Topic: Valve vs. Microsoft - Update: Gearbox wants Valve + Microsoft to get along

[MysterD]

NEW - 10-10-2010:
CVG -> Steve Gibson wants Valve and Microsoft to try and get along on the PC.
OWNet -> MyD's Opinion on this all.

OLD - Original Post:
Valve is questioning Microsoft's "Gaming For Windows" Campaign.

Valve on Games for Windows [March 12, 2007, 6:23 pm ET] - Viewing Comments
Valve questions Microsoft's commitment to PC gaming on GamesIndustry.biz offers analysis of their Q&A with Valve's Doug Lombardi that question's whether Redmond's support for PC gaming is genuine, or an effort at marketing Vista:

    "Right now it seems like it's part of the marketing push to help Vista," commented Doug Lombardi, marketing manager at Valve, in an exclusive interview for GamesIndustry.biz.

    "To really back a platform is a sustained effort over years and years, so we'll see if in two years Microsoft is still spending money to put Games for Windows sections in retail, and having PR people preach that message that the PC isn't dying, it’s actually bigger than all the consoles put together."

    "You know, if it were to sign up for that, that's great. If it's going to use it to promote sales of Vista, that's really not good for the industry, it's good for Microsoft in the short term," offered Lombardi.

Personally, I think Microsoft is trying to do BOTH -- promote Vista sales and keep PC gaming alive.

Is Microsoft trying to push PC Gaming? Of course. They make "Windows". Makes perfect sense to support gaming on their OS for...well, as long as they are making OS's.

Are they trying to push "Vista?" Of course. That's their new OS; their new baby. Though, I really do think they are, too quickly, trying to what seems to abandon XP; that's the real problem here, I think. I think XP still has a few good years left in it, myself.

Is Microsoft trying to push consoles? Of course. They support their own X360. No brainer.

Microsoft is trying to own the entire market, PC and console -- and it looks like they just about have it. Total domination, for the most part.

I think it's only a matter of time until we all probably switch over the Windows Vista, anyways -- just give it a few years. Microsoft might have most of the bugs out of Vista, by then....just maybe....

I don't know, but Valve needs to stop worrying about Microsoft. Microsoft ain't goin' anywhere, anytime soon. Neither is Win XP, for a lil' while, at least. Neither is Vista -- that Vista OS probably will be eventually like Win XP, around for a good amount of years. Valve needs to worry about Valve; they need to make STEAM less intrusive, finish their HL2 Episodes this century, and move onto either Half-Life 3 or some other new Intellectual Property.

Thoughts, anyone...?

[Quemaqua]

Interesting.  Given that I hate Valve and they can all go fuck themselves, and should especially chew on their own words of "good for them in the short term" but "bad for the industry", which is exactly what Steam is... well, I can't really argue.  This is kinda' what I've been saying about the whole Games for Windows thing.

[idolminds]

MS only wants you to think they care about PC games. They know they have computer gaming all wrapped up. Whats everyone going to do? Up and switch to Linux or Mac for games anytime in the next decade? Yeah right.

They have a new OS to push, and they know gaming is a big reason why a lot of people use Windows. Because outside of gaming...anything windows can do you can also do on a Mac or with Linux. So they want to make it seem like they care about PC games to get all the hardcores to upgrade and to keep developers making games for windows. See? Games for Windows. Right there.

What they don;t tell you is when they like to leech off PC games and move them to the Xbox. Crimson Skies? Halo? Midtown Madness? Mechwarrior? They even hit the indie scene. Which is cool, give the indies more exposure. But why dont they throw a bone back to the PC side? Indie games get great updates for Live Arcade...better graphics and such. Why dont they then go and rerelease that stuff for PC gamers? Because they dont really care.

[gpw11]

I think it would be foolish to think that they don't care, obviously they do.  Games sell a lot of copies of Windows, we all know that, but you'd be fucking retarded to be running a gaming division of microsoft and think anything even remotely close to a simultanious release of Halo 3 on the PC and 360 (this goes for any franchise microsoft is pushing in the console market) would be a good idea.  You're trying to sell consoles and you know game sales numbers in consoles actually means a lot more than game sales numbers for pcs.  Sales numbers and attachement rates for consoles translate to higher licence fees and publishers looking at your console as being more viable.  We all know how this works.

You know a shitload of people out there that own consoles also own gaming PCs, so why buy a 360 if you can play all the big name first party games (the only garunteed exclusives for any console) on your pc?  You might as well go publish games for your competetor's consoles.  It makes no sense to fragment your sales like that when you're involved in one market that's very competitive and another that's locked down.

Idol pretty much nailed it,  MS knows gaming on PCs isn't going anywhere - if they actually didn't care we wouldn't be seeing them pushing shit.  Sure, they do it to sell Vista (as well as their own games), but guess why Nintendo makes games?  Push product. It's the same for any company with a gaming platform.  We knew MS was pushing Vista as a more viable gaming platform ever since it was Longhorn, they've been talking about it for ages.  There are a ton of interviews about it, so I don't know why 3 years later some people seem to think it's a conspiracy...it was pretty much intended as one of the main selling points. 

As for the statment from Valve, it doesn't really make sense.  Let's say it is just MS trying to push Vista (which again, isn't really something anyone should be suprised or suspicious of) how exactly does that hurt the industry in the long run.  It's still more exposure for PC games and it gives them a higher public profile.  How can that be anything but good for the industry.

Lets translate this to what it really is; Valve is worried about MS releasing something along the lines of a Live Arcade type direct download service for commercial releases and that's probably what this is all about.

[Quemaqua]

Gpw makes a good point.  However, I still say Vista is bad for gaming and continued Microsoft bullshit is bad for the industry.  It moves more money around but is pushing things in a way that's very much oriented away from the consumer's needs.  No matter what you're doing, that's doing it wrong.

[gpw11]

In what way do you think Vista is bad for gaming?  The exclusives?

[Quemaqua]

Did I not just say it?  It's pushing things in a way that isn't oriented to the consumer's needs.  It's giving Microsoft more control and will wind up trying to unify things in the long run, which is going to take even more rights away from the user.

[Cobra951]

Idol pretty much nailed it,  MS knows gaming on PCs isn't going anywhere - if they actually didn't care we wouldn't be seeing them pushing shit.  Sure, they do it to sell Vista (as well as their own games), but guess why Nintendo makes games?  Push product. It's the same for any company with a gaming platform.  We knew MS was pushing Vista as a more viable gaming platform ever since it was Longhorn, they've been talking about it for ages.  There are a ton of interviews about it, so I don't know why 3 years later some people seem to think it's a conspiracy...it was pretty much intended as one of the main selling points.

I think there's a big difference.  Nintendo's business is games, and only games.  Microsoft could give a shit about them.  Games fall under the "PC software" umbrella, and they want to own the whole umbrella.  At the moment, it's a key part of their strategy that people dump XP and spend hundreds of dollars to keep doing what they can already do.  Not much incentive, unless they can figure out a way to cut people off from what they already can do.  Enter Vista-exclusive DX10 and "games for Windows" (as if what we have been playing all these years is anything else).

The push is a deception in terms of what's behind it, and therein lies the difference from Ninendo.  That's where Valve's statement becomes significant.  They're asking us to wait and see where this goes over the next year or two.  Time will validate it, or expose the real agenda.

[scottws]

Everyone has made good points.  I agree with gpw in that Valve is probably mostly worried that Microsoft will release a service that will take a piece of their pie they are cooking with Steam.

However Cobra is correct as well.  The things Microsoft is doing are unneccesary and unwelcome.

DirectX 10 is a good example.  There is no reason it couldn't run on XP if they can get DirectX 9 on 98.  There are no good reasons to upgrade to Vista, so Microsoft created a false incompatibility.

Also, as Cobra said, we've been playing games on Windows for years.  It's one thing if Microsoft wants to make it easy for consumers to have and use Windows games.  But Microsoft wants to set up Live on the PC, and I bet it won't be long before we start seeing things like having to pay for a PC Live membership in order to play game X online.

Anyone who doesn't see Microsoft moving in this direction is blind. 

[Pugnate]

I would still rather game on the PC even if I had to put up with Vista, rather than it die... because for me that would mean gaming dies.

It's giving Microsoft more control and will wind up trying to unify things in the long run, which is going to take even more rights away from the user.

Good point.

Lets translate this to what it really is; Valve is worried about MS releasing something along the lines of a Live Arcade type direct download service for commercial releases and that's probably what this is all about.

Yea it is two empires sizing up each other in the ring. Really though, Valve don't have enough goodwill to make those sort of statements and for us to take them seriously. Also I don't think M$ can find a rebuttal based on the restrictions of Valve's STEAM.

M$: OH YEA? How about the fact that your service is restrictive, intrusive, a resource hog and generally not wanted?

Valve: Wait, isn't the sort of thing you plan to do in six months?

M$: 

[MysterD]

Valve is not big enough to take on Microsoft. Sure, they've gotten a lot of games to join their Steam Club, of late -- Dreamfall, Silverfall, Prey, Dark Messiah, and numerous others, but they are not a huge enough company or publisher to battle Microsoft.

The only thing Valve ever did was invent some l ½-baked online intrusive game service (STEAM) and tie it to their great Half-Life series.

Is Valve right about Microsoft? Yeah, well -- duh, Microsoft is trying to push "Vista," of course; its their new baby of an OS, so of course they'd push it! And Microsoft has been trying to put PC Games in the front-line for years. Finally, it seems Win XP really succeeded w/ PC gaming, more so than ever. There's a plethora of developers out there and plethora of great games already on Win XP that are really are doing the talking, if you ask me -- the plethora of games just being on Windows OS's are really making the mark here, not Microsoft's new campaign for Vista. Microsoft's campaign might try for Vista, in which might try to make things easier for PC gamers, but that campaign ain't going to take off on Vista until some of the kinks get worked out of Vista itself, in probably a few years or so. It don't help that they're OVERLY pushing it by pushing Halo 2 PC and Alan Wake as Vista exclusives is the first mistake; since the OS wasn't even out, yet they announced Vista exclusives. WTF is that??? Especially w/ Halo 2 PC, which is a port of an (original) X-Box game!!!

Plus, like y'all said, we all knew that years ago when it was "Longhorn" that Microsoft wanted to make PC Gaming more accessible as they stated so in interviews long ago, so why does Valve need to reiterate this to us? VALVE, we're not freakin' morons!!!

[Jedi]

Also, as Cobra said, we've been playing games on Windows for years.  It's one thing if Microsoft wants to make it easy for consumers to have and use Windows games.  But Microsoft wants to set up Live on the PC, and I bet it won't be long before we start seeing things like having to pay for a PC Live membership in order to play game X online.

I don't see that happening as that would involve MS controlling all the servers or what servers are used to host the games, or controlling how a game goes about connecting to a host/other players. Even if MS controlled just the match making aspect of MP this would mean that every Developer of any game with MP in it would have to agree to MS’ pay to play service and alter their code etc accordingly. Do you see that happening?
And it would take every developer to be on board with this, as they would know that we’re not going to pay for their game then pay MS for the privilege to play it online - fuck that. So why would a developer shoot themselves in the foot like that unless MS has some how managed get 100% control.

MS is the hub of MP on the 360 only because its their console, their service and their infrastructure, as powerful as MS is, they don’t control the Internet.... or do they... 


Edit - the only dev's that would be on board with such a train wreck would those owned by MS, they'd have no touch in the matter.

[scottws]

I don't see that happening as that would involve MS controlling all the servers or what servers are used to host the games

No it wouldn't.  On the Xbox, the game servers are just other Xboxes and 360s.  As far as online gaming on the Xbox goes, Live is a match-making service not a set of game servers.  It wouldn't have to be any different on the PC.

or controlling how a game goes about connecting to a host/other players.

Right.  They already do this on the Xbox and Xbox 360.

Even if MS controlled just the match making aspect of MP this would mean that every Developer of any game with MP in it would have to agree to MS’ pay to play service and alter their code etc accordingly. Do you see that happening?

I'm not saying Microsoft will control every single game's online aspect, but it could start little-by-little (much like Steam has).  As far as developers including code to use Live, well they already do that on the Xbox and Xbox 360.  I'm sure it's just some API and not hard to implement.

So in short, yes, I could see it happening.

And it would take every developer to be on board with this, as they would know that we’re not going to pay for their game then pay MS for the privilege to play it online - fuck that. So why would a developer shoot themselves in the foot like that unless MS has some how managed get 100% control.

MS doesn't need 100% control.  All they need is a few big games on board to start the trend.  Think the Battlefield games, or Unreal Tournament, or Halo.  I'm sure to this you'll say no one would play it if you had to buy a subscription in order to play online.  You would be wrong.  Maybe you or I wouldn't, but many people would and I think that group is larger than you would think.  Besides... people already pay to play PC games online:  Everquest, Everquest 2, Dark Age of Camelot, Star Wars Galaxies, World of Warcraft.  Sure, those are all persistent RPGs, but is it really, truly any different from a FPS game you might play for several hours every day?

MS is the hub of MP on the 360 only because its their console, their service and their infrastructure, as powerful as MS is, they don’t control the Internet.... or do they... 

Well, Windows is their OS...

Edit - the only dev's that would be on board with such a train wreck would those owned by MS, they'd have no touch in the matter.

You don't know that.  And forget developers.  Think publishers.  Think Microsoft using some of its massive war chest to pay say UbiSoft or EA or Vivendi Universal to make all PC games they own the rights to to tie into Windows Live...  Those companies don't make any money off the games beyond the initial sale anyway, so what do they care if people have to pay either Microsoft or pay no one to play the game online?

[Jedi]

You don't know that.  And forget developers.  Think publishers.  Think Microsoft using some of its massive war chest to pay say UbiSoft or EA or Vivendi Universal to make all PC games they own the rights to to tie into Windows Live...  Those companies don't make any money off the games beyond the initial sale anyway, so what do they care if people have to pay either Microsoft or pay no one to play the game online?

I read all your comments but that's one I missed, I didn't think about the publishers.

[Quemaqua]

Yeah, that's exactly what I was going to say.  The developers aren't going to have any say in the matter either way, it's going to be the publishers that dictate that kind of stuff.  And if there's money in it, which there will be, they're going to go for it.

[MysterD]

Valve is attacking Microsoft again -- namely, at their DirectX not supporting too many controller types AND that since only Vista has DX10 with support Pixel Shader 4.0 (no consoles support Pixel Shader 4.0), he feels there's no real point in supporting PS4.0 yet.

Gabe Newell: DirectX 10 for Vista was a mistake

According to an online survey by Valve Software, only one in fifty players who access download service Steam has a DirectX 10-compatible graphics card and Windows Vista installed. In an interview with heise online, Gabe Newell, president of Valve Software, said that Microsoft made a terrible mistake releasing DirectX 10 for Vista only and excluding Windows XP. He said this decision affected the whole industry as so far only a very small percentage of players can use DirectX 10.

Agreed.

With DX10 not on Win XP, since many have not migrated yet to Vista (for DX10), many of the new DX10 won't be utilized by many gamers anytime soon, causing no major standardization in the PS4.0 tech.

When developing cross-platform games which are also released fo Xbox 360 and Playstation 3, developers look for the smallest common denominator. And since neither Microsoft's nor Sony's new consoles support Shader Model 4.0 for DirectX 10, only few games use it, he said.

And that gives more reason for Newell to not support DX10, if consoles ain't supporting PS 4.0, either -- since he's multi-platforming HL2: Ep Two.

In addition, Newell bemoaned the increasing lack of input device diversity in PC gaming culture. He would like to see controllers like the Wiimote or the Guitar Hero guitar, but since DirectX support for devices like these had increasingly been reduced over the last few years, developers didn't dare implement these expensive innovations.

Guys, I'm curious -- would you like to see controllers similar to the Wiimote or similar the GH Guitar on the PC?

[idolminds]

Well, the 360 GH2 controller works on PC, so...who knows? While PC gamers like their specific controllers like joysticks, flight pedals, and steering wheels...I think super-specialized controller like the GH guitar thats only going to be used in one type of game wouldn't really fly on PC.

Something more generic like the Wii remote? That could work. Only problem there is usually you're up close to the screen when gaming on PC...far less room to move. But some original controller thing might be ok as long as it works with more than one game.

I'd like to see LCD touchscreens for PC. How cool would it be to play a flight sim, look down at the cockpit on the screen and then hit the buttons, levers, etc instead of just a button on the joystick.

[MysterD]

I'd like to see LCD touchscreens for PC. How cool would it be to play a flight sim, look down at the cockpit on the screen and then hit the buttons, levers, etc instead of just a button on the joystick.

I wonder how this "touch-screen" thing would work for say an FPS...

EDIT:
I bet the "touch-screen" thing would probably work very nicely and very easily w/ a game where you command things around and give orders, like such something in the style of say a Diablo 2 or Titan Quest.

[Ghandi]

I'd like to see LCD touchscreens for PC. How cool would it be to play a flight sim, look down at the cockpit on the screen and then hit the buttons, levers, etc instead of just a button on the joystick.

Microsoft Surface? Or is that different?

[gpw11]

Yeah, Surface isn't really for home use at all , and I think it will be quite a while before we see anything really like it implemented in the home PC market.

That said, look at Half-Life 2.  Look at DX 10 games like Crysis.  HL2 is a great game, but it's the last great game of the previous era of graphics technology.   I don't disagree that making DX10 vista only was a bad idea, but I'd argue that they data they used to prove that the adoption rate shows it's useless is flawed. 

[scottws]

It may be flawed (only collecting data from people who have Steam installed), but it might just be pretty accurate.  I think you have to assume that gamers that would be interested in Crysis would also have HL2, and therefore have Steam installed.  Yeah, there are people that have gotten HL2 working without Steam, but I would imagine they are a tiny percentage of people that have HL2.

[Cobra951]

The plain fact is that the whole DX10/Vista thing reeks.  News like this puts a smile on my face.  It probably won't last, unfortunately.

[gpw11]

It may be flawed (only collecting data from people who have Steam installed), but it might just be pretty accurate.  I think you have to assume that gamers that would be interested in Crysis would also have HL2, and therefore have Steam installed.  Yeah, there are people that have gotten HL2 working without Steam, but I would imagine they are a tiny percentage of people that have HL2.

Oh, don't get me wrong, I think the percentage that they say is probably pretty accurate.  I just think it's silly for anyone to judge the overall success rate of DX10 based on this stat.  Were I to go out and buy a new system with a new DX10 capable card and all that, HL2 would probably be one of the last games I'd install.  I already played it on my old DX9 card, and nothing has changed since then.  Once Orange Box comes out, that will be different, but right now it's kind of silly. 

That said, I remember a link to an article with the stats of the PCs gathered by steam a year or so ago (I think around the time EP 1 was released).  A lot of old hardware.  I think it's because most people who keep steam installed and load it up are those who play a lot of counterstrike...often the same people who don't have the newest hardware. 

Personally, I wouldn't judge the adoption rate until after some of the DX10 games come out - UT3, Crysis, Alan Wake, and all that.  This isn't something new either.  I had a Geforce 3 for about a year and a bit before anyone actually released a game that took real advantage of any of the DX8 features.

[MysterD]

Gabe Newell of Valve still sure has a hell of a lot to say --- namely, he's defending the PC as a gaming platform.

RPS: This week, Denis Dyack’s been here, and he’s been expanding on his view that a unified gaming console is in the offing. He gave a lecture and said that a lot of the things we’re seeing in the games industry are portents of commoditisation as seen in other industries. We touched on this a little bit last time, but I wondered if you’d seen anything on his lecture and had any views on it.

Newell: I haven’t, so I don’t really understand his argument. When you’ve got large companies like Sony and Microsoft who are willing to lose billions of dollars, I don’t see what incentive there is -

RPS: He’s suggesting that they won’t have a choice because of the way the market behaves. He believes that it will become impractical and impossible for developers to make money from games because of the rising costs of development and the three-way split between Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft. So he thinks that they will be forced to work together.

Newell: How do you force a company that is losing billions of dollars - I mean, what’s your method of coercion, right? How do you convince Microsoft that their strategy is wrong when they just wrote off a billion dollars for overheating problems, for warranty issues. So I’m not really sure what the stick is that us developers are theoretically going to use that would be more effective than the sticks that are already being applied. The only case where that might occur, near as I can tell, is if some kind of phenomena occurs in the consumer space that’s already occurred in the office space, which is you used to have a bunch of different devices doing office-automation - you had dedicated word processors, and they cost a couple of thousand dollars, and you had 3270 terminals, and you had typewriters - the typewriter business used to be huge, and nowadays it’s pretty much gone - and all of that became centralised around a single more flexible application platform. Now, in the living room, if we really see this forced convergence of web-browsing, personal video recording, games functionality, and something has to do them all, the PC somehow in spite of the lack of focus of the PC players in making that happen, emerges, then I could see things converging on the PC, on an open platform, but short of that it’s hard to understand how this convergence would occur.

RPS: He also actually said that he thought the PC was the ultimate example of a ‘no standard’ system and that it was “going nowhere”.

Newell: [Laughs] There were 140 million PCs sold in the last year. In a single year they’re going to sell more PCs than the best-selling consoles of all time, so when people make statements like that I really have no idea what they’re talking about. The volumes of scales of PC CPUs, in and of itself, is sufficient to keep the PC incredibly competitive against anything. Intel’s volumes are so huge in comparison to Sony’s volumes on the Cell that the Cell could never be anything other than a second or third tier competitor in the CPU market, because it’s all about how many you make, and if you’re only making millions and your competitor is making hundreds of millions, you can’t compete - it has nothing to do with architecture, it’s just what happens when you make little pieces of silicon; it’s whoever makes the most of them wins. Even an order of magnitude difference is pretty insurmountable, much less two orders of magnitude, so I’m not sure I understand his argument, but I haven’t read his papers or seen his presentation.

RPS: Moving away from Denis and to his great friend Mark Rein, he said on the subject of PC gaming that he’s been trying to convince hardware manufacturers to move away from integrated graphics, because he thinks if you put in even a low-end NVIDIA chip into a PC that gives people a taste of gaming and they’ll get a lot more upsell. What do you think the PC gaming industry needs to do on the hardware front to reinvigorate itself, because at the moment if you look at the volumes of sale of a lot of PC software it’s much much lower than you see on consoles.

Newell: Well, right now you have - nobody’s actually trying to drive the PC in the way that Microsoft drives the Xbox or Sony drives the PlayStation and Nintendo the Wii. You have people who are creating their own alternatives to those kinds of traditional retail-driven platforms, like PopCap in the casual game space in the United States is huge. The most successful franchise on any platform, I would have to say, is World of Warcraft, because not only have they sold 9 million units, but they make 15 dollars a month off of those units, so when people tell me - if I had to pick one single entertainment franchise to own, not just games, just period, it would be World of Warcraft and it’s not a console game at all. So I’m not sure I always agree. For example, when we talk with analysts, none of them are even aware that Steam existed - they hadn’t factored that into their sales, none of them knew that there were recurring revenue for MMORPGs, none of them had ever contacted any of the casual game sales and had any notion. You tell them ‘there’s this whole game category that’s dominated by women aged 40 to 45, did you even know about that?’ and they’re like ‘really?’ There’s nobody who - I mean, any time they write an article about Nintendo, there are 20 PR people and marketing people on the phone, feeding them data and painting the best possible picture that they can, and in the PC space there isn’t. Since nobody owns the platform and Microsoft has decided to put all its focus on the Xbox 360, there’s really nobody who’s making the case for the PC. Certainly we think the PC is super-viable as a development platform. We make a huge amount of money there and expect to for the foreseeable future.

[Cobra951]

How do you convince Microsoft that their strategy is wrong when they just wrote off a billion dollars for overheating problems, for warranty issues.

Jesus!  Is that accurate?  As much as I hate Microsoft on some fronts, this is what I call stepping up to the plate.  I'm guessing that's the projected cost including the warranty expansion to 3 years?

[gpw11]

While I haven't seen an exact figure on this (i don't know if an accurate even exists), a billion sounds pretty realistic all things considered.  This is, of course, not a number that they've already lost, but probably more of a projected number over the lifespan of the console while it uses the flawed MB.  I think he just threw a billion out there, but I could certainly see it.

[idolminds]

No, actually it was $1 billion. Warranty expansion to 3 years, plus the cost of shipping and repairs to all current defective 360s, and they will reimburse anyone that sent their system in "out of warranty" and paid to have it fixed.

Source:

REDMOND, Wash. -- July 5, 2007 --Microsoft Corp. today announced that it will expand its global Xbox 360™ warranty coverage. Any Xbox 360 customer who experiences a general hardware failure indicated by three flashing red lights will now be covered by a three year warranty from date of purchase. All other existing Xbox 360 warranty policies remain in place.
As a result of what Microsoft views as an unacceptable number of repairs to Xbox 360 consoles, the company conducted extensive investigations into potential sources of general hardware failures. Having identified a number of factors which can cause general hardware failures indicated by three red flashing lights on the console, Microsoft has made improvements to the console and is enhancing its Xbox 360 warranty policy for existing and new customers.
Microsoft stands behind its products and is taking responsibility to repair or replace any Xbox 360 console that experiences the "three flashing red lights" error message within three years from time of purchase free of charge, including shipping costs. Microsoft will take a $1.05 billion to $1.15 billion pre-tax charge to earnings for the quarter ended June 30, 2007 for anticipated costs under its current and enhanced Xbox 360 policies.
"The majority of Xbox 360 owners are having a great experience with their console and have from day one. But, this problem has caused frustration for some of our customers and for that, we sincerely apologize," said Robbie Bach, president of Microsoft's Entertainment & Devices Division. "We value our community tremendously and look at this as an investment in our customer base. We look forward to great things to come."

For any customer who has previously paid for repair expenses related to the three flashing lights error message on the Xbox 360 console, Microsoft will retroactively reimburse them.

[MysterD]

CVG -> Steve Gibson of Gearbox wants Valve and Microsoft to try and get along on the PC.

Gearbox has called on Microsoft and Valve to fix the incompatibility between titles purchased via Games For Windows and Steam.

The studio, which is readying PC gaming favourite Duke Nukem Forever for release on the format next year, claims that Steam and Microsoft are "building silos" which ultimately "hurt the PC industry".

"[We] want people to be able to play together and right now if a guy buys a game on Games for Windows and a guy buys a game on Steam - they can't play together," Gearbox's head of marketing Steve Gibson said at London Games Festival. "If another guy bought it in a retail store, he can't play with the first two guys."

Gibson called on Microsoft and Steam to work out a way where purchasers of their games could play simultaneously.

"Right now we're like 'Please, work together'," he said. "Our big concern right now is that these silos are being built. Everybody's separating out and it's really... as a developer who just wants gamers to be able to play games together, it's frustrating right now. Things like that are hurting the PC industry for gamers. This is frustrating for everybody right now."

Gibson asked gamers to put pressure on Steam and Microsoft to "play nice!".

Playing together on the PC would be nice...
It would be nice - that I, as the gamer, whether I buy a game at Retail; or On Steam; or or Impulse; or on G4WL - I could use it on ANY of the DD platforms. And, I could play w/ everybody else who's playing the game.

Different distribution methods get different versions and different DRM
I mean, really - it'd be nice if I bought say Borderlands from Retail and could just buy all the DLC through Steam (since they actually put DLC on sale often, unlike Gearbox Online DLC Store and G4WL) and implement THAT DLC into my version of Borderlands Retail. But, nope - I'd have to re-buy BL: Steam Version, first.

The same as the above kinda goes for Fallout 3, as well - I need the DLC. They don't sell FO3 DLC there on Steam, but if I wanted all the DLC, I'd have to buy FO3: GOTY Edition through Steam or Retail just to get it; OR get just the DLC through G4WL GOD.

Relic had the right idea, once...
That's why I think Relic had the right idea w/ Dawn of War 1 - wherever you bought the game and expansions, didn't matter. They maintained things such as the serial key themselves. I own my Dawn of War 1: Gold Edition from Retail + from DOW: Dark Crusade from Impulse - they can work together, if I want them to, thanks to Relic.

Middle-Ware
But really - isn't that why Gearbox used GameSpy for middle-ware on Borderlands PC? So all PC gamers, whether they bought the game at Retail or from some other DD - so they could play together?
Too bad that didn't really happen - as BL PC's GameSpy middleware out-the-box had issues connections (which they fixed later on), so many played on GameRanger instead - and many still do. If you jump online to play BL PC - you'll see there's a fair amount of BL PC users either playing on GameRanger or through GameSpy. Would be nice to somehow get all these BL PC gamers to get on the same damn page.

[Pugnate]

You know, competition in almost all cases is excellent for consumers.

In a normal situation, both Valve and MS would be trying to one up each other, and trying to better their services. Both G4WL and Steam should be far better than they are.

Unfortunately, while Valve does try to bring some improvements, MS seems to have given up after getting off the starting line.

Someone needs to explain the principles of competition to Microsoft.

[Cobra951]

I remember 2007 like it was 3 years ago.

Microsoft doesn't seem to care at all about what happens to the PC gaming scene at this point. 

[MysterD]

I remember 2007 like it was 3 years ago.

Microsoft doesn't seem to care at all about what happens to the PC gaming scene at this point. 

Well, Microsoft should care - they said they do plan to bring Fable 3 to the PC in a press release, for crying out loud. I mean - they do want our money, right?

Plus, more and more PC games are joining their Games on Demand, even if they don't even use Live at all - which right now, that'd be the best way to go - since G4WL sucks.