to the skilled podcast we're talking about the latest in gaming and media
tonight's guests as drag Knicks let's get started so windows 10 was released
recently and we've also had some news that microsoft does not intend to
compete with steam which most people would say is a very good thing but we
want to talk more about that so well first off what's your opinion
rednecks I am probably of the minority on this one because I would like Windows
the winners tend to compete with steamed on 116 I think steam need someone else
to push it at this point having Microsoft hence resources the thing is
is that steam is such a big element of PC gaming and one that can be good for
some elements it has been a problem for others the idea of we've heard so many
stories about the customer support regarding steamed and some of the
problems that we've seen PC gamers go through if they've gotten scammed or
they've had their accounts hack and how the legs as a lack of response I'm of
the opinion that steams market share in terms of the PC gaming world is so big
at this point that they don't really have a big incentive to really push
itself in certain areas and I think that's concerning because if you don't
have a competitor to sort of rise up the church to challenge it you start to get
stale and unfortunately I do see some problems with steam that have developed
over the last several years with customer support now Microsoft being
with Windows 10 being the sort of competition why would rather have
something else like goog Galaxy bien you know I think they know I think
competitions needed that badly for steam
that's interesting point actually cause we've seen other people try to compete
against it publishers like EA as origin and Ubisoft as you play and the
implementation is just not quite there like origin is like well you can only
play games on origin which a lot of people don't want to use it for a few
reasons I mean most because they have a games on Steam readied
and the nucleus like what we will solar games on Steam why they have to go with
you play too so then you need two programs to play their games
yep I mean and I mean you plays got a bunch of technical issues
EA's Origin as you know up and down alleys DA's customer support I will give
them all the credit in the world is fast responsive so the they have a better on
customer support which is surprising but good
goog is probably the one that's most respected out of all of them and
ironically the one with the least restrictions I haven't really used it
but I know the philosophy of goog is like you know is nothing like down get
on with galaxy in a beta period in terms of their their sort of client unlike
with goog is da no DRM restrictions on their other games that their client does
seem to have features that I think will give this team a challenge in particular
with cross-platform capability with the being able to play with Steam users I
think that's a huge wanda's right now that's that's a majority of where I see
the problem is why buy it on another platform if you're starting like you
like just sir or or something like that when the majority of the player base is
steam how can you compete with that
galaxy is kind of a chicken and the egg thing because now the the the ball goes
for PC gamers are on Steam so it's like you can start another one cause then you
can play with the bulk of PC games
goog is going right in the turn in terms of how it's going about it we're yeah
they've they've implemented so that they'll work with Steam servers and
everything like that I will give credit that is not like people can you please
the API's to do that they've developed to actually know be able to look into
their differ you know system they've let it so that people can create competition
it is that no one has had the resources to do it which is again when we come
back to Microsoft where ya they could definitely be
that they've got the resources that whether or not they would be a good
thing in the long long run if Microsoft overtakes team I don't know but you know
i i see where people are concerned with microsoft they know now you know the
fact that okay they're not competing with it that's a good thing it is that
you know unfortunately steam is got for me is that a stigma about it where it
has great sales yeah I can usually get my game running but for all the
positives there are these negatives that are never addressed that I think if
someone popped up you'll start seeing them be addressed rather quickly
you know they were the first and oftentimes being the first as well leads
the being the biggest one because you refers to market but I'm not sure I'd
like to the thing with Windows 10 competing with it is a lot of people
have been bad stigma of jeans for Windows Live in the back of her head was
so mad because it was so locked down but I think at this point she bought the
consumers are realizing what consumers need this and the people who make these
services are realizing you have to connect things like you cannot like
people out or you can not like other services outweigh you have to be
friendly with these other services is people are using so many different ones
and so many different ways they have to be able to talk to each other and I mean
I will say that the one thing that Windows 10 has going for it is is this
sort of hoping ability with Direct X 12 in the sort of that you know shiny new
tool that developers could go towards but there's nothing stopping them to
going back to steam with it so you know it i hope i Microsoft considers the idea
in my opinion 2222 really we consider that maybe we maybe we can give them a
little bit of competition or anybody that matter what I think the openness as
good as it will encourage you know the openness of the system we encourage
people to be more open because they're not forcing things on people this time
like the Windows Store has a lot of stuff but you don't have to go through
the window sore I mean that's it seems to me the entire mentality Windows 10
even the futures in it in Windows 8 the force you use Metro they force you to
not use the start menu and all the stuff and now it's just kind of like seamless
that it sits there and it works and you could ignore it if you want to you can
disable it in some cases if you want to met and you know uniting it with the
Xbox one also I think helps a lot to think their their approach seems to be
more of a passive approach that we're not going to stop people from doing
things now rather than you know starting up a competition for steam which is
starting point yeah let people sort of make their own choices and usually that
ends up in the long run you know getting a little bit of a base behind it in
terms of looking looking at you know openness of their platform I get out I
wanna go inserted developed for it at this point rather than you know if NEC
they've taken it seems like steam is more anti Microsoft and Microsoft since
I seem like there was the whole reason why they made their steam OS so they can
sell
machines without windows bundled in they don't have to the steam platform itself
does not necessarily require windows in order to operate and that's a whole
different it's a whole week I think that's why they interject the controller
too because then it's a cause the Xbox 360 controller for the Xbox controller
is the primary interface while for a controller on PCs and some people are
you mouse and keyboard but its primary interface so they're trying to distance
themselves from you know the microsoft monopoly and there's there's a whole
custody issues in go into I mean I can see some of the openness of Lenox and
the idea of this team OS in particular I think it was a good idea from Dell to
push that only because in terms of graphical graphical drivers I think the
idea of bells getting involved with it
forcing people to actually take a look at Lenox as a reasonable platform to
actually develop the drivers on where it was such a huge issue
in terms of any I'm on my Microsoft platform even like graphics drivers you
might as well just give up you know ten years ago but as the anti Microsoft
agency that I mean I think they're just going with the development of you know I
don't care whether it's a Mac I don't care for the Linux I don't we want
they're going with the open market share they're going with ok let's open up to
everyone and everything that we can possibly can at this point as far as
well as you get more people available to to play a simple Microsoft the country
Microsoft has made themselves more open to allow people to that's why they had
the free upgrades of seven and eight to Windows 10 in some ways are still
competition even if it might be like in direct competition you could think of it
is I mean there is definitely in direct competition there I i guess i i would
like to see more direct competition
indirect you could sort of know or you can ignore that it's like oh they're
doing it for a reason
X a reason why direct competition now you have to sort of take a look like oh
they're coming after us we gotta do something Microsoft has ignored the
Windows side for so long I'm glad that they finally paying attention to it
mean lady just considered Xbox and Windows separate which it should have
been the opposite that's a big point they can leverage I mean it's it's a
common I mean again I'm home for the software development side it makes
things so much easier if you developer one platform having the support multiple
platforms as a developer and as you know so like a systems engineer is
nightmarish because all of all your situations change all your elements
change and being able to develop for one idea one platform or one enginebase
simplifies things you know exactly what you're getting into and you know exactly
what kind of system you are writing into its i mean again even with the flavors
of Linux Linux that are out there is the same ideas that you know there are some
basic truths behind you know certain versions of Linux so I mean is it is a
good thing that we're moving towards more
base platform for everything and the idea of ok let's focus our resources on
one thing rather than sort of you know spread out so it so much that we were
just sitting there going Wade what is this one do again so how big of an
impact windows 10 directly will have on PC gaming I mean it's the fact is that
they have the Direct X 12 drugged drivers built in there and that's going
to make a huge difference from what I've gotten from developers that i've talked
to i mean the the changes like Brad Wardell from star Stardock just is go
raving about the performance that he's seeing indirect X 12 in terms of you
know just being able to process faster being able to do with more graphic
fidelity it's the kind of stuff where okay that's a huge change for the PC
gaming world because even with the older versions of direct tax it it wasn't as
good as what it looks like 12 will be and so there's a huge difference there
one on top of that the fact that you're getting the sort of common platform I
think you're going to see that more resources are going to be pushed into
the fact is that they can focus on one platform and when you sort of be able to
shine the same platform over and over again you're going to find hey guess
what I'm gonna be able to make more improvements to that one platform so
imagine this will really lower the barrier to entry sure people were buying
PCs like 400 500 PCs will run you know just as well as $1,000 one did a couple
years ago if it's going to be optimized DirectX itself is optimized and
optimizing the games for it to the simpler to develop for it then I think
it will I think it will lower the cost of that jury now that said will you
still see the fork a resolution than the people who want bad power from Direct X
12 in terms of a high-fidelity that we never seen before willette still be
there of course because again people want to grab as much out of those
systems as they can and you know we've been moving more towards porque gaming
with virtual reality headset some things like that I bet I'm betting that you
know we're gonna see we're gonna see any other graphical jump in another couple
years do you think they would be tied into another another console release a
lot of people argue that the consoles hold back the PCs that is a good
question and one now is to freshly hardware wise but I think with the
Direct X 12 in particular in and sort of the crossover with the Xbox in the
Microsoft platform I think they won't hold him back as much as I did what
we've seen from before I still think they were holding back let's face it the
hardware will eventually you know time out in terms of its usefulness
being able to optimize for what the system has been able to do I think there
is going to be a couple years where they're going to be able to get more and
more fidelity out of the Xbox one but sooner or later it will just glad to
hide now whether or not that that developers will you know be sort of
strained by that to be honest with you I don't think so
mostly because I think their strained already with you know with with with
budgets and I mean graphical fidelity costing so much of this plane I think at
this point this will only help because it should be more cost efficient now
again four years maybe that's a little bit different but as of right now I
don't see this as a as a negative that's for sure
yeah I picture everything scaling a lot more like you know what I was saying the
500 PCs be cable playing games as $2,000 1
different experience but the capabilities will be there for people on
lower budgets on the console side I wouldn't be surprised if like you know
the next Xbox and the current Xbox have the same games for a while
the way we're still seeing some 360 games made there's still so cross
platform because there's still some people who haven't moved over and don't
really plan on it because it's not worth it to them yet
and what from what I've gathered were especially regarding like Direct X 12 is
the fact that people seem to think that going forward even when Direct X 12 sort
of sort of goes away
say it sounds like it'll be sort of build more buildable than some of the
older drivers have in terms of taking that and sort of converting it into
another set of drivers where its modular authorised in a good way so that they
can just pull out what they need which means that if you will not say we have
another Xbox too I guess come out with you know a whole new set of capabilities
may be a lot easier for somebody to move a let's say nine fall or you know scale
bound to bed next platform without major issues thanks for watching the skilled
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