427
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 08 Jan 2025
427 points (98.0% liked)
PC Gaming
8873 readers
827 users here now
For PC gaming news and discussion. PCGamingWiki
Rules:
- Be Respectful.
- No Spam or Porn.
- No Advertising.
- No Memes.
- No Tech Support.
- No questions about buying/building computers.
- No game suggestions, friend requests, surveys, or begging.
- No Let's Plays, streams, highlight reels/montages, random videos or shorts.
- No off-topic posts/comments, within reason.
- Use the original source, no clickbait titles, no duplicates. (Submissions should be from the original source if possible, unless from paywalled or non-english sources. If the title is clickbait or lacks context you may lightly edit the title.)
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
Yeah, I don't think Microsoft has ever understood or cared how much pc gaming has added value to windows.
Which makes the strategic defeat here of failing to understand they are fucked longterm all the more satisfying.
Microsoft understood in the 90s.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2V9TFrmQ_Q
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/DirectX
a bit on the nose huh
Yeah, Microsoft has had brief moments like this but systematically they have behaved consistently like the only thing that matters to them is enshittifying the work environment of office workers.
The examples you gave are interesting precisely because they are a brief departure from the norm.
Microsoft made Flight Simulator before they made Windows, so I'm sure they must have cared about games more during that time period.
I am not saying microsoft hasn't dipped their toes in to pc gaming but for a company of that size that is really the most you can say of their efforts compared to the immense solidity, staying power and loyalty pc gaming embued in windows for younger people growing up with computers (not saying this category of people liked windows just that they valued it).
This is ALL gone and microsoft is about to figure out that while business tools are their main industry the supposedly impenetrable moat they thought that gave them was far more a byproduct of a generation of nerds growing up pooring time into windows before they ever even entered the workforce than it was a dynamic of their dominance in corporate business software.
Whoopsie!
Sometimes empires fall. It doesn't mean it's for the worse https://youtu.be/A17oUv0E-N4
I know it's correct but reading "Microsoft's Gabe Newell" actually made my eye twitch.
Did you not know other people had jobs before their current?
"Microsoft's Gabe Newell"
Lol
He left Microsoft almost immediately after Doom 95 was released specifically because he didn't like the direction Microsoft was going.
It's kind of wild how much Microsoft failed to capitalize on PC gaming over the last 20 years. Arguably PC Gaming has thrived in spite of them, not because of them.
Valve was smart to understand how Microsoft could threaten their business model but it barely mattered considering how many rakes Microsoft stepped on over the years. Don't even get me started on Games For Windows Live.
It doesn’t make them money. Most of Microsoft is focused on business, enterprise, add AI. Everything edge is just part lip service.
Microsoft prevented PC gaming from dying and moved the industry from "sometimes there are pc games" to "occasionally there is a platform exclusive other than Nintendo". That was all Xbox. Valve did a much better job of sitting back and raking in 30% for their glorified downloader, but the games existed because of the compatibility efforts of Xbox.
Unrelated tidbit gleaned from reading the entry: