Vapourware Microsoft want to get into PC gaming again

[deuxhero]

Fromsoft could use this as an excuse to put Metal Wolf Chaos on Xbox Live and... uh... I've got nothing else.

 

[Infinitron]

http://www.pcgamer.com/phil-spencer...-to-go-do-on-improving-the-windows-store-uwp/

Phil Spencer interview: 'We have work to go do' on improving the Windows Store, UWP
The head of Xbox talks Age of Empires, Windows Store, and says "as a first party, we need to build some PC-first games."

Microsoft's E3 presentation this year was mostly dedicated to its new Xbox One X console, formerly known as Scorpio. As usual, though, we had plenty of questions for Xbox boss Phil Spencer about Windows gaming, including the return of Age of Empires, and the future of the Windows Store and UWP, two of the more controversial elements of Windows 10. Before we dug into those issues, Spencer told us he's interested in bringing original Xbox emulation to the PC.

Below we get into more about the Store, Age of Empires, and what UWP needs to do to earn wider support.

What does Xbox One X mean for the way Microsoft approaches development of Windows games from here on? Will it be easier for your internal studios to target higher-end features on Crossplay games?

Phil: We specifically picked the specification for Xbox One X thinking about where our 4K titles were running on PC—and I've said this before—some of the graphics cards that are out there, around 6 TFLOPs. We have some advantages with memory and other things on console. We have some disadvantages on CPU. So it's not going to be a completely apples to apples comparison. But definitely, not just for our first parties, talking to third parties as well, on teams that are seeing what true 4K can do on PC, and us wanting to deliver a console that without checker-boarding and other techniques could natively hit a 4K framebuffer.

We've been talking for three years now about this journey you guys have been on, the marriage of your Windows games business—

Yep. Still a journey.

That's my question, really. What roads still remain to be traveled? What are the kind of concrete features you think, 'these are the things we should deliver that would further this relationship?'

I think it feeds into what we've done with you guys today. I think as a first party, we need to build some PC-first games. We learn from building, and building content on top of the platform. Most of the things we've brought to the PC to date from a content perspective have been things that started on console, or frankly started on both, and then ended up on PC and console and PC at the same time. That's why I like the Age [of Empires] announcement today, because it's us going, okay, let's do a PC game. Get into it. There's just a bunch of stuff that's different between the two.

I still think crossplay is one of the things I have a lot of focus on right now. We announced with Minecraft that we're going to link all the platforms—well, not necessarily all of them. We're at Nintendo, PC, and the VR platforms to play together.

Do you think we'll ever live in a world where all of those platforms are playing together?

I think it would be nice.

A world where there's no money either, I guess.

Well, I dunno. Xbox Live on Android, iOS and Windows, we don't make any money from connecting people. You and I probably use a service like Discord. There's different business models where it's not just about charging people. The console space is a little more difficult because there's no money made on the hardware. So in that space the business model has to be a little different.

I'd say another thing we've been doing on the PC side is Mixer, our broadcasting. It was great to get PlayerUnknown on our stage, a huge game on PC. Some of the console people don't know about it. Felt a little bit like our Minecraft announce way back in the day, when we brought that to console. A lot of the console people were like "what is this?"

Chat during our show was saying he's very much PlayerKnown at this point.

Yeah, I know! He's got to change his handle.

But you know, those kinds of games, and the line between what is player and what is viewer, and who the developer is, it's kind of blurring. Having The Darwin Project on, and they showed how Mixer might interact directly with the gameplay itself. I think that's a great place for us. I think about service, and that capability.

We've got more work to do on [the Windows] Store, clearly. I hear the feedback on that. And like I said, as a first party, continuing to do the work that we've done, but also building some PC-first franchises. That's why I love seeing Age coming back.

That was a great moment in our show. It's such a heartland game for us.

We were going to put this on our stage here, at the Xbox briefing. Cause it's a big stage. But I want to support you guys. We are supporters of the show, but also, when we get the opportunity to come on the show, I wanted to have news.

You mentioned the Windows Store. I don't think we saw any changes in the big Creators Update in the summer. And in terms of finding and managing games, it definitely feels like there's ground to be made up still on Steam and GOG and stuff.

There totally is.

Is it still, for the moment, the place you still want to be the primary touchpoint for games like Forza Motorsport 7 going forward? What are the plans to improve it?

Twofold. I think what you're likely to see from us, the term I use is "One store, multiple storefronts." From payment instruments, where all my entitlements are, you want one store on the platform, our at least our store, that knows where you are and what you own.

But when I want to go buy Forza content, a lot of that's going to happen right in the Forza shell of the game itself. I do think with the Xbox app we could build a more curated pure gaming front-end for core gaming. Right now, our Store has this disadvantage of being everything. From buying a book, to buying a movie, to buying a song track, to buying an app, to buying a game. And relative to my experience on GOG or Steam or even Origin and Battlenet and stuff, those are more direct core gaming front-ends. We have work to go do there. We're thinking about how we can build that experience.

With UWP, it's continued to evolve, and you've fixed some of those early issues, like G-Sync support. Can you share any recent changes or changes that might be coming soon that are relevant to gamers?

Well, we've talked about Centennial and how we've made it easier for Win32 apps, maybe legacy Win32 apps, to get into the Store and get wrapped in something that kind of makes them emulate a UWP on the platform. That's something that's important, because as you and I both know there's such a base of Win32 code that's out there.

I get a lot of questions about why we wouldn't just natively support Win32. There are some issues with Win32 as a long-term app model. It's not really an app model. The idea of an app model wasn't really around when we went from—I was at Microsoft when we went from Win16 to Win32, I remember those translations—so I definitely think we have more work to go do. My view is we will gain UWP adoption when UWP is more functional than msi + Win32. And we're not there yet.

But that's the path that we're on. How do we go make uninstall, install, cleanliness of install, manageability both for the customer and the developer, and the portability when a developer wants to take advantage of that, something that exceeds the ecosystem of Win32 + msi as a way to get things installed. And that's when we'll see wide adoption. And that's the path we're on.

I'll wrap up with a nice one. Tell me a little bit behind the process behind how Microsoft decided to bring Age of Empires back. Had it been kicking around for a long time?

I want to give Shannon Loftis a ton of credit. Shannon's been in Microsoft Studios for a long time, and is somebody I've worked with and have a ton of respect for.

There's some franchises... it's interesting, as we're investing more in our first party, and we've looking at new IP in some of our existing franchises and things that do really well, Age is just one of those things that year after year on Steam, we see it continue to sell, even though the infrastructure that's underneath the game is creaking a little bit. The community's been there supporting it.

She said, you know, this is something we should bring onto our modern platform. Make it visually more up to speed. You're obviously not going to take that game and completely make it a 4K game and everything, but make it look something closer to modern. Support some of the Live features that we have. And then let's think about where this franchise can actually go.

We own it, so maybe it seems like we're talking about ourselves a little bit, but I think it's one of the important franchises in gaming, and I think it deserves a future.

It's the 20th anniversary. So this could be the start of the renaissance? That's how you feel about it?

I do. And I think the interesting thing is the community's been out there kind of supporting this game without us. And shame on us, right?

They crashed the website today.

[Laughs] I'm really excited. They crashed our website? I actually didn't see that.

Straight off the reveal. They had it back up quickly.

Good! Good. I was involved... I started working with Ensemble on Age 3, I think was the first one I as a studio manager was working with them on. That was a studio that had some real vision in what they wanted to do with this mix of history and RTS coming together. I think it's one of those franchises that deserves a great future.

 

[LESS T_T]

Over a year after the Windows Store release, Killer Instinct is coming to Steam:

 

[LESS T_T]

https://xboxideas.uservoice.com/forums/919048-gaming-on-windows-10

 

[PulsatingBrain]

Over a year after the Windows Store release, Killer Instinct is coming to Steam:

I guess they want to actually sell some copies. I might get it. Have any of you played it, and if so is it any good?

 

[rusty_shackleford]

https://xboxideas.uservoice.com/forums/919048-gaming-on-windows-10

Here's an idea: Stop trying to turn your platform into a walled garden and just sell your games on other vendors.
Massive billion-dollar corporations trying to control everything freaks consumers out.

 

[J1M]

https://xboxideas.uservoice.com/forums/919048-gaming-on-windows-10

Thanks, looks like users haven't had any of their ideas posted yet. Not many there, and nothing about halo or 21:9 monitors. I guess posting it on Friday with the ideas the team wants to push (Windows version specific to gaming... ) and not moderating any comments until Monday is one way to gild the lily.

 

[Dexter]

https://xboxideas.uservoice.com/forums/919048-gaming-on-windows-10

Stay The Fuck Away from it.

 

[deuxhero]

If you want people to game on Windows 10, make it not shit. Remove the mandatory telemetry and mandatory auto-updates.

 

[what am i doing]

If you want people to game on Windows 10, make it not shit. Remove the mandatory telemetry and mandatory auto-updates.

There are so many little ways Windows 10 is shit even if you take out the obvious cancer like that. For example, in Windows 7 if you had Task Manager on Processes tab when you closed it it will always open on Processes. In Windows 10, the Processes tab is now called Details which is fine if a pointless change, but, it no longer remembers your previous chosen tab and starts on the main programs tab instead. There is no fix for this. It's just incompetently coded or designed or both.

Another example, Windows Explorer still to this day does not have native support for .tga thumbnails. Microsoft sees no problem with this.

I don't think they could make Windows 10 not shit, it's bad all over and they'd have to go over every inch of it fixing stuff. They'd be better off writing it off as another Vista and just trying to make a good Windows 11 without the mobile crap and bad design.

 

[Temenos]

If you want people to game on Windows 10, make it not shit. Remove the mandatory telemetry and mandatory auto-updates.

There are so many little ways Windows 10 is shit even if you take out the obvious cancer like that. For example, in Windows 7 if you had Task Manager on Processes tab when you closed it it will always open on Processes. In Windows 10, the Processes tab is now called Details which is fine if a pointless change, but, it no longer remembers your previous chosen tab and starts on the main programs tab instead. There is no fix for this. It's just incompetently coded or designed or both.

Another example, Windows Explorer still to this day does not have native support for .tga thumbnails. Microsoft sees no problem with this.

I don't think they could make Windows 10 not shit, it's bad all over and they'd have to go over every inch of it fixing stuff. They'd be better off writing it off as another Vista and just trying to make a good Windows 11 without the mobile crap and bad design.

I just want to address one point regarding the Windows 10 Task Manager - in a recent insider build, Microsoft have FINALLY added a menu option where you can select which tab is the default when you open it up. I would have preferred it if they just implemented the behavior from previous task managers which remembered the last tab when closed, but this at least means you can now tell it to show the details tab upon startup now.

Why they couldn't have done this sooner (or just had the Task Manager act like previous fucking versions along with its new features) I have no idea. I guess they're strapped for cash.

 

[a Goat]

Microsoft isn't cohesive company anymore. Think about them as about loose confederation of pajeet tribes.

 

[Pika-Cthulhu]

I detest windows if only for the retard decision to name programs 'apps' like phone shit.

Fuck you Microsoft, fuck you for making future generations speak like retards

 

[Delterius]

and 4 years later they turned a shitty rtwp obsidian game into tb

cheers

 

[Perkel]

Here we go folks, MS trying to make gamepass be netflix of gaming is happening.
This means that MS is preparing to get to PC (and probably other devices) full xbox stuff going from xbox, 360, xbox one and their upcoming next gen console. Basically they are changing it from hardware to API.

This also means that jrpgs like Last Oddysey, Blue Dragon will be playable on PC and shitload of other games like Reddead Redemption who never had any release on PC.

https://www.techradar.com/amp/news/windows-10-april-2019-update-could-play-native-xbox-one-games

It’s no secret that Microsoft has been looking at ways to get people without an Xbox One to play its games, and now an early version of the upcoming Windows 10 April 2019 Update (also known as 19H1) hints at how Microsoft is tweaking the operating system to potentially make it possible to play native Xbox games on PC.

As Brad Sams on Thurrot.com explains, people who try out Windows 10 build 18334, the aforementioned early version of the April 2019 Update, also get a chance to try out Microsoft’s State of Decay game for free.

This struck some people as a little odd, as Microsoft doesn’t usually include free games in its early versions of Windows 10 – unless it was planning some big changes to how Windows 10 handles games.

• Who needs an Xbox? Here's the best PC games
• Why not buy the best gaming laptop to play Xbox games on?
• Or, upgrade your PC with the best graphics card for gaming

When you download State of Decay, rather than downloading the game from the Microsoft Store server (serverdl.microsoft.com), which is usually where PC versions of Xbox games are kept, the game instead downloads from assets1.xboxlive.com.

It therefore looks like you're able to download the Xbox One version of the game, rather than a PC port. When the game is downloaded, it appears in the .xvc file format, which is an Xbox One file format, and this file can be installed using the updated PowerShell application in Windows 10 April 2019 Update.

Running the file pops up a legacy DirectX installation window. The latest build of the Windows 10 April 2019 Update also adds a new Gaming Service app (Microsoft.GamingServices) which installs two drivers xvdd.sys = XVD Disk Driver (Microsoft Gaming Filesystem Driver) gameflt.sys = Gaming Filter (Microsoft Gaming Install Filter Driver).

WalkingCat, a Twitter user who is well known for digging into Microsoft’s software for clues about what the company is planning, noted that xsapi.dll = Durango Storage API, XCrdApi.dll = Durango XCRDAPI are referenced in the files, and Durango was famously Microsoft’s codename for the Xbox One.

 

[GrainWetski]

I can't think of a single Xbox One exclusive I would want.

What's the point if the 360 games aren't proper ports? The only way to make RDR actually good would be mouse and keyboard.

 

[Wirdschowerdn]

There's a couple of Xbox 360 games I could think of wanting to play on PC, but I can't think of a single Xbox One game.

 

[Solid Snail]

Be guinea pig to test your new Win10 build and try a 6 years old videogame for free, for a limited amount of time. It makes sense.

 

[Steamboat Willie]

I can't think of a single Xbox One exclusive I would want.

Agreed. I've owned an Xbone for 4 years and not a single one of my games is an exclusive.

 

[taxalot]

There's Red Dead Redemption.

 

[what am i doing]

If it means I can pirate the later Bungie Halo games on my PC then I guess I'm fairly happy about this.

 

[Funposter]

just give me a working OG xbox emulator before the capacitors in mine bulge and leak acid all over the motherboard

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Don't expect there to be xbox 360 games. The 360 used PowerPC architecture compared to the xbox/xbone using x86.
The possible exception being the 360 titles that are playable on the xbone — about 1/4th of the library: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_...x_One#List_of_compatible_titles_from_Xbox_360

 

[J1M]

I wonder how they will try to neuter PC players in online multiplayer FPS. (Because you know they will try.)

 

[a Goat]

okay so windows is gonna be EEE'd by Microsoft Xbox now. ARE YOU ENTERTAINED?