M$ is happy for as long as they control YOUR game via the API. Keep your wrappers generic and watch out for them paranoids...

M$ is clearly trying to control the game area:

Pinball
Baseball
Golf
war game
car drive
Truck drive
Tetris
Golf
Taipei
Chip''s Challenge
Jezzball
Dr. Black Jack
Pipe Dream
FreeCell
Tut''s Tomb
Rodent''s Revenge
Tri-Peaks
Ski Free
Tetravex

http://www.microsoft.com/catalog/navigation.asp?subid=22&nv=5

When it comes to money, Bill Gates is almost GOD (I mean that in a religious way, not Gathering Of Developers). However, Microsoft doesn''t make as many games as, let''s say, Lucasarts. I can only name a few:

Flight Simulator
Combat Flight Simulator
Motocross Madness
Motocross Madness 2
Monster Truck Madness

That''s about it. Wheras LucasArts has:

LOOM
Monkey Island
Dark Forces
X-Wing
Tie Fighter
Full Throttle
The DIG
Grim Fandango
Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atalantis
Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine
X-Wing Collector Series
X-Wing vs. Tie Fighter
Jedi Knight

I think I''m going to stop here becuase the list goes on and on.

Now, my point.. um... OH YES! All of these games run on Windows 95/98. So therefor, people without Windows 95/98 or poeople who need to upgrade will have to buy Windows, thus allowing Microsoft more money (whoop-dee-doo) and the game company would get some money too (YAY!). Although this is only the case when people don''t have Windows and are running either a Linux, Unix, OS-2, MAC, or DOS machine.

Well, I''m a little late (actually I''m responding to a comment ont he first page so I think I''m very late) but I would like to ask where people got the idea that the X-Box would be superior to the PS2 in raw hardware performance? I haven''t actually seen the X-Box specs (I''ve looked but couldn''t find them) but I know they''re using a new, unreleased NVIDIA GPU that is the successor to the GeForce2... Now correct me if I''m wrong, but do you think this will have a data bandwidth of 48GB/s as the PS2''s does? and do you believe it will be able to handle 55MPolys/sec as the PS2''s will?
I''m skeptical as I believe the GeForce256 (the original) wasn''t able to do 10MPolys/sec (or so I''ve heard, I''ve never seen a benchmark that measures polys/sec) and the GeForce2 (as benchmarks have proven) does not perform even twice as well as the GeForce256... and GeForce2 cards cost 300 bucks, which is close to X-Box price (aren''t they $350?) so I really don''t trust X-Box to be able to match the PS2 in raw hardware performance...

That''s just my two cents...

--the Rabid_Stick

(note: if I was wrong about any of those specifications or numbers please correct me, as I am working off what I''ve read (I try to follow the graphics industry closely) and heard, so I''m bound to have erroneous "facts" somewhere...)

Imagine if MS bought EA. Now that would be a monopoly from hell.

http://users.50megs.com/crazyvasey/

These are some of the specs for the X-Box (from X-BOx.com)




300 million micropolygons/particles per second

150 million transformed and lit polygons per second

100+ million polygons per second sustained performance (shading, texturing)

4 simultaneous textures

Compressed textures available at 8:1 compression

Full-scene anti-aliasing

DVD movie playback

1920x1080 maximum resolution

HDTV support


300 million to 55 million is a pretty good hardware advantage... Just thought I''d bring it up.

-----------------------------

1. "Diplomacy is the art of saying 'Nice doggie!'... till you can find a rock."

2. "Always remember you're unique, just like everyone else."

3. "If we don't succeed, we run the risk of failure."
-Dan Quayle

4. If life gives you sour grapes, squash them and make wine!

Hey! Has any one heard about Age of Empires 2 and Allegiance, because I think Microsoft had something to do with that!!!!!

How bigger stake in the Computer Games Industry does M$ want? I mean, it''s an extremely risky bussiness as it stands. I don''t think it makes good investment sence for M$ to get very involved in the software side of our industry.

I love Game Design and it loves me back.

Our Goal is "Fun"!

X-BOx would be good if not made by Microsoft.

As long as anti-trust trial is not settled, there is always high risk of failure for any Microsoft business.

KR

I read an article written by a game developer I know. I'm not sure how accurate it is so don't quote it as being the definitive answer but in the article is stated that MS is buying up EA, Squaresoft, Capcom and few other companies, if they are willing to sell, so they won't have to compete with the PS2 as much. I mean if you own the companies that make the games everyone wants then people are forced to buy your console. Is it true? I'm not sure but the possibility is there and I wouldn't put it past MS to do such a thing. I remember a company way back when called Novell. If I recall right I think MS bought them out so NT would become the main networking platform.
Just keep in mind that MS still has alot of money and buying up the competition has always been a strategy of theirs. Are they interested in gaming? On the PC level I would say not really. After all they have the O/S that everyone seems to be forced to use. Are they interested in the console gaming market. I would say very much so. Sony is the biggest threat to the X-Box so MS has to do something to compete. And hardware alone isn't going to cut it. Look at the Saturn. It had better hardware specs than the playstation but lack of developers and being hard to programm caused it's demise. All microsoft needs is the developers.

I apologize for any inaccuracies that may have been printed but everything I've stated is to the best of my knowledge. I don't follow MS that much anyway. It's like worshipping the devil. I have better things to do with my time. He He.




Edited by - shaggynick on August 18, 2000 2:53:52 AM