🚀 go-pugleaf

In comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic Zaghadka <zagh...@hotmail.com> wrote:

> Massive badmouthing coming from the people who MAKE the PC platform. "Games For
> Windows" a fraud! Valve the only TRUE supporter of pc games. How humiliating!

I always thought 'Games for Windows' was a Vista marketing scheme.  

Even then, I have to wonder how much Microsoft wants us to be playing 
games on the PC anyways.

Let's think about this for a second.  In the console market, the hardware 
vendor - curently Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft - don't make money by 
selling hardware.  In fact, they often sell the hardware 'at cost' or even 
at a loss in order to make the prices attractive to customers.  This is 
because the hardware companies make their money from the game developers.  
First, they make money by selling them the development tools for the 
hardware.  Second, they take a licesnsing fee from the sale of each and 
every game sold for their hardware.  It's estimated this liscensing fee 
comes to about $10 for each new Xbox 360 game.

Compare this to the PC world.  Sure, Microsoft makes some money selling 
their OS and maybe some tools (and Office!) to developers, not to mention 
that each gamer supposedly has to buy a copy of their OS in order to play 
these games.  However, take WoW for instance.  Microsoft makes $0 from 
WoW.  They make $0 from Supreme Commander.  $0 from everything PopCap 
sells.

I honestly think Microsoft wishes the big development houses would drop 
the PC altogether and move over to the Xbox 360 - which, may I remind you, 
has its own DirectX-like API.  This makes it more attractive for former PC 
developers, I'm sure...  On top of that, the Xbox 360's online service 
provides a marketplace for smaller developers to showcase their games.  
This works for Microsoft in two ways.  First, it allows Microsoft to 
showcase the 360 as a "casual gaming" platform, and second, of course, it 
allows Microsoft to dip into that revenue stream as well.

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