free month of gold i got with the console.Of course i tried it but failed to see how "great" it actually is.Maybe years of free,do anything and everything pc gaming has spoilt me?
If you dont like it then dont pay for it.Easy choice really.

UFO

@Rask:
When I say backing away from Vista, I mean backing away from Vista, not abandoning the Windows NT architecture.
To count them as the same thing, I'm already on Vista because I'm using Windows XP.

I'm all for most of the NT kernel remnants, its memory management methods, even the file system even though the one thing I wanted from Vista was WinFS. But, as with Windows ME being an abomination next to Win98SE, every so often a stinker is built on good technology.

(Actually, I bet if you extensively manually configure Vista with user-accessible options you can get a pretty nice setup. On the other hand, what you are left with is highly questionable whether it's superior to XP...)

fuchikoma

DX11 already...well at least it has some useful features this time around.

Funny how GFW:Live went free. I just bought Universe At War: Earth Assault on PC the other day (my first GFW title), and it was saying how you absolutely had to become a subscriber to play online. Now that it's free, I'm a happy panda. Anyone up for a game? I want to show those Xbox users how its done.

Tyber_Zann

@EdwinJ85: at the moment, there are only about half a dozen GfWL titles out in the streets. Paying the same price as a 360 owner for a gold account when a PC gamer might only have one or two titles that would benefit is ludicrous; but it makes much more sense for a 360 owner who will benefit in a wide variety of titles. If I owned a fair number of titles for which I wanted Live benefits I'd be happy to purchase a Gold account and play online; but as it stood, it seems very few PC gamers were willing to pay MMO rates in order to play GoW online.

I have no problems with GfWL, it's been a decent, if under-featured system. My only gripe being that you need an account in order to save your game. Their announcement to finally make some improvements to it can only be a good one (a client that doesn't require the game open, perhaps).

And what's with all the Steam requirements? Sure, it does the community thing, but there's absolutely no digital distribution going on with GfWL. It's just copy protection and matchmaking stuff.

Estel

@fuchikoma: Microsoft isn't backing away from Vista, in fact Windows 7 is built on top of Vista with the same core technologies.

Rask

@Sushmonster:
Even in the old days it used to bother me how it took so long for most to use 80% of the features of a new video card.

Personally, I'm hoping that whatever Midori turns out to be, it's better for gaming AND general use.

@homernoy:
Vista rejection is of course the minority. The strange thing is that it's been rejected so widely by such a large minority that MS and OEMs would be shooting themselves in the foot if they forced Vista on new systems as they intended.

Business fails it because XP works, and parts of Vista don't, but would require expensive upgrades regardless.
[www.msnbc.msn.com]

There has always been unusually high resistance to it
[www.theregister.co.uk]

...but even after the cutoff date, demand has forced MS/OEMs to keep offering XP.
[tech.slashdot.org]

An analyst makes some good arguments that MS will back away from Vista and move on.
[blogs.techrepublic.com.com]

fuchikoma

@hahnchen:
Right about what? I just thought that the phrase used was particularly erroneous in this context since windows is an established platform that, relative to the Xbox, costs little to support and which they have DONE little to support. Did I mistakenly imply something else?

liquidnumb

Ok, isnt this just robbing the 360 gamers to pay the PC gamers off, as they are too scared they will pirate?

Thats insane. Why should 360 gamers pay for something exactly the same that PC gamers get free? We are subsidising all their features. Grrrr.

I don't like this at all.

EdwinJ85

@Struct09: You have no idea how glad to see that I was not the only person thinking this.

Better multicore support should have everyone giddy as a school girl. If not, you're an idiot.

Smitty

Wow, "more". Just wow!

lumpi

@Rask: Same boat here. I'm using a mac right not but I still rate Vista as an OS. It's more productive than XP, office 2008 looks better, runs better on a multicore vista system. Anyone with recent pcs or components should be running vista fine. I still like XP but I'd never go back.

Roarrr_UK

@SamStride:

Nah, they just knew they could not charge for something gamers have been doing for decades on the PC.

Lets hope they follow suit on the 360, which they might, considering Sony gaining some ground.

EnigmaNemesis

@fuchikoma: "customers ask - no, DEMAND they get XP in place of Vista"

I have a feeling this is not as widespread as this sounds. Anyone that has a PC with new components would most likely prefer Vista. Gaming on Vista is now on par with XP, and takes advantage of DX10 as well. Multicore support is better on Vista too. If you go Tri-SLI (enthusiast), again, this is only an option with Vista, so it's not just MS forcing you to the newer OS.

I love XP as much as the next guy, but really, I would never go back. There are many little reasons for this as well as some major ones above. I think it's just popular to bash Vista, and see all the negatives, while ignoring any positives.

Still, I think MS should support the DX10/11 API in XP as well as Vista.

homernoy

Boo DirectX

Yay OpenGL

Boo GFWL

Yay Steam

Absent Blue

I don't mean to troll, but better late than never right?

EditorinChief

Wow. I guess it's time to buy a 9800 GTX then, huh?

Scaraba

I use Vista at home and at work and it's a fantastic OS. I'm faily confident that most of the people bitching about it here haven't tried and are letting the blogosphere create their opinion for them or haven't tried it in the last few months.

Hardware/Software vendors have done a great job in the last 18 months creating drivers and modifying their apps to work with Vista. (Which let's be honest, most of the problems stemmed with Vista from sources outside Microsoft's control in the first place).

Rask

The amount of ignorance towards Vista (and why DX10 was made for Vista) here is ridiculous. And I'm going to guess that most of it is coming from people who don't even use the OS.

Struct09

@fuchikoma: Right. No one is buying Vista for DX 10, no one will buy it for 11. Microsoft must do three things to get gamers to "upgrade" to Vista:

1) Construct DX 11 such that it is actually an improvement on DX 9 in a big way, with better graphics and high performance.

2) Convince developers to actually use DX 11 fully, because the games are the most important part.

3) Improve Vista so the transition is smooth and gamers will want to buy it (and by "buy it" I mean pirate it).

Sushmonster

omg microsoft is giving something away for free

SamStride

I'm really surprised that DX11 is still going to be Vista only, Microsoft just doesn't get it.

Daizaru1

Hey, another Vista-only DX, no surprise. They force it again even though they're starting to realize how many customers ask - no, DEMAND they get XP in place of Vista.

I'll shoot from the hip here and say yet again Microsoft does their part to harm gaming as a medium - which is odd because when they were PC only they were actually pretty decent. DX team were certainly gods after... 5 or so.

Ah well. Viva DX9! My PC may be able to look better than my PS3, but doesn't because I choose an OS that does things other than gaming.

fuchikoma

"Compatibility with DirectX 10 and 10.1 hardware, as well as support for new DirectX 11 hardware"

Since we can use our old hardware I fail to see the problem with this, other than the fact DirectX 10 was barley used to its full power.

diagonalBeat

Might be worth my while picking up gears of war for pc now.Would never have happened otherwise.
DX11, well it had better give a performance increase aswell as more eye candy.

UFO

@Strangelove:

good-bye

Wow.

Strangelove

What excites me most about DX11 is the GPU being used for different functions. Hello physics, good by PhysX.

Strangelove

I understand the bitching about it costing money to play online on the pc. As someone who actually plays console and pc games though, and already had a Live account, it's nice to have one roaming profile that follows you online from your xbox to your pc. The pc games that support achievements are a nice plus as well. Maybe I'm the one guy out there that this all works for, but hey, I'm happy with it.

I'm a steam customer as well, but I don't see being a case of one or the other- they can coexist. Just keep bringing on the games.

Killtacular

MS won't cut the price of XBL as long as there are idiots paying for the service. The problem is that they'll keep on paying for the service because there aren't any other alternatives other than changing consoles. These people have become fanboys of such dedication that they can rival Nintendo fanboys. There are also those gamers that only play shootan games and Madden; good luck convincing those people. For a lot of console gamers XBL is the only online multiplayer they know of. That's completely different from PC gaming where online multiplayer had always been free. They'll keep on paying for XBL because its a more streamlined and easier service to use in their eyes, and isn't that one of the reasons people buy consoles?

Leanid

Dx 11? Awesome! Am I buying Vista to use it? No.

Sushmonster

Good news i guess for PC'ers. Shame 360'ers have to pay but...Heck i get my subs for £23 off ebay. Really could care less if it stays sub or not.

Woylez

@Tepoz: lol... obviously by "told", I meant "thought indignatly about".

Besides, I didn't even know Kotaku existed at that point (how did I waste my workday back then?).

WiglyWorm

@3BD: please.

wizll

About freaking time

Briosafreak

Whoa whoa whoa... so now the service which is SOOO expensive and SOOOO difficult to maintain costs nothing for PC users?

MS better be following this up with at least a price cut for 360 users or they can count me out of continuing my subscription.

3BD

Heh, one way or another we all have to switch to vista/windows 7. Well, us gamers anyway. The macs and linux are fine. :D

But DX11 is awesome, not regreting i got vista

LoganForge

BLEH, I don't want to put out money for Vista :(.

@dworvos:

Interesting stuff, although I have no problem alt-tabing out of Crysis and right back into it in seconds on XP.

I see how this could streamline things greatly though. Siiiigh, darn economy and budget watching. Stares at Vista boxes.

Shandy706

This announcement is actually pretty awesome. One of the things (besides dropping support a few months after release and requiring Vista to play) that killed Halo 2 Vista last year was making non Xbox-Live members (read: PC gamers) pay for Live to use H2V's dedicated servers (a pseudo matchmaking setup). And then no multiplayer achievements either?! This is a step in the right direction, hope some more people start playing Halo 2 Vista.

AryzonaBay

@Rathus: Well, my feeling is that MS are here saying, look, we fucked up by charging in the first place. We've made mistakes. Better late than never we're going to do this right. My hope is that they also learned their lesson with Halo2 and Shadowrun, both Vista-only disasters. In fact, probably the best barometer of PC gaming these days is Steam reports - and by their last account, only 15 percent of PC gamers had vista. So the only people MS has to blame for lacklustre Halo2 sales are themselves. I bought the damn thing, but I had to download the XP crack. My point is that if MS can make a mistake and admit it, they can do the same with Vista-only games, and from now on release both XP and Vista-compatible games.

Sullyville

Microsoft won't ever port DX10+ to Windows XP for a few major reasons, mostly based on what DirectX 10 guarantees and what XP doesn't. I wouldn't rule out greed either, but as a developer, the changes brought by DX10 make it much easier to make games and take less time to ensure they work on all video cards and system configurations.

First of all, there are fundamental changes to how DirectX functions under DX9 and DX10.

In Windows XP, when you are using the desktop, Windows is rendering it using their GDI library which is piped directly to the kernel driver and displayed to you the user. Video games are run through the DXGI layer and then to the kernel driver. Under Windows Vista, GDI/GDI+ calls are routed to the DXGI layer and then to the kernel mode driver. This means that when Windows XP is drawing your desktop or other 2D apps, it draws to a piece of memory (using the CPU) and then asks the video card to show it on the monitor. While in Windows Vista, your desktop or 2D app is just a surface that is being rendered to by your video card (accelerated by the GPU). This allows swapping between apps and games to be seamless and allows for that screenshot effect in Vista to be very efficient (as it's just a texture).

When you tab out of a game under Windows XP and DX9, you lose the video game context (the game must handle a lost device and then a reset device event) as you have to go back to drawing the desktop and 2D apps using the CPU. However, DX10 guarantees that this will never occur (The Xbox 360, which runs on a superset of DX9 guarantees this too for obvious reasons) because of the fact that other apps are just another texture and the video card just renders those instead of going through an entire rendering context switch.

This is just a small set of changes from DX9 to DX10. Other changes include a guaranteed feature set (instead of caps like DX9, i.e. as a developer you would have to make sure the video card can perform the operations you want it to, which is why so many games had compatibility issues with certain video cards), and video memory is managed by the OS so you don't have to reload resources if your game is minimized.

If you want to full list you can read up on the WDDM:
[download.microsoft.com]

Or major changes from DX9 to DX10:
[msdn.microsoft.com]).aspx

Sorry for the long post.

dworvos

2 things, if dx11 is as big an improvement as dx10 was from dx9, ima pass. dx10 fails to improve by much (was even stated by the ddr3 architect who i forgot his name). of course, it could also be testament to the fact that dx9 was really good (with correct code modding, u can run crysis on very high in dx9) dx11 better be huge.

2nd i guess microsoft learned that charging for a free service ur competitors offer for free (online multiplayer on pc for non mmo's) usually doesnt work. common sense ftw?

maraxusofk

Cool, they did that, after GFWLive killed off promising games like Universe at War.

Providence

"...as well as future versions of Windows" Damn, that's nifty.

man in gauze is king ramses II, silly.

Um. Wow.

New law of the universe: Right as I buy a new video card, Microsoft unveils a new DirectX.

wormguy

@WiglyWorm: You did?
[kotaku.com]

Gold Membership Features
All Silver membership features
Multiplayer matchmaking with friends
TrueSkill matchmaking
Multiplayer achievements
Cross-platform gameplay

Tepoz

@phantam: And they're receiving the exact same premium service as Live. If they're going to make theirs free. Make ours free. Or just leave it as it was.

JonnyH

Soooo... microsoft just announced that PC gamers won't pay for all the crap they've been getting for free for decades? Gosh, I swear I told them that when they first announced GFW Live.

WiglyWorm

GFW had to become free because of what I touched on ealier. PC gamers and Console gamers are just two different sets of gamers. There was no way PC gamers were going to pay for the "privilege" of playing with Console gamers. PC gamers in general have a hard time acknowledging consoles. Not to mention that skill based matchmaking has never been a bullet point PC gaming, almost all PC gamers use TeamSpeak or Ventrilo to setup games, and online achievements (not unlockables) are a recent phenomenon in PC gaming (TF2).

The paid features in GFW were just unappealing. Making them free might not even help.

Tepoz

GFWL should've been free all along - now they just need a 'shell' to launch that imitates the new 'blade guide'' on the 360 to manage your game profile.

edhe (xbl)

@Tom Clancy's Samuraidino: And reward them for signing up for such a terrible service?
I say they got exactly what they paid for: a life lesson.

phor11

Great news! PC gaming ftw. GFW and Steam are my 2 favorite platforms. I'm glad they announced DX11 when they did, I almost bought a even better DX10 card than the one I already have.

Solid_hedgehog

Oh yea, because that Vista exclusive feature really helped the market adopt D10.

Rebochan

@liquidnumb:You have to draw the line somewhere, you've decided to include the original Xbox, others haven't. It doesn't somehow mean that you're right, because by similar reasoning, you could just say, well if you include all their games publishing since DOS...

hahnchen

Too little too late MS? Valve's Steam has already dominated the PC market.

optimusprime

really late with the GFW, shoulda been free from the beginning. now maybe with a few more tweaks they can at least move into the same league as steam.

as for dx11.....its a bit ridiculous. the number of dx10 capable games aren't even in double digits, and now they're going for a dx11? well, getting a little ridiculous, but maybe if they make it better than dx9, it won't be so bad.

now that GFW is free, i might get gears for the pc.

k.ong

Did some quick thinking.

Come the next iteration of Windows (due 2009/2010), a Steam-like Games For Windows client will be preloaded on the operating system. You will have to access it in order to play Solitaire, Minesweeper, et al.

Imagine how widely used it would be. Imagine how much money they'd make through distributing casual games on the platform. Come lunch time, millions of workers while away on Solitaire whilst eating their sandwiches, advertise digitally distributed casual titles there and you're sorted.

This is Microsoft, this is what they'll do.

hahnchen

Ms won't save PC gaming. Valve, Blizzard, EA (yeah, I know), and a few other companies are going to save PC gaming. Some of the things EA is doing with anti-piracy measures is kind of interesting.

Sammo21

Anything about the ray tracing rumor? I know Intel would like that

Shin-san

PC gaming > console gaming

Simple arithmetic.

Diesel_Power

As a PC gamer who also happens to be a console gamer, the whole "But why, it's free on the PC" arguement will get you as far as the "But why, console gaming is better than PC gaming" one. Both are narrow minded and have no clue of the gaming culture on each platform. Yes, each have their own gaming cultures with preferred tasts in clothing, fashion, music and gear. The input methods used for gaming alone seperate these cultures. Unless you really run in both circles and pay attention to the types that run in each circle then you may just be inadvertently trolling.

If you don't care to know, then I can just breakdown the actual visible and invisible costs of PC gaming on one hand, and break down the cost of entry to console gaming on the other. Neither group would be happy as everyone pretends their way of gaming is better, faster and cheaper than the other.

Tepoz

This seems like an attempt to sweep every muck-up they've made in the past 18 months, regarding PC gaming, under the rug.

And it's a good hing, cause they messed up bad.

SLiFE

@luigilogik:

In the black? Are you serious? They still haven't made up the $4,000,000,000 (yes, billion) they dumped into the first Xbox. There is nothing black about it.

liquidnumb

It's too bad so many people actually use X-box live, so much so that it is keeping MS gaming in in the black.. we probably have to wait till PSN catches up which I'm guessing will likely be by November(functionality, not users) before we even see a discount.. I'd be happy to continue paying $50 a year if they offered dedicated server farms for the top 20 MP games and some other perks (like an old arcade game for free each month)

luigilogik

@Sammo21: He said they don't want to release them at the same time, not that rhey'd never release on PC

[kotaku.com]

Meldy

I...think...Vista... is maybe not that good. I would like support for XP.

thumbwarrior

@zebber:

Yeah I was wondering the same thing... I doubt new hardware because Nvidia is going to be launching there make a old graphics card into a physX cruncher.

rickyyo

Great, so PC gaming is "Free" again? I must have missed the memo...

-EDGE-

Vista only again huh? Don't need to even guess how bad his is gonna dive, AGAIN.

CukyDoh

@RPGr:
That logic unfortunately doesn't work here. People won't stop paying for XBL because most console gamers think its worth the price, and they even scoff at the lack of dedicated servers and other things (when they've probably never played on one). The reason GFWL went belly up was because PC gamers are smart enough to know that we don't pay for something that we've gotten for free for around 15 years....

Sammo21

I hope that this isn't a strictly hardware solution and that software will emulate these features. I think past DirectX incarnations had some software solution if you had incompatible hardware.

rickyyo

@RandomPoltergeist: I don't think any card out right now is technically DX11 compatible. However, it could be that some of the later generation cards will support it. Not sure if they actually require new hardware for DX11, or if their just requiring certain subsets of existing VGA hardware.

Beats the hell out of me.

zebber

Games For Windows Live Multiplayer finally free. More competition for Steam and the other guys in the digital distribution space is definitely good news. Hopefully, more GFW games will take up the matchmaking and achievements features.

It does however, kind of suck for the 360 guys, who are stuck paying for services PC gamers demand for free.

hahnchen

I was seriously expecting a price cut announcement in apple style for xbox live at this E3
like 39,99/year
Microsoft take note: if you wanna reach more people like grandmas & kids don,t make them scratch their head asking them to pay 4 play after that they bought a game...

dmfamzo

I'm still using 9. On my Vista laptop, I didn't even see a noteworthy difference between 9 and 10 for the FPS hurt I get when using 10.

Arelan

DirectX 11? I am still on 9!

Quicksilver4648

That's great news for PC owners. :)

Spoony Bard

@CockroachMan:
It's okay, you don't have to play with those stoooopid console owners. You don't need silly friends.

It's okay, it's okay. Coo, coo, coo.

Tepoz

@JN64Lover: Maybe they should make Xbox Live free too...I mean just look at how many Live benefits gamers can now get for free on the PC.

The thing is, PC has alternatives. a whole bunch of them. LIVE is a closed system. No way around it. Also it means that only Microsoft pays for the expenses of bandwidth/keeping it updated/etc.

I think it would be awesome if XBL was free but then again you get what you pay for and if that means the quality of the service (which is excellent) could change because they wouldn't have paying customers to answer to, I really don't mind to keep on paying.

interstate78

@phantomlink:

the multithreading and probably GPU computing require major additions/changes to the architecture of directx that warrants the new version number, whether or not DX10 is 'finished' is unrelated.

Support for DX10 has also lagged because the good stuff that you can't do in DX9 (/cough geometry shader) could be fairly radical, and no one really wants to write a game exclusively for DX10 with vista adoption being what it is.

The multithreading changes and possibly GPU computing could fairly radically impact game performance if devs choose to take advantage of them, and that would be a good way to kill off XP as a gaming OS.

sirsri

I hope DX11 is actually an improvement over DX9. DX10 is like "Hey have some slightly improved textures, oh and 30 less FPS!"

BillyTheRatKing

@Sullyville: Considering Halo 2 was Vista only (minus 3rd party hacks), I can't see Halo 3 being XP compatible either.

Rathus

Lesson to learn here? If people stop paying for Xbox live MS will open it up for free!

RPGr

I didn't expect Live to go free on the PC, especially with the high percentage of piracy. I thought they'd "need" extra money.

I just hope DirectX 11 to work on my HD 3850. I didn't dish out the bucks to get some low-end crapware that won't make it till next year (even though my goal wasn't to play games on max graphics, my goal was to be able to play newer games on medium-range graphics.)

RandomPoltergeist

I hope everyone doesn't expect games like Halo 3 or any other MS games to come out on PC now. I can't remember which guy, but he was quoted saying they won't do that because no one would buy 360 games. MS can't be a good PC supporter when they don't want to take away from the 360. Anything GFWL is doing right now, STEAM was doing years ago and it's near perfected now.

Sammo21

Well, I still continue to be baffled at how MS thought the public would pay for this to begin with.

Jest

@liquidnumb: Oh, I'm not complaining.. I really glad that I just got a new gaming PC.

The only thing I'm sad is that it'll be Vista only, those DX11 features are worth the upgrade..

CockroachMan

Oh yeah... DirectX not DirextX. :(

FP ph15h

@-itis:
I guess without a time frame it is a little early to make that call, but it does seem like it was just last year the DX10 cards were becoming relatively affordable. Although I'm not a huge PC gamer, I try to stay informed.

Lazlo

@PaulMorel: Kotaku? at least for the first 2 :D

Crawl to China

@Tom Clancy's Samuraidino: No, it was not free at that time. Why should they?

R3load

Spell check Crecente, spell check!

VicViper

OMG Universe at War is now the best RTS game if this is true.

But i must agree with what's been said this should have been in it from the start.

Ryuujin1024

Why bother with DX11 when DX10 hasn't even reached it's full potential yet? Wish MS would at least have modified XP to run 10 or 11 by now. I'm not betting on it by a long shot, but it'd be nice. Vista isn't fooling anybody.

Good news about the GFWL though. Now I actually have a reason to get it. Refused to pay for the service when I can just boot up TF2 and play it online for free. I'm hoping for Left 4 Dead x-platform, though I doubt that'll happen with Steam and all.

deadjesterx

@PaulMorel: yes and i hate steam

phantam

@JonnyH: your on a console, when the hell has PC gaming and Console gaming been part of the same world? last i checked Console gamers didnt have to buy Windows/Video cards/ram/cpu etc to get going you buy a 300$ console and a 4$ monthly subscription and your done, stop bitching, my pc alone cost me 1900$ and is already due for an upgrade

phantam

phantam: "thats something i can get on board with, i hate hunting on the intenet for gaming news/movies/demos etc... god bless a central interface"

Ever heard of STEAM? HULU? Gametap?

Apparently not.

PaulMorel

This is wonderful news.

Now, as long as they don't
make Halo3 PC a Vista exclusive...

Sullyville

@enewtabie: if it wasnt for the fact that everytime i buy a pc i have to get new parts in 3 months, DAMN YOU CRYSIS!

phantam

So all of us 12 million live users get screwed?

JonnyH

@Lazlo:

Well if you take into account that they will supposedly have a new version of windows out in 2010-11 i'd say this is right on the normal schedule. Remember this is just an announcement that it exists so they've got lots of time to find ways of screwing it up.

-itis

@CockroachMan:
That's true. I've always found it funny that games for the 360 that are promoted as "Xbox 360 Exclusive" sometimes (Gears of War) come out for PC as well, with improved features and gameplay.

Lazlo

"Games for Windows - Live marketplace" thats something i can get on board with, i hate hunting on the intenet for gaming news/movies/demos etc... god bless a central interface, i hope the new Games for Windows Live is based on the new 360 dashboard.

phantam

lol, they are still trying for Games For Windows Live? Whatever. The only thing good that came out of Games For Windows was....never mind, I got nothing.

Sammo21

Hell,that almost makes getting rid of the 360 and going PC a better choice. Live on 360 should be free too then,right?

enewtabie

@N3k74r42: I'm still using 8!

chugger1992

I, for one, am not going to pat Microsoft on the back for making a common-sense decision that they should have made when they launched GFW Live.

The real question is, do players really care enough to switch from STEAM?

I probably won't even try GFW Live. All my friends are on STEAM. All my favorite games are on STEAM. It's a platform that I am completely comfortable with.

MS missed the boat on this one. It's a shame too, because if STEAM had some serious competition, we might see some better prices on downloadable titles.

PaulMorel

@CockroachMan:

Don't complain. Enjoy.

liquidnumb

@phantomlink: would be cool if you knew what you were talking about

warxsnake