Topic: XboxOne ~News/Rumor/Speculation~ Biggest Console Released This Gen!!

[tendoboy1984]

http://mobile.theverge.com/gaming/2012/9/27/3416872/minecraft-creator-notch-microsoft-windows-8

So Notch for some reason isn't a fan of the Windows 8 Store. Apparently Microsoft went to him about a Windows 8 version of Minecraft. He didn't say if it was going to be a Windows Store "Metro" game or just a listing of desktop version.

He said

Microsoft asked Mojang for a hand in certifying Minecraft for Windows 8, but Notch isn't interested. Instead, he said on Twitter, "I told them to stop trying to ruin the PC as an open platform."

And then followed up with this tweet

I'd rather have minecraft not run on win 8 at all than to play along. Maybe we can convince a few people not to switch to win 8 that way

Have to say I lost a ton of respect I had for Notch on the basis that he's using a strawman argument.

What a hypocrite. He wants to support open platforms, yet he's ported Minecraft to Xbox Live and iOS, both of which are the complete opposite of "open".

[NWR_insanolord]

It's not hypocritical to think that PCs should be open but it's okay for mobile devices and game consoles not to be. They're for different things.

[TJ Spyke]

Actually, it is. He claims to support open platforms but opposes them when he wants. Besides, making Minecraft optimized for the Windows 8 Store will not stop people from being able to play the current PC version, so he has nothing to complain about. I hope he never plans to make games for Steam, Mac Store, or Origin, since those are effectively the same thing

[tendoboy1984]

It's not hypocritical to think that PCs should be open but it's okay for mobile devices and game consoles not to be. They're for different things.

Well he could have just stuck with Android and not made Minecraft for iOS at all. And there's no point in porting it to Windows 8, since W8 is backwards compatible with Windows 7 software.

[NWR_insanolord]

Actually, it is. He claims to support open platforms but opposes them when he wants. Besides, making Minecraft optimized for the Windows 8 Store will not stop people from being able to play the current PC version, so he has nothing to complain about. I hope he never plans to make games for Steam, Mac Store, or Origin, since those are effectively the same thing

They're different situations. Mobile phones, and especially game consoles, are specialized devices, whereas home computers are supposed to be a lot more versatile and flexible. And I doubt he'll be supporting any of those services, and has actually had conflicts with Steam about their policies.

[Ceric]

Frankly, Microsoft wants to start certifying more popular software for Windows.  They have wanted this for a very long time.  Microsoft knows that Windows being a open system is essential to its survival.  Though what do people ding Microsoft for the most?  Reliability and like.  Most of that is caused in more recent times by bad 3rd party software and drivers.  Its in Microsoft best interest to certify the items they sell directly.

[shingi_70]

So read through a similar thread about the notch comments on few other forums. I have to. Say

Am I the only one who really doesn't care about the open system that so many people seem to care about. Or is it juust a hardcore user thing. I mean I plan to upgrade to windows 8 next month and everything I do can be done in the metro enivorment with the expection of say lightroom or office. Even then you have to bet microsoft is working on getting those working in the metro enviorment. (Office already runs on arm, and the newest version of onenote is an metro app)

Take a few of my family members. I showed my mom some windows 8 stuff and she liked it. She likes the new metro start screen better than the old one because its easier for her to navigate as well as the live tiles give her info she likes. And she likes the fact that the windows store is a place where she can know to get software and its just a click to install and has auto updates.

Or take my cousin who's deeply entreched in the apple ecosystem. (She has an imac, macbook air, iphone, ipad and uses icloud) she buys all her software from the mac app store and didn't even notice that gate keeper was on until I told her.

I can understand the complaints vavle or blizzard have about the windows store. But notch is dev who also has his games on other closed systems. I don't get it even if microsoft were seeing about getting minecraft for the metro enviorment so it could work on RT devices as well, it would most likely be a port of the xbox version meaning notch wouldn't have to do anything and still get money and based on the api's that same could would probably be used for a windows phone version as well.

Guess I'm not hardcore enough. I was planning on to start developing a comic related application late this year and I didn't even think about hosting on a website for download. I just though what platforms should I target (Metro , Android, Blackberry 10).

[Kairon]

Are there are truly viable open systems aside from Windows? That's what I'd be concerned about. I have nothing against closed systems, but I don't want to see a frontier of possibility, accessibility, and well, free openness go extinct.

[NWR_insanolord]

Contrary to what you may have heard, Mac OS X is an open platform.

[Kairon]

Contrary to what you may have heard, Mac OS X is an open platform.

I know, but how much marketshare does Mac OS X have nowadays? I wanna say someone told me 20%, but I'm not sure about that.

Basically, I believe that ecologically speaking, there must always be some/enough desert, sort of like Dune, a frontier from which the unexpected (or sandworms, or spice, or fremen) can emerge because of its essential wildness.

[Chozo Ghost]

Are there are truly viable open systems aside from Windows?

WTF? Windows is about as unopen as it comes. Same with Mac OSX. Android and Linux and FreeBSD and so on are the only open systems I'm aware of.

[TJ Spyke]

OS X marketshare is closer to 10%, it's not a big factor in gaming.

[Kairon]

Are there are truly viable open systems aside from Windows?

WTF? Windows is about as unopen as it comes. Same with Mac OSX. Android and Linux and FreeBSD and so on are the only open systems I'm aware of.

Well, I meant "open" only insofar as there could be commercial indie development with little or no oversight, certification, or gate keepers.

[NWR_insanolord]

By that definition, OS X is open. And TJ Spyke's right, its current market share is about 10%, but its gaming presence is growing quite a bit. In fact, a large percentage of the indie type games you're talking about are available on OS X, it's more the big commercial titles that are lacking, although that's beginning to change as well.

[Chozo Ghost]

Isn't it possible to use Wine or whatever to be able to play Windoze games on Mac? You can do that on Linux. Why pay for Windows when you can get Linux plus wine for free and it does the same thing?

Native gaming on Linux is almost non-existent, but thanks to Wine it is possible to play anything on Linux that can be played on Windoze. I would assume this probably goes for Mac as well.

[Ceric]

Linux and OSX are kissing cousins of each other.  Wine will work on Mac but it would not allow for use of graphics subsystem that are OSX or Windows specific.  Not to mention sometimes need to design around both OSes idiosyncrasies.

[shingi_70]

Hmm I never saw Mac OS as having a small software base despite having a small marketshare. Probably due to the smaller indie devs and apples own software. I find mac OS has better alternatives compared too windows. Like instead of phtotshop grab and lightroom you could grab iphoto, apenture or pixel mator.

The only photoshop alternative I can think of on windows is gimp or pain.net. I couldn't even name a light room alternative on windows.

[Ceric]

Pure Capitalism crowded out a lot of spots in Windows.  Much like its hard to compete with EA Sports on consoles.

[Ian Sane]

I agree with Kairon.  Anybody can make commercial software for Windows.  That's part of the appeal.  To change that would effectively change the whole nature of PCs and people like PCs for a reason.  If you want a closed system, fine, but MS shouldn't change the nature of a product that a large market of people already like.  If I want a Smartphone setup, I'll buy a Smartphone.

It's like if Nintendo decided to start making casual games... oh wait.

[tendoboy1984]

I agree with Kairon.  Anybody can make commercial software for Windows.  That's part of the appeal.  To change that would effectively change the whole nature of PCs and people like PCs for a reason.  If you want a closed system, fine, but MS shouldn't change the nature of a product that a large market of people already like.  If I want a Smartphone setup, I'll buy a Smartphone.

It's like if Nintendo decided to start making casual games... oh wait.

Casual games have existed long before the terminology came about. The old arcade and puzzle games like Tetris, Pac-Man, Bomberman, Donkey Kong (arcade), Mario Bros. (arcade), Punch Out, Asteroids, Centipede, Missile Command, Joust, Tecmo Bowl, etc. would be considered "casual games" in today's world. In fact, a large majority of games made in the 1970's and 1980's were "casual games".

Nintendo has been making "casual games" for decades, since before the NES/Famicom era. Also, Nintendo didn't create anything "new" when they made Wii Sports, they simply brought gaming back to its humble roots.

[shingi_70]

Twas a joke my friend.

[tendoboy1984]

Twas a joke my friend.

Oh I know, I was just setting him straight so he wouldn't have any reason to dispute my opinion.

[Kairon]

I never thought I'd say this but...

We're here to talk about Microsoft, not Nintendo.

@_@

And I wasn't exactly saying that I didn't think it was in MS' best interest to do something or not... I was just saying that speaking from a bird's eye view, I believe the "wilderness" of open ecosystems without gatekeepers is an important part of videogames and perhaps even the tech industry as a whole. If MS stops that by putting fences around the free-range of Windows, then I think that we'd lose a lot of vitally productive "wilderness."

I'm... not making any sense here am I? THERE MUST ALWAYS BE SOME DESERT! DO NOT LET SHAI'HULUD GO EXTINCT!

[oohhboy]

I agree with Kairon.  Anybody can make commercial software for Windows.  That's part of the appeal.  To change that would effectively change the whole nature of PCs and people like PCs for a reason.  If you want a closed system, fine, but MS shouldn't change the nature of a product that a large market of people already like.  If I want a Smartphone setup, I'll buy a Smartphone.

It's like if Nintendo decided to start making casual games... oh wait.

Casual games have existed long before the terminology came about. The old arcade and puzzle games like Tetris, Pac-Man, Bomberman, Donkey Kong (arcade), Mario Bros. (arcade), Punch Out, Asteroids, Centipede, Missile Command, Joust, Tecmo Bowl, etc. would be considered "casual games" in today's world. In fact, a large majority of games made in the 1970's and 1980's were "casual games".

Nintendo has been making "casual games" for decades, since before the NES/Famicom era. Also, Nintendo didn't create anything "new" when they made Wii Sports, they simply brought gaming back to its humble roots.

So you are moving the goal posts. I would go on, but someone would get hurt. Consider your opinion disputed.

WINE is ok for noncommercial uses, but I would never buy a game that is ported using WINE or Cider. WINE is better than Cider, but both are really poor ways to run a game. It's a step up from running them in VMs where system resources are a lot more limited, but the glitchiness, compatibility issues, updates breaking a game, crashes, the performance hit is just not up to the task if you are going to ask people to pay money for something.

[NWR_insanolord]

That really depends on the game. There are games that I've run in Wine that work fine with no issue, and games that I can't get to work no matter what I do. I'd buy a Wine/Cider port if reports are that it's done right; usually for those commercial releases they tweak it really well and get the best performance possible aside from booting into Windows, which I really don't want to do.