a tit is required
Wow, it sounds just like Steam.
Microsoft is opening the Games for Windows Marketplace - an online store that integrates Xbox Live and Windows Live services to make it easier to buy PC games. Some 100 top titles are on offer at launch,including Fable, Grand Theft Auto III and Max Payne, along with newer titles such as Dead Rising 2 and Lost Planet 2. Gamers …
Sounds a lot like Steam to me (and Impulse). Except for the number of titles is small and some stupid logic about MS points which are mainly for Xbox 360 fans.
It will probably only be for MS games as they won't sell the competitions offering surely. Especially when they are better than MS offering. Which given most MS games of any worth are Xbox 360 only, can we see Halo3, Gears of war2, HaloODST and Halo Reach making it to the PC. You talk of cross platforms, MS going down that road? (Insert laughing and expletives)
So what you are possibly saying is that I can log on, buy Dead rising 2 (for example only), download it to my Xbox and never need the CD? With my really small and vastly over priced XBOX 360 plug in HDD? I think 250GB is the biggest, so that is a few popular titles and a full HDD later.
Ain't going to happen when they fear piracy and it would impact on the Xbox 360 false pricing and hype factor keping up the price of their games to stupid levels. Unless they hope to recoop the loss with sales of more plasticy cases filled with crappy HDD's?
Or more likely, all of this is to download the not very flagship type games (Those that firmly remain MS and Xbox 360 land) onto your PC.
Which steam does better, cheaper, more stable etc.
So it's almost exactly like Valve's Steam only it won't support thousands of games, only those published by MS and only those for Windows. (Steam recently added a handful of Mac games - i.e. all of them).
So tell me again why would I want to use it? Are they pulling their games from Steam?
It's all that, and it's availability is limited to exactly 6 countries. Steam is available in most countries, even second world Asian ones.
I'm sure many users will be pissed off when they click on the "buy games online" item in the start menu of Windows 8 only to receive a "not selling to your country" message and turn to Steam in an eager urge to give M$ the middle-finger. And no, it's unlikely that they'll extend the service here, given how Windows Marketplace isn't available here yet either even if it's been out for years.
Steam, Direct2Drive.....i think Microsoft are only erm 7 years (Steam) & 6 years (Direct2Drive) late, If only they'd taken PC Gamers seriously instead of trying to whore up the already saturated console market *sigh*
Unless they can drastically undercut Steam (Direct2Drive aren't even worth the money tbh, Steam does it so much better) then i won't be using them.
They could call it STEAMing (pile of shite)......oh wait....Valve might has that trademark registered.
Flame Icon = Hot Air = STEAM ftw!
"Valve originally approached several companies—including Microsoft, Yahoo!, and RealNetworks—to build a client with these features, but all turned them down.[38]"
[38] - http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/the-last-of-the-independents
{Excerpt from STEAM wikipedia entry.}
Microsoft fail much?
At least El Reg didn't do what the mainstream newspaper tech-section article I read did - blather in apparent horror about how counterintuitive it is that you "have to download a piece of software before you can buy a game". This was from their technology columnist.
I considered sending him an email, but it seems fairly likely that he hasn't yet gotten beyond the shock of how strange it is to read messages on a screen instead of on paper.
...include games that are ~10 years old!
"Deus Ex: Game of the Year" that year was 2000 though.
"Deus Ex: Invisible War" was release in 2003.
"Thief: deadly Shadows" - 2004
"Hit Man" almost worthy of recent... 2006
plus 2 for from this year.
Not the greatest advertisment for a new service.
miserysoft is dead.
Android Mobi
Eee netbook
Ubuntu PC
busybox NAS
Media Streaming PVR (and iplayer + skyplayer)
PS3 - for gaming (and media straming)
Wii - for gaming (and iplayer)
so who needs MS anymore?
Once upon a time a pc would do everything and was all that you needed, but someone thought that fragmenting the market was a good way to go.
Oh and what is this apple of which you speak? they are MS's largest competitor? not on my list.