Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Windows 8: Never mind Office, it's for GAMING
The Register ^ | 18th September 2012 09:43 GMT | Matt Asay

Posted on 09/18/2012 9:05:54 AM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach

Open ... and Shut Despite threats to its software hegemony from Apple and others, Microsoft's stranglehold on enterprise IT has been its saving grace. Yet this advantage has started to fade as Apple and Android increasingly invade the enterprise through smartphone adoption, with IT departments scrambling to devise security policies that plug the holes created by this bring-your-own-device (BYOD) phenomenon. While many expected Microsoft to respond by shoring up its enterprise credentials, arguing that Office will be the big driver of Windows tablet adoption, the software giant has apparently elected to take a much riskier, and gutsier, approach: turn Windows 8 into a serious gaming platform.

Microsoft? That boring purveyor of Windows? Making games the centre of its PC/tablet universe?

Yes, that same Microsoft that blistered the existing gaming competition with the XBox, and subsequently set the standard for interactive gaming with Kinect. Microsoft may have lost its way on the internet and in mobile over the past few years, but it knows games. Windows 8, not surprisingly, is going "all in" on games.

Of course there are doubters. Valve CEO Gabe Newell called Windows 8 a "catastrophe" for gaming, citing the Metro interface and Microsoft's closed app store. The former concern is overblown - you don't have to use the Metro interface if you don't want to - and the latter is head scratching: doesn't Apple do pretty well with a closed app ecosystem?

As Gizmodo's Kyle Wagner argues,

Here's the key point to Metro apps and games: They're dirt simple for you, the user.

That matters. It matters a lot. Microsoft's ideal world isn't just a unified UI experience, but a frictionless marketplace for the entire platform. You know how Apple makes billions and billions and billions of dollars because its marketplace is so easy to use? And how its developers make way, way, way more money than other platforms' developers because of that? Yeah.

But the question remains: does Microsoft have its heart in this mobile gaming market? That question, as Microsoft Steve Ballmer suggests, may completely miss the point. As he describes in an interview with The Seattle Times, the difference between a mobile device and a PC is vanishing: Windows 8 "brings us into this world of much more mobile computing and more mobile form factors. I think it's going to be hard to tell what's a tablet and what is a PC."

And, by extension, what's a gaming device.

Ballmer continues:

I think when you look forward, our core capability will be software, (but) you'll probably think of us more as a devices-and-services company. Which is a little different. Software powers devices and software powers these cloud services, but it's a different form of delivery….

Given this worldview, Microsoft can't help but get into "PC" gaming in a big way, because there's no such thing as PC gaming or tablet gaming or mobile gaming. It's all the same thing.

Which brings us back to Microsoft's ambition in Windows 8 gaming. The signs are growing that Microsoft doesn't see gaming as something that the XBox team focuses on, while the Windows team focuses on serious enterprise computing. For one thing, the company just hatched a London-based gaming studio, focusing on building Windows 8-based tablet games. Meanwhile, Microsoft has also teamed up with Agawi to enable cloud gaming on Windows 8.

Isolated incidents? I don't think so.

Microsoft has done many, many things wrong over the years. Gaming hasn't been one of them. It's not surprising that Valve would worry about Microsoft's ambitions in gaming: Microsoft is likely to squash them when it gets going. But for users who grew up with Microsoft's PC platform as their primary gaming platform, only to shift to Microsoft's XBox for the same need, don't expect Microsoft to make Windows 8 anything less than an exceptional gaming platform…one that will make it a real contender in the tablet market, even where Office or other more productivity-oriented applications don't. ®

Matt Asay is senior vice president of business development at Nodeable, offering systems management for managing and analysing cloud-based data. He was formerly SVP of biz dev at HTML5 start-up Strobe and chief operating officer of Ubuntu commercial operation Canonical. With more than a decade spent in open source, Asay served as Alfresco's general manager for the Americas and vice president of business development, and he helped put Novell on its open source track. Asay is an emeritus board member of the Open Source Initiative (OSI). His column, Open...and Shut, appears three times a week on The Register.


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Computers/Internet
KEYWORDS: hitech; pc; personalcomputer; trends; windows8
An opinion piece........
1 posted on 09/18/2012 9:05:59 AM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: ShadowAce

Some folks are gonna be surprised.....


2 posted on 09/18/2012 9:07:13 AM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach ((The Global Warming Hoax was a Criminal Act....where is Al Gore?))
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Ernest_at_the_Beach

Okay, I like PC gaming and I hate console gaming, but I have long since lost track of the old refrain: “Microsoft Is Going To Do ‘X’ Really, Really Great!”

Zune
“Bob”


3 posted on 09/18/2012 9:26:11 AM PDT by Obadiah (The Hunger Games -- Obama's vision for America)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Ernest_at_the_Beach

we don’t work with computers anymore. i noticed this a while ago. the average person is being dumbed down to the point that they cannot imagine how to utilize a computer beyond gaming and internet

i almost expect a p0rn-only platform to come along someday

disclaimer: i’ve been a professional software developer for over 25 years


4 posted on 09/18/2012 9:28:56 AM PDT by sten (fighting tyranny never goes out of style)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Ernest_at_the_Beach

As long as you have a $1,500 machine with 8 GB of RAM I guess you can play any game


5 posted on 09/18/2012 9:29:26 AM PDT by GeronL (The Right to Life came before the Right to Pursue Happiness)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Ernest_at_the_Beach

It’s funny.The artical say’s that Windows 8 is designed to be easy to use and Windows usually is until it crashes and has a serious fault and then you need to be a magician to clean up the mess.


6 posted on 09/18/2012 10:19:23 AM PDT by puppypusher (The World is going to the dogs.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Obadiah

Zune
“Bob”

Windows ME


7 posted on 09/18/2012 10:33:26 AM PDT by NoCmpromiz (John 14:6 is a non-pluralistic comment.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson