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Microsoft Studios' creative director has some choice words about always-online

Up to date numbers on Windows adoption. Even pushing as hard as they can with $15 upgrades and forcing OEMs into Win 8, MS still hasn't even pushed past Vista. "At similar points in their roll-outs, Vista had a desktop market share of 4.52% compared to Windows 8's share of 2.67%." By most metrics Win 8 is a market failure.

MS doesn't mind cutting off its nose to spite its face, though. If they're going to fail due to traditional PCs and consoles dying off, they're going to fail spectacularly and piss off a lot of their established customers in the process. That is why I don't have much faith in Durango succeeding with hardcore gamers.
 

Tomcat

Member
Up to date numbers on Windows adoption. Even pushing as hard as they can with $15 upgrades and forcing OEMs into Win 8, MS still hasn't even pushed past Vista. "At similar points in their roll-outs, Vista had a desktop market share of 4.52% compared to Windows 8's share of 2.67%." By most metrics Win 8 is a market failure.

MS doesn't mind cutting off its nose to spite its face, though. If they're going to fail due to traditional PCs and consoles dying off, they're going to fail spectacularly and piss off a lot of their established customers in the process. That is why I don't have much faith in Durango succeeding with hardcore gamers.

judging by the latest numbers win8 will pass vista by summer and get at 10% by its birthday this fall.
right now is at 3.3%
 

itsgreen

Member
It isn't listed. Unless of course it has recently been removed.

Yeah he removed it, also thought it might be a wrong link, but on my desktop I still had his profile open and when I refreshed the page is disappeared.

The more I think about the less I think MS will actually do this. This morning I also had some internet troubles and it reinforced my opinion that I am not going to deal with this shit. My internet is 99.5% of the time absolutely awesome, but the 0.5% is giving me so much headache that I am not going to deal with devices that have no reason to not work when my Internet is down. If they choose a very broad 'offline allowed'-period, like a month I'm good. But I also wan't a guarantee that the last system update they'll do will remove the feature completely. I want the ability to play my games I bought for 60$ each in 15 years.
 
So businesses are updating to W8?

It takes a lot of effort to roll out a new OS, let alone a new OS with a completely new start menu that company employees aren't familiar with. Old workers who have used Windows XP for a whole decade absolutely complain about the new start menu.

Most businesses are rolling out Windows 7 and some insane ones are probably still sticking with Winodws XP. Windows 8 is far too new for large businesses to roll out. Who knows what problems it might have with existing legacy software and infrastructure.

The licenses are coming as standard, so as far as ms are concerned yes. We might then choose to downgrade to 7, and in my place we have but it's no odds to them really.

Which is the problem. Rolling down to Windows 7 is not want Microsoft wants. Microsoft wants you to use Windows 8 specifically, rolling down to Windows 7 defeats the purpose of Windows 8 (unifying touch/desktop paradigms, creating controlled application stores like Apple and Google).
 

QaaQer

Member
Someone asked if Windows 8 is online only... that lead to the inevitable people commenting: "Windows 8 sucks"

no, it was more a case of "ms is terrible at giving its customers what they want, look at win8" followed by "scoreboard dumbass, win8 sales are epic!"
 

Doffen

Member
I live in minnesota. In the winter time (when most internet/satellite outages hit due to snow storms or whatever), night falls at 5pm. Not much fun to be had outside, it's a nightmare just driving.

Why would you live there?

I'm in the same boat, internet outages usually happens in the fall/winter time
 

Calm Killer

In all media, only true fans who consume every book, film, game, or pog collection deserve to know what's going on.
How has Windows 8 fared on the market? Over 10% of Steam users are running Windows 8 already. They're selling 20 million licenses every month of Win8 which is exactly the same rate they've been selling with Windows 7. They have over 60,000 apps published in their app store already. It's gaining about .5% market share a month worldwide which means it will be at about 8% share by the end of the year (making it the 3rd most popular OS in the world after XP/7).

That is flawed thinking. If you are a corporation Microsoft doesn't offer windows 7 licenses anymore. You buy a license, you get a windows 8 license that also comes with a downgraded 7 license. But which do you think they count? I bought 15 licenses two weeks ago and they were all windows 8. Not going to use one of the 8 licenses though.
 
It takes a lot of effort to roll out a new OS, let alone a new OS with a completely new start menu that company employees aren't familiar with. Old workers who have used Windows XP for a whole decade absolutely complain about the new start menu.

Most businesses are rolling out Windows 7 and some insane ones are probably still sticking with Winodws XP. Windows 8 is far too new for large businesses to roll out. Who knows what problems it might have with existing legacy software and infrastructure.



Which is the problem. Rolling down to Windows 7 is not want Microsoft wants. Microsoft wants you to use Windows 8 specifically, rolling down to Windows 7 defeats the purpose of Windows 8 (unifying touch/desktop paradigms, creating controlled application stores like Apple and Google).

Yes true. They still get the revenue but its fair to say they will struggle to establish it as a platform for business.

I don't think we'd want to have to undertake the additional support and training that such a change would require until it became very mainstream at home.
 

Bowler

Member
Same shit in upstate NY. Just east of Lake Ontario where we get lake effect snow every other day, and measure shit in feet. Spotty Internet during that.

Wait... Why the fuck do I live here?
 

UrbanRats

Member
I live in minnesota. In the winter time (when most internet/satellite outages hit due to snow storms or whatever), night falls at 5pm. Not much fun to be had outside, it's a nightmare just driving.

Satellites are in space, mang, they can't be "hit" by snowstorms! I call bullshit on this one.
 
To be honest internet outages are rare for me (been well over 2 years since i can remember not being able to access the internet and that was due to the box failing), and with unlimited and fairly fast broadband being less than a tenner a month. I'm sure i could probably just about live with an Always On console.

But i won't buy one just because i don't trust MS or whoever it is controlling the servers at the other end to keep them maintained at the correct level, or that the fact that onces they flip the switch the games become useless.

I do still expect MS to announce the right news at E3 with none of this always on or no second hand games rumours proving to be true.
 
It is not just outages though.

For me, it's the little dropped connections with my internet that really, really grind my gears.

For example, the other day, I turned my router off before bed to give the poor thing a rest as it had been on straight for weeks. I woke up the next morning, turned it on but it couldn't get a connection (you know when that damn 'line' LED don't light up on the router box). Restarted router and laptop, still the same.

Got pissed off and watched some TV, came back and it was working after half hour.

This happens regularly. I think I need a new ISP...
 

itsgreen

Member
To be honest internet outages are rare for me (been well over 2 years since i can remember not being able to access the internet and that was due to the box failing), and with unlimited and fairly fast broadband being less than a tenner a month. I'm sure i could probably just about live with an Always On console.

But i won't buy one just because i don't trust MS or whoever it is controlling the servers at the other end to keep them maintained at the correct level, or that the fact that onces they flip the switch the games become useless.

I do still expect MS to announce the right news at E3 with none of this always on or no second hand games rumours proving to be true.

For me it works 99.5% great. But that's not enough for something that shouldn't matter. What the fuck does my single player game have to do with my internet, sure you could stuff a million online hooks in there and say 'it needs online to function', but that is utter bullshit. Make it optional and I'll use it. Make it Online Only, where it can't tolerate outages that might last a few weeks or even a day, and you won't give me the guarantee that when you quit supporting the hardware I can't play any games, I won't touch it with a ten foot pole. And I will be a fucking bitch about it and will tell everyone a million times not to buy it.
 

Fewr

Member
Microsoft basically views the desktop PC business as dying. They can't say that openly because so much of their financials is still dependent on that business. So they built an OS that lays the groundwork for the next decade of transitioning away from the PC to mobile devices. It's a competent OS, no major bugs, it's fast and maintains compatibility. It doesn't have any of the problems that Windows ME or Vista had. There are useability issues, but that is normal of any version 1.0 release. They've moved to an annual update cycle for Windows like Mac OS. All of these things are smart moves in the grand scheme even if the transition frustrates some consumers.
1. It's not dying, and it won't because at work everyone uses desktop pcs, I can't imagine moving all the software developed within my company to osx, ios or linux, nor the whole company switching os, that'd be too expensive and not worth the effort.
2. I hope their supposed annual releases include system builders, I currently can't buy a complete w8 license, only upgrades from 7, andI can't get 7 and then upgrade either because they want me to buy w8.

Catch 22.
 
Satellites are in space, mang, they can't be "hit" by snowstorms! I call bullshit on this one.

just going to assume this is a joke.

Cant be sure on the internet all the time.

Don't you guys go to a park or beach or something when your internet connection goes down? Who'd want to play games in that situation?

We have like 8~12 weeks of good weather here in the Netherlands the question is how many of those are good for going to the beach.
I life in a rural area so nature enough not even fun to go outside for the nature. And when internet is down i go sob in a corner. Or grab a book because when internet is down television is also down.
Or i'll just play a game that works without always on..
 

Log4Girlz

Member
just going to assume this is a joke.

Cant be sure on the internet all the time.



We have like 8~12 weeks of good weather here in the Netherlands the question is how many of those are good for going to the beach.
I life in a rural area so nature enough not even fun to go outside for the nature. And when internet is down i go sob in a corner. Or grab a book because when internet is down television is also down.
Or i'll just play a game that works without always on..

That's a great idea. If the net goes down, educate yourself. Read a book. Everyone is acting like its the end of the world but its a blessing in disguise.











lol
 

Marco1

Member
I am waiting for the official reveal.
If the games and services are better than the PS4 then we will all be there.
I still don't believe that the next box won't be usable without an Internet connection. Do you seriously think MS are going to gamble the money invested in building this new ecosystem on that.
W8 and the surface still operate without an online connection so why should next box be any different?
I have set my sights on a PS4 personally because of my hate for kinect and how MS treat their franchises but I will go with next box if it impresses me more. I have zero loyalty to any of these companies.
 

DrM

Redmond's Baby
I can see lots of troubles with this 'always on' in several European countries. Power/internet hiccups are regular around here.

But well, we are not even officially supported by Microsoft, so response from tech support will be : "Deal with it".
 

R3TRO

Member
Nothing to do with this but I hope they change that green and white crap on the top of the boxes nextgen.
 

enzo_gt

tagged by Blackace
1. It's not dying, and it won't because at work everyone uses desktop pcs, I can't imagine moving all the software developed within my company to osx, ios or linux, nor the whole company switching os, that'd be too expensive and not worth the effort.
2. I hope their supposed annual releases include system builders, I currently can't buy a complete w8 license, only upgrades from 7, andI can't get 7 and then upgrade either because they want me to buy w8.

Catch 22.
Maybe not dying, but I don't think Windows could sustain itself on just iterating their OS for business. The consumer market is showing faster decline than anyone imagined, and Windows 8 is a pretty good answer overall but the few things it gets wrong it gets REALLY wrong.
 

quest

Not Banned from OT
I live in minnesota. In the winter time (when most internet/satellite outages hit due to snow storms or whatever), night falls at 5pm. Not much fun to be had outside, it's a nightmare just driving.

I am in the same boat it is better now that in city. That still did not stop internet from being out for days after a flood and spotty for weeks after while they made repairs. It was really bad in the country on DSL. Line noise would build up until the connection would just reset ever few hours. It got really bad when it was damp out. I delt with it because the alternative was dial up at 14.4 because the lines were so old.
 
These are the type of arrogant and condescending comments that pushed me away from a PS3 purchase back in 06 when I was basically told I was a helpless idiot that would do anything I could to get a PS3.

MS is going to have to really pull out the stops to win me over next gen.
 
Just FYI, his LinkedIn profile can still be viewed if logged into the site and yes, it still lists Creative Director, Microsoft Studios as his title.
 

itsgreen

Member
These are the type of arrogant and condescending comments that pushed me away from a PS3 purchase back in 06 when I was basically told I was a helpless idiot that would do anything I could to get a PS3.

MS is going to have to really pull out the stops to win me over next gen.

Yeah, the behaviour of Sony back then made me glad I was getting/having a 360 instead. I don't like this shitty behaviour at all.
 

HoosTrax

Member
I've only been following this sporadically, but every time I see Manveer's rebuttal get quoted, I kind of do a double-take. I wonder why he threw out Blacksburg, VA (the home of Virginia Tech) as an example of a "unconnected" place. VA, in general, has probably the most advanced tech infrastructure in the eastern part of the US. Maybe he was thinking of another Blacksburg.

Anyways, I'm not sure how I feel about the prospect that Orth may have been fired... it's a little much imho. The public shaming, on the other hand, was well-deserved and an appropriate level of punishment for his ignorant and offensive tweets. Making those tweets on an account where he listed his position as a Microsoft creative director was a blunder.
 

Hoo-doo

Banned
Nothing to do with this but I hope they change that green and white crap on the top of the boxes nextgen.

I'm with you. I'm secretly hoping they do away with the color green altogether. It's hideous.

Fuck it, go with purple. Works for the Kinect boxes.
 

itsgreen

Member
I've only been following this sporadically, but every time I see Manveer's rebuttal get quoted, I kind of do a double-take. I wonder why he threw out Blacksburg, VA (the home of Virginia Tech) as an example of a "unconnected" place. VA, in general, has probably the most advanced tech infrastructure in the eastern part of the US. Maybe he was thinking of another Blacksburg.

Anyways, I'm not sure how I feel about the prospect that Orth may have been fired... it's a little much imho. The public shaming, on the other hand, was well-deserved and an appropriate level of punishment for his ignorant and offensive tweets. Making those tweets on an account where he listed his position as a Microsoft creative director was a blunder.

The thing he did wrong was demeaning his customers in an irrational matter. He could have easily explained why to him Online Only was good thing, with arguments. He chose to make fun of legit concerns and basically said: "Ha! Fuck you you stupid fuck." No shit storm no nothing would have happened if he made rational arguments and addressed the issue in a fair matter, or not at all.

You are just stupid if you don't think twice when you are posting anything offline. Very often I think, "Yeah, I better not post it, might want to work for those guys in the future", or "Yeah I feel this hard about this issue, I feel comfortable explaining this when I am confronted about it."
 
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