Microsoft Studios Exec Cautions Valve on Launching Hardware Pages PREV 1 2 3 4 | |
Doesn't really seem like a tough business when your opponents are: A money sucking corporation with overpriced everything. A money sucking corporation who also stand for everything that everyone hates. An ancient corporation who have stuck with the same titles since 1985. | |
I completely agree. It's nice to see an industry professional not putting their foot in their mouth and at the very least being diplomatic rather than aggressive. | |
I am also cautious. Valve do not have much experience in manufacturing. But neither did Microsoft really, when they first launched the XBOX. Their console needs to be cheap, lightweight, and have a good catalogue of games from the offset. The last point will be easy if everything is derivative from steam, but making sure that said console can run all the games on steam will be more problematic. Even moreso as it's based on Linux. | |
Valve's free Steam service with be open source, has a great distribution network, an already established community, and easily the best deals on games (humble bundles aside) available to consumers. Last time I checked, Xbox Live is a paid service that has nothing on the bigger side of sales, is closed off to Microsoft's iron fist, AND just loves to plaster your screen in ads. The only reason MS would stand a chance in the next console generation is the mindless drones who will buy it because they can't unhinge Xbox and COD from each other. If any company has the drive to enter the console market, it's Valve. | |
So just because Microsoft can't make a game console that is worth a shit (1 out of 3 Xbox 360 consoles will Red ring out of the box) that they have to give Valve a hard time. Keep in mind Nintendo originally made playing Cards, Sony sold 2nd hand bomb-damaged merchandise before making Japan's first tape recorder the type-g. Microsoft they worked 2nd banana as the company Apple outsourced much of its original software to, then they got contracted by IBM and the US Government. Remember about a year or so ago Valve was pickling up and hiring some of the Internet's brightest hardware modders, electronic hobbyist and DIY gurus. I think that all went to making this console. | |
People, we have to stop and appreciate the irony of this situation. A former Microsoft employee goes on to form a gaming company that creates several successful titles, crafts one of the largest game distribution services in the world, and they are now poised to enter the hardware market to compete directly with services like XBox Live directly. Microsoft, on the other hand, takes steps away from open-platform gaming by trying to patent hardware that allows them to interrupt your games with ads, creating a widely-panned OS, and making two consoles that only manage to survive their excessive cost-per-unit ratios and massive hardware failure rates by virtue of the Halo franchise. And Microsoft is trying to give Valve advice on how to deal with the market. I'll bet Gabe laughed his ass off when he heard about this. | |
I've read a few of the posts here, and I think there are a couple of things that people don't quite get yet. | |
"Please don't compete with us, I'm BEGGING YOU DONT COMPETE WITH US" | |
Microsoft is saying this? They finally got an OS that people enjoyed using after the 98SE mess and 'The OS that shall not be named', who then decided to use an App Store approach to 'improving' user experience... And isn't Xbox Live considered the most acidic gaming community, especially in the Halo/COD servers? Given that Steam has been the big pioneer for PC gaming since... Windows, I am not at all surprised at this ... interesting observation. | |
If Valve does anything to the console market like it did to the digital distribution market Phil Harrison is fucked and I hope he knows it. Valve is poised to release an open console the likes of which have never been seen, they just make good business and press decisions, far better than Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo. Take their success in Russia, they were cautioned against the Russian market because of the prevalence of piracy but they realized they just had to provide a better service, which they did and their business exploded in a way that no other video game entertainment company has ever seen. Valve proves just how incompetent other entertainment companies are by doing the "impossible". The reason I believe Valve has a solid shot at producing consoles successfully is specifically because they won't take hints from other companies because other companies are constantly fucking up as we hear about every week on this very website. Valve adapts and innovates and it turns out that that is an incredibly good business practice. | |
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Oh, look, we got new product competing with outs? what to do, what to do? improve our product? no lets defame the new one instead.
yep, i coulnt understand what he was trying to say either. typical microsoft spokesman i guess?