Windows XP was relatively stable and secure, so Microsoft had to find other ways to let people buy their sparkling new OS. Microsoft said to the outside world 'We've been killing PC-gaming', and started searching new features to make Vista operating system for gamers.
Ofcourse, gaming isnt the only thing that is changed in Vista, they have lots of other features, but I already summed up the majority of them in some article a long time ago, so Im not going into detail on that.
One of those features is Games for Windows. This label, which you have to pay for as a developer, means a game is certain to work under Vista, and in the future it will always require it (meaning XP will be useless). We can already see this with the release of Halo 2 and Shadowrun for the PC.




Games for Windows is not the only thing Microsoft has been working on to advertise Vista for PC gamers. Windows Live is in theory the same as Xbox Live. For the people that dont know Xbox Live: it's Microsoft's service on the Xbox, letting you play online against other Xbox owners, matchmaking with people of the same skill level as you, achievements and rankings.
Microsoft has the same goal with Windows Live, that means you will have to pay, too. Yes ladies and gentlemen, atop of your internet connection, you will have to fork out 60 euros a year, to play Windows Live certified games. What do you get in return? A Windows Live Gold membership, featuring Cross-platform gaming with Xbox-live gamers, achievements, a gamer-tag and gamerscore, matchmaking and a whole lot of other unnecessary crap. Why crap? Well, not only you will have to pay monthly/per quarter/per year, Microsoft can also force developers to put a pricecard on downloadable content which was intended to be released for free. An example of this is when Epic wanted to release some free Gears of War maps a while ago on XBox live, and Microsoft forced them to let gamers pay for it.
Games like Shadowrun also just have dedicated servers where you can connect to, and play with other PC-gamers, but theres not so many of them, do you fully want to enjoy those games you need Windows Live.
A quick summary of what you need to have, if you want to play Games for Windows, which will feature Windows Live (and it will be many of them in the future, even Crysis :|):
- Windows Vista
- A very decent PC
- A Windows Live gold membership
- The game(s) itself (themselves)
- Money for extra content that should be free
Besides that, do we PC-gamers truly need XBox gamers to have competition? The answer is no. XBox live has around 6 million users, and how many that may be, it still doesnt even come close to the amount of PC gamers, which is more likely hundreds of millions (Im talking about online gamers). So is it truly worth to fork out all that money for a bit of cross-platform gaming where you wont even notice difference between playing against PC-gamers and Xbox gamers? Fill that in yourself.




Yes, thats right. For DirectX 10 you need Vista, and a DirectX 10 compliant graphics card, not to mention how much they both cost.
However, DirectX 10.1 is already in the hands of a beta testing team, and looking at this article from The Inquirer, it seems that our current graphics hardware can be thrown away again. By current I mean DriectX10 graphical cards like the 8800 and 2900XT. Luckily its not all lost yet, a quote from them:
But don't get too upset just yet: 'Gamers shouldn't fret too much - 10.1 adds virtually nothing that they will care about and, more to the point, adds almost nothing that developers are likely to care about.'
Version 10.1 will ship with Windows Vista SP1, and will include features like
32-bit floating point filtering, as opposed to the 16-bit current. 4xAA is a compulsory standard to support in 10.1, whereas graphics vendors can pick and choose their anti-aliasing support currently. Also included is shader model 4.1 support.
We shouldnt care too much about 10.1, as developers already struggle to implement 10.0 features, its not likely they will hurry and push forward to implementing 10.1, seeing as it aren't big improvements. Did I show you enough of Uncle Bill's money dance yet?




With Valve's Community service coming (already in beta), Microsoft is gonna have a harsh time. Windows Live does nothing new, most of it is already done by Xfire and other programs. And the ones mentioned are free of charge. DirectX 10.1 seems a laugh too.
We dont need all of that stuff. Unfortunately Microsoft has a monopoly position in the market, and it is as I mentioned, not hard for them to enforce things. To developers and to gamers, cause we all wanna play Crysis dont we? Luckily there are people who make efforts to get for instance Vista games with DirectX10 effects run under XP, very good initiatives imo. Anyone who wants to check it out: http://www.fallingleafsystems.com/
Microsoft hasnt been killing PC-gaming in the past. They are right now.

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