Gabe Newell: Windows 8 is a 'catastrophe' for PC biz
First it was Gartner, now Gabe Newell, the former Microsoft executive and billionaire computer games baron behind Half-Life, has laid into Windows 8. Newell, who oversaw the first three versions of Windows under Bill Gates among other roles during his 13 years at the software giant, has reportedly called the touchscreen-friendly …
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Re: @h4rm0ny - I believe the MS is getting a unusually bad rap here on this one.....
"Is that a fact? Can you give a reference for that please ? (I am not being sarcastic, it would be helpful, I'd like to see the wording, thanks)"
No problem. You can find the MS hardware certification requirements on their website. Here is a link to the PDF of them: MS Hardware Certification Requirements
If you skip down to the section on UEFISecureBoot (begins on page 118) it is covered in this section. As per usual, when you actually get into the detail it's more complicated, but the summary version that it is a requirement to be able to disable secure Boot on x86 is correct. Relevant passages below:
"17. Mandatory. On non-ARM systems, the platform MUST implement the ability for a physically present user to select between two Secure Boot modes in firmware setup: "Custom" and "Standard". Custom Mode allows for more flexibility as specified in the following:
a. It shall be possible for a physically present user to use the Custom Mode firmware setup option to modify the contents of the Secure Boot signature databases and the PK. This may be implemented by simply providing the option to clear all Secure Boot databases (PK, KEK, db, dbx), which puts the system into setup mode.
b. If the user ends up deleting the PK then, upon exiting the Custom Mode firmware setup, the system is operating in Setup Mode with SecureBoot turned off.
c. The firmware setup shall indicate if Secure Boot is turned on, and if it is operated in Standard or Custom Mode. The firmware setup must provide an option to return from Custom to Standard Mode which restores the factory defaults.On an ARM system, it is forbidden to enable Custom Mode. Only Standard Mode may be enabled.
18. Mandatory. Enable/Disable Secure Boot. On non-ARM systems, it is required to implement the ability to disable Secure Boot via firmware setup. A physically present user must be allowed to disable Secure Boot via firmware setup without possession of PKpriv. A Windows Server may also disable Secure Boot remotely using a strongly authenticated (preferably public-key based) out-of-band management connection, such as to a baseboard management controller or service processor. Programmatic disabling of Secure Boot either during Boot Services or after exiting EFI Boot Services MUST NOT be possible. Disabling Secure Boot must not be possible on ARM systems."
I think it's a bit of a stretch to claim Windows 8 or Valve developing a native Steam client for Ubuntu will bring about the 'year of the Linux desktop'.
That said, after years of p***ing about with virtual machines, Wine and PlayOnLinux scripts only to achieve sub-par results, I can't wait to get my hands on that native Steam client. Since they've also ported L4D2 (in internal beta now) and it's version of the Source engine to OpenGL it'll only be a matter of time before we see the rest of Valve's catalogue running on Linux. As an added bonus all of Valve's older titles (Half-life, Counter-Strike, etc.) already run under OpenGL because they use a modified Quake II engine and will need minimal work to run on Linux.
Start marking the days Windows partition. Your doom approaches!
Damn Newell and his common sense...
If Valve puts its games on Linux, I may turn to gaming and lose the rest of my free time. There are some cool games on Steam, but getting a dedicated Windows machine just for gaming was too high a barrier to bother with them.
Re: Damn Newell and his common sense...
Its more about a migration strategy than the immediate effect.
If Steam becomes the cross-platform games provider, it helps move people to opengl (from directx) even if they are looking at windows-only releases initially, since that gives more flexibility for OSX as well as linux for the future, especially as even iMacs now have reasonable graphics capabilities.
Linux might be the trendy dev-bait but I suspect that Valve would like more OSX games to sell and linux (opengl) games are going to be easier to port than directx. As MS knows, its all about the developers. If W8 is a disaster then more people will pick up Macs at home and Valve would like something to offer them rather than suffering a drop in sales due to a lack of Mac games.
Windows App Store
It's not hard to see why he thinks it will be a disaster. Nobody will bother with Steam when an app store installs by default on every Windows box and in some cases such as Windows RT is the ONLY way to purchase, download and install apps & games.
Steam is basically screwed at that point. Valve might attempt to move the games to the cloud (and I would be surprised if they don't have a project in advanced stages to do that) so that the Steam client is just a dumb proxy. But even then Microsoft could do an Apple by forcing increasingly abusive to get their cut of any games or subscription sold by Valve.
It has monopoly written all over it. Even if Windows continues to be open, the very fact that a store is built in is an unfair advantage to Microsoft.
I'm not so sure that porting to Linux is so much hedging as leverage with Microsoft. If Steam has the means to make gaming heterogeneous then one of the main attractions of Windows disappears in a puff of smoke. I wouldn't be surprised if the whole Linux thing is just to pull Microsoft into negotiations and will be quietly dropped if those negotiations go to Valve's benefit.
Re: Windows App Store
Every attempt MS has made to sell games on Windows has been a disaster. They have maybe a dozen or so games available for the PC in their Games for Windows Marketplace, compared to 2,500 on Steam. Games for Windows Live is a universally reviled DRM system that has a nasty occasional trait of getting confused, and preventing legitimate owners from playing their games. On other occasions it will refuse to let you play a game until you download a large update. The option to do it in the background (Steam's preferred method) is not provided. One could be forgiven for thinking that this is all deliberate, since they would much prefer to sell games for the XBOX. More likely though, it is a combination of incompetence, and not understanding the market. As for MS being a serious competitor to Valve in the PC games market, that is about as likely as them beating NASA with a manned Mars landing.
Re: Steam is basically screwed at that point
You are wrong. Steam is basically screwed at this point, here and now, but it might do well at that one, there and then.
Re: Windows App Store
For me, games are the only reason I still need Windows.
All the tools I use have reasonable equivalents on Linux. I tried it for a while, but having to duel-boot into Windows is a pain for those casual or hardcore gaming sessions. It's just easier to run Windows all the time instead.
Valve currently allow you to buy certain games once and play it on both Mac and Windows. I presume Linux will be added to that, encouraging people to give it a try and maybe stick with it once enough games appear.
I can see Steam and Portal being a packaged as standard with Ubuntu in the near future. There might even be Steam on your TV or set-top box as many are based on Linux.
Re: Windows App Store
There is a difference this time. The Windows App store will be there by default and it will work well enough that nobody will be interested in another client except legacy users. Secondly since Windows Phone 7, Microsoft have been integrating stuff like XBox / Windows Live into the experience so all that side is sewn up too. Even if Windows 8 were "open", the power of the default means they effectively shut down interest in Steam, GOG, Pulse and all the rest of them.
And Windows RT isn't open so there isn't even the option for users to install a second app store even if they wanted to. As I said, if Steam ever appears on such a restricted system it'll be gimped to just provide social information. Potentially it could offer cloud gaming but MS would want their cut.
It's anticompetitive to be sure, but that's the storm that Valve is sailing into. There will be lawsuits and with that in mind the broadening of the platform to Linux could be seen as a gambit to bring about a settlement from Microsoft rather than an earnest attempt to broaden the platform.
I've seen it all before. AOL loudly proclaimed it was going to switch from using Internet Explorer to power its thick client to Gecko as a prelude to an anticompetition lawsuit they were launching. But when it came to it they just took the money hat MS held out to settle and dumped Gecko and Mozilla on its ass. Fortunately Mozilla survived this but the point is companies do cynical things and loudly saying they're supporting the other team is a good way to get concessions.
Re: Windows App Store
Steam on your TV is bang on the money my friend.
This.
I have it on good authority that Valve and MS have been barely on speaking terms for a long time. Maybe they have an effective symbiosis on Windows, but it isn't a happy one. And I'm pretty sure that the reason for the bad blood is at least partly to do with the XBox certification process. Valve can't be happy at seeing a similar regime arrive on Windows as well.
Re: Windows App Store
"Even if Windows continues to be open, the very fact that a store is built in is an unfair advantage to Microsoft."
They lost the built in / default browser wrangle in court. Do they not expect this to be challenged?
Re: Windows App Store
Uhhh...you've never actually TRIED Games For Windows live, have you? To call it half baked and painful is the understatement of the century! If they can't get that right, where they are trying to sell AAA games at $40+ a pop, what makes you think they'll make their appstore run ANY better?
Lets face it boys and girls...MSFT has become the PHB from Dilbert. they hear a buzzword, get all excited, come out with a half baked ripoff, and then are shocked! Shocked I tell you! when everyone doesn't trip all over themselves to buy their half baked mess. they've failed with Zune, Kin, Zune Market, GFWL, its debatable whether they have ever broke even with Xbox (since we don't know if they include the 2 billion RRoD writeoff or the R&D costs for Xbox 1&2) lost money hand over fist with bing, frankly worrying about MSFT actually getting something right at this point is more than a little premature.
Most likely everyone will try the appstore, find it a corporate committee designed piece of trash and go right back to Steam. I bet a year from now Gabe will be backing up the money truck and laughing about how all the reports have Windows appstore right there with WinPhone on the fail scale.
Gabe Newell
"producer on the first three releases of Windows"
What? Windows 1.01, 1.02 and 1.03? He must be proud!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_1.0
Re: Gabe Newell
I did see Windows 1. I don't recall its getting to 1.03, but I may have missed it.
Metro is a fork off of that design. Windows 1 was written in response to Apple's claim that overlapping windows were somehow its intellectual property, the notorious "look and feel" lawsuit. So Win1 used tiles, non-overlapping windows. And of course it didn't multitask.
Win8 appears to be based on that tiled design, with a touch of DoubleDOS rather than multitasking, updated to waste about a million times more available graphics cycles while most apps appear to run as fast as Win1 on an 80286 did.
Re: Gabe Newell, he who released Windows 1.01, 1.02 and 1.03
There's not a single mention of Gabe in the Gates: How Microsoft's Mogul Reinvented an Industry - and Made Himself the Reachest Man in America book, but there's one (and the only one) in the Hard Drive: Bill Gates and the Making of the Microsoft Empire, on page 312:
"Dedication quickly turned into fanaticism. Gabe Newell, one of the Windows testers who went on to enjoy a long and successful career at Microsoft, showed up at the office with a sleeping bag. For a solid month, he camped in his office, working around the clock and catching a few catnaps when he could no longer stay awake. He became known as "Madman" Newell from that point on."
Re: Gabe Newell
I still have my boxed set of win 1.03, ( five 5.25" floppys) so yes, there was a 1.03. My Color Computer was faster. The GEOS ensemble was multi-threaded and faster, too.
Wake me up when the Big Linux Exodus Really Happens, k?
This could be something that finally helps establish Linux as an alternative to Windows on laptops and PCs.
Product Activation was the first big catalyst. User Account Control was the next big catalyst. Now Metro will allegedly be the catalyst.
Wake me up when the Big Linux Exodus Really Happens, k?
the Gartner man has since retracted the statement,
When did Microsoft buy Gartner? I missed that.
Re: the Gartner man has since retracted the statement,
You don't buy the likes of Gartner, you rent them.
Metro. Is it too much to ask......
...or would it be possible to have the choice /switch to opt which interface to boot into?
Re: Metro. Is it too much to ask......
Well, yes, it is too much. Microsoft offered that choice with the first Preview and their telemetry indicated that nearly everyone chose it. Therefore, it was removed from the second Preview in a blatant and pathetic attempt to save face.
Re: Metro. Is it too much to ask......
In what way is clicking or touching the Desktop button, or pressing the Windows key challenging?
Not everyone fondles a slab
For many of us users, a fondleslab is unworkable. It's based on the Steve Jobs paradigm of a user who doesn't touch-type but who has fantastic hand-eye coordination. Steve, after all, was a calligrapher; he loved the feel of quill in hand. His "computer for the rest of us" was for handwriting fans; it was and is hell for visually-challenged touch-typists.
The fondleslab model extends that. You don't even feel the keys (we touch-typists don't look at them; F and J have bumps); you need fantastic coordination to touch the glass just right. For some people this is easy and thus adequate for writing their tweets and other brief texts. For serious keyboardists, it's as useful as a bicycle pump on a heavy truck. When I see a fondleslab I don't want to fondle it; I want to hold it by the edge and smash it against a stone wall. Win8 is all about recreating hte fondleslab experience for desktop users, a truly horrific idea.
But having tried desktop Linux distros going back to Yggdrasil (1993?), I remain convinced that Linux is three years away from being a useful desktop distro, and will always be. It's a serverOS and a geek toy. And Ubuntu is how a geek programmer insults what it thinks are ordinary users.
Re: Not everyone fondles a slab
His vision of a tablet was a device between a smartphone and a laptop. It wasn't a replacement for either.
Re: Not everyone fondles a slab
"The fondleslab model extends that. You don't even feel the keys (we touch-typists don't look at them; F and J have bumps); you need fantastic coordination to touch the glass just right."
I agree that fondleslabs are useless for a lot of 'real' work. I don't understand your point about touch typists though. Touch typing allows you to look in one direction at the screen whilst typing on a physical keyboard out of view. Since the keyboard on a tablet is the screen the inability to touch type is redundant surely?
Re: Not everyone fondles a slab
I've gone one step further... I don't even have the letters on my keys on my keyboard... It's like a barrier of entry to use my PC, you need to be able to touch type. It keeps the technomuggles away.
Re: Not everyone fondles a slab
No, the virtual keyboard is a different part of the screen. And a touch-typist does not need to look at the screen. I often know when I typed an error because I can feel the keys, not just by looking. But in any case I can't make the damned virtual keyboard work. I can't rest my keys on it, can't feel the keys, and often hit the wrong one when I try to look. And yes this is a major problem with touchy feely smartphones too; I can't use one of those either.
Re: Not everyone fondles a slab
Oh no... the expert keyboard user can't cope with the new-fangled on-screen keyboards!
What a shame, can't you *learn* to use one? Maybe the same way you learnt to use a normal keyboard, or were you born a touch-typist? Boohoo!
(Sorry - I must have eaten something that disagrees with me) :-P
Re: Not everyone fondles a slab
@AC 18:57 - Fred Goldstein was talking about visually impaired touch typists. How exactly are they going to learn to use a keyboard *totally* dependent on the user being able to see the keys?
F*cktard.
Oh, and, shove your witless sarcasm up you back-end. That's where it belongs.
@jaygeejay
jaygeejay - do you know what? I was completely wrong.
Maybe if I had read more thoroughly I would have spotted the 'visually impaired' paragraph.
Otherwise everything I said still stands. Just not in this case.
Oh yeah. It's only witless sarcasm if I actually knew I was attacking someone with visual problems. As it is - I was just being a jerk.
Not Like Newell is Biased
He's not worried it will destroy PC gaming, only that it will hurt his company's profit margin... suddenly Valve and MS are in direct competition.
this is getting silly
The Reg has become your one-stop-shop for Microsoft hatred. Not a day now goes by that they don't find some pundit or 'expert', somewhere, to tell us that we'll never be able to figure out Windows 8. Apparently, over the last 10 years or so, our species has lost the ability to learn and understand a new computer interface. We can no longer adapt to change; Congress will have to pass legislation freezing Windows at version 7 and the courts will throw out Metro.
Re: this is getting silly
Did you even read the article? this is about the tablet edition not being able to download software from anywhere other than the Windows store. Nothing to do with the UI.
While this is nothing new (iOS), it is quite worrying when it is Microsoft doing it.
Re: this is getting silly
To be honest, I never got past the headline of "Somebody-or-Other says Windows 8 is a 'catastrophe' for PC biz. I've quit reading all the hatchet jobs on Metro that the Reg has been running lately and I assumed this was just another in that continuing series.
So just apply my comment to whatever Metro story they run tomorrow :-)
Re: this is getting silly
El Reg is the 1-stop-shop for hating Apple, Amazon, Google AND MS. It's just cool to not like things which are popular.
When Opera and Linux inevitably dominate computing, they'll be mocked equally.
Is this really about Newell
This article offered very little in the way of Gabe Newell's opinion and rather more of Gavin Clarke's.
Why would Secure boot on Windows RT tablets be something that mattered to Newell, or kill any OEMs? There is nothing stopping Dell from shipping a tablet running Linux or Android or any other available OS. The only thing Secure Boot means is that people who buy a Windows RT tablet should intend to only run Windows RT on it.
Shocking revelation time: That is already how the vast majority of consumer expect to use any computing device they buy. How many people who aren't trusted with sharp objects go shopping for an iPad on the basis of what other than iOS might be made to run on it? The Linux contingent has been so dependent on Windows PC to have a place to run they've developed a mindset alien to how most of the world actually works.
Re: Is this really about Newell
It's not secure boot that matters to Gabe, it's MS's app store monopoly on Win 8 RT, which will be on the cheaper ARM tablets and therefore have more mass-market exposure. The vast majority of consumers won't know the difference between Win 8 x86 and Win 8 RT until it's too late. Secure boot on Win 8 RT just means that it's also impossible for savvy users to put another OS on the slab or for Steam to automatically partition the slab and stick a version of Linux on there which runs Steam games.
This is why he's hedging his bets by porting Steam and Source to Linux, it allows his app store to be present on Android slabs.
You could argue that he's being egotistical but he's got a point; why should MS strangle competition at birth just based on the processor?
We're all slowly nudging towards losing control of what we can put on our computers. Every version of Windows, Mac OS or smartphones OSes gradually increases restrictions.
While you can turn off a lot of these code signing checks now you won't be able to in the future.
All thanks to the excuse of reducing malware, largely thanks to XP and how Microsoft chose to stop letting "pirates" get security upgrades.
Nobody cares.
"We're all slowly nudging towards losing control of what we can put on our computers. Every version of Windows, Mac OS or smartphones OSes gradually increases restrictions."
Seriously? Ignorant, much?
Atari ST. Commodore Amiga. Sinclair ZX Spectrum. Amstrad CPC464. Timex 2000.
ALL of these were "closed" systems: you had no more control over what OS(es) they ran than you do over what OS a games console runs.
Choices are only worth having when they're meaningful, useful choices. Choice for its own sake merely confuses and annoys 90% of your customers. That's why GNU / Linux has only made it into consumer territory in any sizeable numbers through the actions of a mega-corporation called "Google", despite having existed since the days of Windows 3.1.
Good design matters. And good design is a hell of a lot easier to achieve when you get to design the whole device, from the hardware right down to the last byte of the software.
Re: Nobody cares.
They could all launch code from any source, though. You weren't obliged to publish via Atari, Commodore, Sinclair, Amstrad, or Timex unlike Win 8 RT.
Re: Nobody cares.
> ALL of these were "closed" systems: you had no more control over what OS(es) they ran than you do over what OS a games console runs.
> Atari ST.
MiNT, EmuTOS, MultiTOS, XaAES, FreeMiNT
> Commodore Amiga.
Linux/m68k
> Sinclair ZX Spectrum./ Timex 2000.
It has an 'operating system' ?
> Amstrad CPC464.
CP/M 2.2, CP/M 3.0, FutureOS
Trying to create a joke since forever
I have these works in my head: Windows 8 my computer. But I can't make them into a proper joke. Can anyone help?
Re: Trying to create a joke since forever
With such a bizarre and impenetrable post, you have made yourself the joke. Consider your long quest over.
Re: Trying to create a joke since forever
Windows 8 my computer and then threw up all over the start menu?
HL3!
As long as HL3 is not going to be delayed, gabe can do what he likes.
HL3 *will* be here soon, eh Gabe...?
Half-Life 3 == Duke Nukem Forever
Speaking of not learning from history...
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