Vapourware Microsoft want to get into PC gaming again

[Zarniwoop]

Damn it feels good to use Linux now.

sumo ns -omfghjklmdje -callbullshitonthatstatement /i /u /m /k /12352123521:`{{

 

[Zarniwoop]

Oh fuck, I forgot that last ^>. Time to restart the whole fucking thing. Linux sure is fun for everyone!

 

[Excidium II]

niceme.me

 

[Mr. Pink]

Zarniwoop

i don't find sudo apt-get terribly hard to use. usually the program page tells you exactly what to write.
If you're a pussy you can always just use the package manager. It's pretty much a one click install with no wizard bullshit.

here's a windows exclusive meme for you:

 

[Mr. Pink]

i misread that entire post, disregard the post above

 

[sullynathan]

Looks like everyone isn't thrilled about this Microsoft news.
http://www.theguardian.com/technolo...-pc-games-development-epic-games-gears-of-war

Microsoft wants to monopolise games development on PC. We must fight it


Microsoft is looking to dominate the games industry ecosystem with its aggressive new UWP initiative. Developers must oppose this, or else cede control of their titles

• Gears of War developer tells games industry: we must fight Microsoft

The Gears of War series has been a key exclusive for Microsoft and its Xbox consoles, but developer Epic Games is now unhappy with the publisher’s business plans. Photograph: Microsoft/Epic Games
Tim Sweeney

Friday 4 March 201605.00 ESTLast modified on Friday 4 March 201608.00 EST

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With its new Universal Windows Platform (UWP) initiative, Microsoft has built a closed platform-within-a-platform into Windows 10, as the first apparent step towards locking down the consumer PC ecosystem and monopolising app distribution and commerce.

In my view, this is the most aggressive move Microsoft has ever made. While the company has been convicted of violating antitrust law in the past, its wrongful actions were limited to fights with specific competitors and contracts with certain PC manufacturers.

This isn’t like that. Here, Microsoft is moving against the entire PC industry – including consumers (and gamers in particular), software developers such as Epic Games, publishers like EA and Activision, and distributors like Valve and Good Old Games.

Microsoft has launched new PC Windows features exclusively in UWP, and is effectively telling developers you can use these Windows features only if you submit to the control of our locked-down UWP ecosystem. They’re curtailing users’ freedom to install full-featured PC software, and subverting the rights of developers and publishers to maintain a direct relationship with their customers.

Windows Store and UWP
I’m not questioning the idea of a Windows Store. I believe Microsoft has every right to operate a PC app store, and to curate it how they choose. This contrasts with the position the government took in its anti-trust prosecution, that Microsoft’s free bundling of Internet Explorer with Windows was anti-competitive.

My view is that bundling is a valuable practice that benefits users, and my criticism is limited to Microsoft structuring its operating system to advantage its own store while unfairly disadvantaging competing app stores, as well as developers and publishers who distribute games directly to their customers.


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Gears of War: Ultimate Edition. Photograph: Microsoft
The specific problem here is that Microsoft’s shiny new “Universal Windows Platform” is locked down, and by default it’s impossible to download UWP apps from the websites of publishers and developers, to install them, update them, and conduct commerce in them outside of the Windows Store.

It’s true that if you dig far enough into Microsoft’s settings-burying UI, you can find a way to install these apps by enabling “side-loading”. But in turning this off by default, Microsoft is unfairly disadvantaging the competition. Bigger-picture, this is a feature Microsoft can revoke at any time using Windows 10’s forced-update process.

The Solution
If UWP is to gain the support of major PC game and application developers, it must be as open a platform as today’s predominant win32 API, which is used by all major PC games and applications. To the PC ecosystem, opening UWP means the following:

• That any PC Windows user can download and install a UWP application from the web, just as we can do now with win32 applications. No new hassle, no insidious warnings about venturing outside of Microsoft’s walled garden, and no change to Windows’ default settings required.
  
• That any company can operate a store for PC Windows games and apps in UWP format – as Valve, Good Old Games, Epic Games, EA, and Ubi Soft do today with the win32 format, and that Windows will not impede or obstruct these apps stores, relegating them to second-class citizenship.
  
• That users, developers, and publishers will always be free to engage in direct commerce with each other, without Microsoft forcing everyone into its formative in-app commerce monopoly and taking a 30% cut.

This true openness requires that Microsoft not follow Google’s clever but conniving lead with the Android platform, which is technically open, but practically closed. In particular, Android makes it possible to install third-party applications outside of the Google Play store, which is required for Google to comply with the Linux kernel’s GNU General Public License. However, Google makes it comically difficult for users to do so, by defaulting the option to off, burying it, and obfuscating it. This is not merely a technical issue: it has the market impact of Google Play Store dominating over competing stores, despite not being very good.

Games and EA are operating highly successful businesses selling their games and content directly to consumers.

Microsoft’s situation, however, is an embarrassment. Seven months after the launch of Windows Store alongside Windows 10, the place remains devoid of the top third-party games and signature applications that define the PC experience. Where’s Photoshop? Grand Theft Auto V? Fifa 2016? There are some PC ports of what were great mobile games, and some weirder things, such as the Windows 10 port of the Android port of the PC version of Grand Theft Auto from 2004.

But the good PC stuff isn’t there, with the exception of Microsoft’s own software products. Does Microsoft really think that independent PC developers and publishers, who cherish their freedom and their direct customer relationships, are going to sign up for this current UWP fiasco?


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Minecraft is developed by Swedish company Mojang. Will future games be developed now that Microsoft is closing its borders? Photograph: Alamy
In my view, if Microsoft does not commit to opening PC UWP up in the manner described here, then PC UWP can, should, must and will, die as a result of industry backlash. Gamers, developers, publishers simply cannot trust the PC UWP “platform” so long as Microsoft gives evasive, ambiguous and sneaky answers to questions about UWP’s future, as if it’s a PR issue. This isn’t a PR issue, it’s an existential issue for Microsoft, a first-class determinant of Microsoft’s future role in the world.

Why We Fight
As the founder of a major Windows game developer and technology supplier, this is an op-ed I hoped I would never feel compelled to write. But Epic has prided itself on providing software directly to customers ever since I started mailing floppy disks in 1991. We wouldn’t let Microsoft close down the PC platform overnight without a fight, and therefore we won’t sit silently by while Microsoft embarks on a series of sneaky manoeuvres aimed at achieving this over a period of several years.

This day has been approaching for over 18 months, and I need to give credit to Microsoft folks, especially Phil Spencer, for always being willing to listen to Epic’s concerns with UWP’s paradigm, and to proposed solutions. Because they listened very patiently, I hoped and believed that Microsoft would do the right thing, but here we are. Microsoft’s consumer launch and PR around UWP are in full swing, and this side of the story must be told.

Microsoft’s intentions must be judged by Microsoft’s actions, not Microsoft’s words. Their actions speak plainly enough: they are working to turn today’s open PC ecosystem into a closed, Microsoft-controlled distribution and commerce monopoly, over time, in a series of steps of which we’re seeing the very first. Unless Microsoft changes course, all of the independent companies comprising the PC ecosystem have a decision to make: to oppose this, or cede control of their existing customer relationships and commerce to Microsoft’s exclusive control.

Tim Sweeney is the co-founder of US-based developer, Epic Games, creator of the Gears of War series of Xbox and PC titles, which has sold over 20m units worldwide.

 

[yellowcake]

Windows tried to force a windows 10 update . It scheduled it in a couple of days. I could cancel it but what the hell. That has never happened before. Anyone else had that happen to them?

google aegis voat. it is a set of scripts that clean windows X upgrade nagging and remove/hide telemetry updates.

 

[Excidium II]

Just go back to 7 nigga. Now that we know DX12 is doa there's no reason to "upgrade".

 

[Zarniwoop]

Most games are still running on DX9.

I just don't like shitty SSD support and massive memory usage for no reason, or I'd go back to 7.

 

[Excidium II]

What shitty SSD support? And memory is cheap.

 

[Infinitron]

sullynathan Last page, moran

What shitty SSD support? And memory is cheap.

Don't know about SSD support, but Windows 7 allegedly doesn't fully support the GPT/UEFI hard drive partition scheme.

That's actually more of a prroblem with non-SSDs, since only they can get big enough to need GPT

 

[Zarniwoop]

Shitty SSD support like Windows 7 has. Have to hack shit to get TRIM working properly, boot times are slow etc. 50 gazillion drivers are required to get shit working. Manual enable/disable of Hibernate...

It's like XP was in 2008 by this point, too fucking old even for the sperglord grognards to defend it.

The best Windows so far is 8.1. 7 can eat a donkey dick, the ugliness alone puts it where XP was 10 years ago. It was fantastic in its day, but then so was Teh Wheel.

 

[LESS T_T]

More Sweeney: http://venturebeat.com/2016/03/04/e...softs-commitment-to-an-open-windows-platform/

In addition, Phil Spencer, head of Microsoft’s Xbox division, tweeted, “Windows has always been an open ecosystem welcoming the contributions of hardware and software partners, and will always continue to be.” He also said that Microsoft would address the UWP issue at the upcoming Build conference.

Sweeney said he would love for Microsoft to prove wrong. But he wants to verify the Windows company’s official position in the details, and he thinks CEO Satya Nadella should speak on the matter and settle it.

“The ball is very much in Microsoft’s court,” he said. “It would be very easy for Microsoft to solve this problem if Satya Nadella got up and said we’re committed to making UWP an open platform that any company can distribute and any user can install from the web as easy as any existing application. Then the entire industry could say ‘great, problem solved.’ Microsoft has been very silent and that silence needs to be broken with very clear statements.”

Sweeney said that he isn’t yet satisfied that Microsoft is going to do the right thing. The situation needs “more scrutiny.” As an example, he said he found a lot of roadblocks when he tried creating an app as an experiment after Windows 10 came out. He tried to build a UWP app and install it from the Web. He had to create a Microsoft developer account. He had to get permission to develop for the platform and submit his app for approval by Microsoft (to be digitally signed with Microsoft’s digital rights management). He then had to change some operating system settings (which Microsoft says now don’t have to be changed). Then he could place the app on a web page in a .zip file. A user could download that and copy into Windows Explorer and then dig into it, find a script file, and run it with Windows Shell, which installs the application.

“It’s a very complicated process that requires permission,” Sweeney said. “I would seek Kevin’s clarification of that technical process and whether I am wrong. But it certainly isn’t at all in the spirit of a Win32 app, which anybody can do without Microsoft’s permission in downloading one. You could have a single button on the web page that downloads it. You click on it and it installs. You are two mouse clicks away from any executable program on Windows and on Mac with the existing status quo. That is very much not the case with UWP in my experience. I would welcome Kevin’s corrections if I am wrong.”

Sweeney’s fear has been around for some time. Before Microsoft was launching Windows 8, Valve Software chief Gabe Newell raised the same fear about whether Microsoft was going to close off the platform and go with a single store.

“I think that Windows 8 is kind of a catastrophe for everybody in the PC space,” Newell said. “I think that we’re going to lose some of the top-tier PC [original equipment manufacturers]. They’ll exit the market. I think margins are going to be destroyed for a bunch of people. If that’s true, it’s going to be a good idea to have alternatives to hedge against that eventuality.”

Valve went on to create the open, Linux-based Steam Machines platform. That was a lot of trouble, and so far, those machines have had a minimal impact on the PC market. But they represent an alternative. Sweeney said it’s hard to launch a new operating system in a market that has such momentum with other OSes. It’s hard to switch a library of apps from one to the other.

“The concern started with Windows 8, and Gabe was the first to speak up about it,” Sweeney said. “But the truth is that the Windows 8 store was such a lousy failure that it made no impact on the industry. There’s no fear that Microsoft will suddenly turn off the switch on all the other app stores. The risk is that they can advantage their store and disadvantage others so in the future they can get away with pulling that switch.”

Sweeney also said that the move is reminiscent of what Microsoft did to Netscape in the browser wars of the 1990s. The U.S. Justice Department launched an antitrust case against Microsoft, which lost the verdict and was forced to settle on the government’s terms. That agreement expired, and now Sweeney said he is concerned Microsoft is doing the same thing.

“I don’t think what Microsoft is doing is fair,” he said. “Whether it is legal under antitrust law is questionable. When Microsoft settled their antitrust suit, they entered into a 10-year agreement to do a certain set of things, such as the things they did to disadvantage Netscape. That period has lapsed and they are doing the same things again. You can see that very clearly in the Windows 10 interface decisions.”

Universal Windows Platform is still in its early days, but Sweeney said, “Users, developers, and everyone else question Microsoft’s intentions with this thing. It sure doesn’t look good.”

Sweeney has not been afraid to speak his mind in the past. He urged Microsoft to double the amount of main memory in the Xbox 360, and he also urged the company to make design changes for the original Xbox.

“It seems about once every decade, there’s some big controversy that Epic takes a public position on which is uncomfortable given our role in the industry,” he said. “There are forces in play now that everyone needs to know about and understand and think about so the industry can determine its future with full awareness, and not be surprised five years from now.”

By then, it would be difficult to install Win32 apps, and Microsoft’s Windows store may have 90 percent market share, he said.

Asked about the larger challenge for keeping platforms open that are owned by large companies — Apple, Google, and Amazon come to mind — Sweeney said that it’s more painful when an open platform closes itself off.

“Nobody complained about iOS being a closed ecosystem when the platform first launched,” he said. “Now with a billion users, Apple has the opportunity to reconsider whether it ought to be the sole gatekeeper of applications going onto and out of the platform. That’s a valid thing to reevaluate given the scale the platform has gained.”

 

[Excidium II]

Shitty SSD support like Windows 7 has. Have to hack shit to get TRIM working properly, boot times are slow etc. 50 gazillion drivers are required to get shit working. Manual enable/disable of Hibernate...

What? Works just as well as it ever did in 8.1/10, boots faster and gets ready to use even faster since there's an artificial delay on startup programs in windows 8+.

 

[Zarniwoop]

Shitty SSD support like Windows 7 has. Have to hack shit to get TRIM working properly, boot times are slow etc. 50 gazillion drivers are required to get shit working. Manual enable/disable of Hibernate...

What? Works just as well as it ever did in 8.1/10, boots faster and gets ready to use even faster since there's an artificial delay on startup programs in windows 8+.

Lolno. 8 or 8.1 is just Windows 7 with the slowdowns removed (and the start menu which is easily put back). I have Windows 7 on my work laptop and it's like going back to the stone age every morning.

 

[Mr. Pink]

I'm on a SSD with win7 and haven't noticed any problems yet. Is this a thing low spec plebs have to deal with?

 

[Lyric Suite]

I have an SSD and Windows 7, and never had any issue.

 

[Excidium II]

Shitty SSD support like Windows 7 has. Have to hack shit to get TRIM working properly, boot times are slow etc. 50 gazillion drivers are required to get shit working. Manual enable/disable of Hibernate...

What? Works just as well as it ever did in 8.1/10, boots faster and gets ready to use even faster since there's an artificial delay on startup programs in windows 8+.

Lolno. 8 or 8.1 is just Windows 7 with the slowdowns removed (and the start menu which is easily put back). I have Windows 7 on my work laptop and it's like going back to the stone age every morning.

Maybe your work machine is shit or has some problem? I've had All 3 windows versions for extended periods of time on this machine and notice no big difference in performance*, except for 7 booting faster, it's so fast the windows logo animation doesn't even complete.

I even had problems because of that in the past when I used sound blaster x-fi software because it loaded faster than the realtek thing and gave an error message everytime, that's probably why from 8 and up MS put the artificial delay between startup programs.

*Actually now that I remember, windows explorer opens faster on 7 compared to 8.1 and 10.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Lmao, I don't understand what is the issue with UWP.

The biggest problem for PC gaming right now is shitty ports.

Now that MS has a unified development environment through UWP, Xbox and Windows are becoming the same platform. You don't have to make "ports" anymore, because you're just making one version. Problem solved. The costs of development would go down drastically.

But no, RARARARARA BILL GATES IS TRYING TO STEAL OUR GAMES GUYS.

 

[Excidium II]

M for moran.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Sorry that I destroyed your conspiracy with my usual brand of flawless logic.

 

[Alienman]

Mmm, working really great so far. The system requirements for Gears of War are up the walls.

Recommended 8 gig Ram and GTX 970.

Then they have ideal:

16 gig ram, and a 980 Geforce. For Gears of Wars. An unreal game.

 

[Konjad]

Damn it feels good to use Linux now.

No updates, no problems.

So far I've been able to run all the games I want to run. DOSbox works just fine. Anything that I can't run goes on the pirated win7 partition.

Is it a painful change to make?

Just starting using it is extremely simple and much easier than Windows - just download Linux Mint MATE/KDE/Xfce (I'd avoid Cinnamon for now, since it's very new), install and use. You might need to install GPU drivers and Wine to use Windows applications. To compare, in Windows you probably have to install 10 drivers and 20 software that you need every day, because it doesn't support them by default.

Then it's very very easy to use it for every day stuff, browsing the internet, playing games, watching movies (and yes, you have codecs pre-installed too, unlike in Windows). Basically, it is much easier than Windows, but lots of things you do differently than in Windows, and your old habits will get in the way (such as looking for a download file for some program instead of checking out software centre or looking for a PPA link), which might cause some annoyances, and you will not know how to do a lot of stuff too because everything seems somewhat different. I'd recommend giving it a try. No need to get rid of Windows yet if it serves your purposes, just dual boot and play around with linux to see how it works. Then you will be able to make a clear decision by yourself, without anyone telling you what you should do. If you don't know what distribution to install, I recommend Linux Mint with MATE desktop environment. It's stable and easy to use, albeit not very customizable (still, way more customizable than Windows' one of course).

 

[Mr. Pink]

it runs from the boot flashdrive so you don't even have to install it to try it out.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Aaand of course Sweeney himself confirmed that he was full of shit.

https://twitter.com/TimSweeneyEpic/status/705802742883864576

But conspiratards gotta conspiratard, aimrite?

 

[Excidium II]

Yeah trust microsoft.