Alan Wake Reconfirmed As PC/360 Exclusive

Alan Wake (the game with the really great tornado from last year's E3) has been reconfirmed as an exclusive title for Microsoft platforms. Via Wired's Game|Life blog, the news comes from the awesomely named Helsingin Sanomat website. Remedy (makers of the Max Payne titles) had this game slated as a 360/PC exclusive back in their E3 2006 trailers, but news of Microsoft's new 'mentoring' role for the company appears to have renewed interest in the game. It's unclear why Microsoft isn't following their general pattern of purchasing the company outright, but the 30-employee strong company is staying independent. Microsoft's resources still back the company, though: "Microsoft has huge machinery for games production. If a team of 80 voice actors are needed from the States, they can provide it. Their test laboratory is also fantastic."

Any doubt?

[frenchy64]

Was there really any doubt about the 360/PC exclusive?

Re:

[theonephillyd123]

Given the close ties the company has to Microsoft as mentioned in the article, I don't think there was ever really any doubt. Can't really blame them though. If I was a small finnish game developer, I'd produce a couple exclusive titles in return for support from Microsoft.

If it ever appears....

[Arricc]

If it wasn't for the videos and the apparent "Demo" I'd call vapourware.

I've been waiting for this game for more than a year now, given it was supposed to be a 360 launch title as I understand it.

360 and *Vista* only

[Trikenstein]

Gonna be passing on this one.

Very Important Clarification

[WidescreenFreak]

No, this is NOT a PC/360 exclusive title. This is a VISTA/360 exclusive title.

From TFA (emphasis mine): Alan Wake will require either the Windows Vista operating system or Microsoft's Xbox 360 gaming console as its platform.

Go f**k yourselves, Remedy! I'm not switching to Vista just to play one of your damned games! You want me to play your game? I expect a copy of Vista to come with it, and we all know that that's NOT going to happen. Otherwise, I'll be sticking with XP and going back to your gaming pinnacles, Max Payne and Max Payne 2!

Re:

[Andreaskem]

I think this is because it uses DirectX10 for its graphics engine. Since DX10 will only be available for Vista, it will naturally require Vista to run.

Every serious gamer will have to switch to Vista sooner or later. At least for gamers, it might not be a bad move after all (new driver model, better support for multicore CPUs and memory > 4GB, ...)

Re:

[Aladrin]

It saddens me, but I suspect this will cause me to lose my serious gamer badge. Im getting old enough to lose it anyhow, but I expected to have a choice in the matter.

I dont want Vista. I liked Dos. I liked Win3.1. I liked Win98/Me. I like XP. I dont want all the extra crap in Vista. Until someone finds a way to slim it down and have a barebones Vista, with no DRM and no unnecessary cruft, I dont want it.

What I really want is for games to run on Kubuntu. With the exception of games, it does everything I w

Re:

[GFree]

What I really want is for games to run on Kubuntu.

That's what I want too (or more specifically, games for all Linux distros).

Problem though, is that what I and others want is different to what we will get. In other words, holding out for more game on Linux will probably result in disappointment, at least in terms of what the PC/consoles have available. I know that X3: Reunion is in the process of being ported to Linux, which is nice, but if you're OK with some smaller/older games, I'd say give it up and

Re:

[Raenex]

And I want people to use apostrophes. Will you start doing that? Will Microsoft change Vista to your liking? Will games start working seamlessly in Linux?

Re:

[Aladrin]

Oddly enough, I DO use apostrophes. Ive been working on a greasemonkey script to use TinyMCE on Slashdot... Apparently its got a few issues still. (Yes, I put an apostophe there.)

Re:

[Raenex]

Ah, interesting. Sorry to nag, but I'd say that you shouldn't use it until apostrophes work.

Re:

[Jaysyn]

You sound like a shill, but I'll bite.

If *no one* buys games that only run on Vista this won't be a problem. Also, there are so many 100's of good games that run fine on "older" operating systems that I haven't gotten around to playing yet, I don't see any reason to switch to the crap MS trying to push on me.

Re:

[hr.wien]

If it uses DX10 exclusively, people will need a DX10 card as well. At present, that is only the 8000 series from Nvidia. Somehow I doubt Remedy is that stupid. It's extremely likely the game also has a DX9(ex?) fallback, so porting it to XP would be trivial.

If it wasn't for all that money in their back pockets weighing them down that is.

Re:

[Nasarius]

Somehow I doubt Remedy is that stupid.

Given that they're being backed by Microsoft, I wouldn't count on it. Microsoft has their hands in enough good game developers to force the adoption of Direct3D 10, even if it will hurt them commercially. Fuck 'em. I certainly won't be buying any game that requires Vista and obsoletes all but the newest video cards.

Re:

[iNetRunner]

DX10 does run on non DX10 cards you know..

Though, like you, I don't fancy the Vista requirement one bit. Oh-well, have to get the 360 version instead.

Re:

[hr.wien]

Actually, no. It won't run on DX9 generation cards. With the removal of cap bits, cards now actually have to support everything the API requires to be called DX10 compatible. Older cards just don't have the required functionality. (Shader model 4, scheduling support etc.)

Re:

[iNetRunner]

Well, I suppose that is possible, but I still would like to see some confirmation from Microsoft. (I haven't read too many reviews about the new tech.) New SM 4 of course wouldn't be compatible, but universal stages of the DX10 might be synthesized the with older DX9 pipes.. Ati's DX10 chip will not support as universal stages as Nvidia, but it still is DX10 compatible, right? Anyway.. Well, sometimes you just have to through the old baggage away and stop supporting the old.

Re:Very Important Clarification

[hal2814]

Yeah, go double f yourselves, Remedy! I'm not going to go out there and buy a whole $400 console just to play one of your games! You want me to play your game? I expect an XBox 360 to come with it, and we all know that that's NOT going to happen.

Oh wait a minute, that sounds a bit silly, doesn't it? Just as silly as expecting any other system requirement to come with a game.

NO, an OS upgrade != Console upgrade!!!

[WidescreenFreak]

I was waiting for someone to state that exact response. Thank you for not making me wait too long. No, it absolutely does not sound silly. Your attempt to equate the two is what sounds silly, or actually closer to ignorant.

As people like you always tend to forget, upgrading a PC vs. a console it a totally different experience. When you upgrade a console, it's with the expectation of newer and better games. The console is expected to be engineered with a narrow scope and hardware platform with one specific function -- to play games, although admittedly many are marching towards becoming media centers. The hardware is a specific chipset; the coding is for a specific set of circuitry. You can have a reasonable expectation that everything will work just fine and if something goes wrong, you lose your ability to play games.

With Remedy's expectations that you must upgrade to Vista, there are a ton of other issues that might be affected. We're already getting reports of hardware and software incompatibilities across the board. If you have iTunes, don't go to Vista - the blue screen will follow. I've been reading that old games run slower on Vista than on XP. I've not heard good things about NVidia's drivers for Vista. There are lots of reports of application incompatibility.

So, upgrading to Vista just because Remedy doesn't want to use DX9 will likely have more ramifications than just the cost of upgrading to a new operating system. In this case, if something goes wrong you could lose a lot more than just your ability to play games, not the least of which is who-know-how-many hours possibly rebuilding your PC, loss of data, inability to use software that you've been using for years, and lots of other headaches that have been reported for just about every new Windows version since 3.1 -> 95.

In fairness, some have reported no problems at all with Vista, and I say "Good for them". And, yes, yes, we know all about backups or using a test PC instead, blah, blah, blah. We're geeks. We know all about that. Some ignoramus parent who buys Vista (A) because it's programmed into them by Microsoft marketing, (B) because they want to have the newest status symbol, or (C) because their kid is screaming to play Crysis or Alan Wake isn't going to take the same precaution and therefore risks encountering a lot of upgrade problems. "Gee, dad. Did you back up all of your data before you tried to upgrade?" "No." "How far back does your data go?" "Since XP was released." You don't run into that with a console upgrade because your old console is still there!

Upgrading to Vista just to play one game has far more risks involved for things that have nothing to do with that game than buying a new console just to play one game. Forcing customers to a whole new operating system is a much more arrogant statement on the company than forcing them to buy a new console.

Re:

[hal2814]

"You want me to play your game? I expect a copy of Vista to come with it"

You made the two equivalent, not me. If a copy of Vista came with the game then it would be a-OK from your stated position. In your agrument, you completely ignore the risks involved in upgrading the OS and then try to blast my argument for not taking that into account. For someone who was "waiting for someone to state that exact response" you sure didn't set up well for it.

Re:

[WidescreenFreak]

Apparently, the phrase "sarcasm" is lost on you.

Re:

[hal2814]

You obviously condoned an issue you claim to later expect to take someone to task on. Sorry, but you'll have to do better than cry sarcasm to have a coherent argument. It's not my fauly you didn't think things through. Better luck next time.

Re:

[Nasarius]

Wow, you're an idiot. Go read the fucking post again:

Go f**k yourselves, Remedy! I'm not switching to Vista just to play one of your damned games! You want me to play your game? I expect a copy of Vista to come with it, and we all know that that's NOT going to happen.

That was a rant, not an "argument". You made a piss-poor analogy and got called on it.

MOD PARENT UP, MOD GP TROLL PLEASE!

[Were-Rabbit]

This is exactly the argument that I'm sick of getting into with die-hard console fans with respect to upgrading. Most of us at least know that when upgrading to a new Micosoft operating system to install it on a test box, install it on our main box after all of our pertinent data is backed up, or install it on a box where we don't really care if the data is lost. The average Joe who doesn't know nearly as much about computers as we do and whose kids want to play any DX10-only game is NOT going to take any

Re:

[MrNemesis]

...and if someone can point out why XP is utterly incapable of running DX10 when Vista is, or why Company of Heroes refuses to install on Windows 2000 but runs just fine on XP.

Hint: the answer to both questions is firstly a) Payola and b) greedy fucking monopolist bastards.

Wake's DirectX 10.1 support

[G3ckoG33k]

I wonder how many of all these announced games, including alan wake, which will end up using DirectX 10.1.

Possibly they are more than anyone cares to admit, today only few days after Vista's launch into the land of no DirectX 10.0 games in sight...

Re:

[PingSpike]

Does vista even have directX 10 yet? (and by directX, I mean direct3d) Last time I checked it was still waiting for that component to arrive and was presently functioning with DX9. I could be wrong though, I don't really have any interest in vista.

Re:

[aikouka]

To my knowledge, Vista includes DirectX 10. However, you're probably thinking of the fact that Vista's Aero interface was coded in DirectX 9EX. DirectX 9EX is essentially DirectX 9 ported to work with Vista's new graphic driver model.

Avesomely named website?

[usv]

What does the summary mean by saying "the awesomely named Helsingin Sanomat website"? Is it perhaps the typo "Helsingen Sanomat" in the actual article? Something else? I really don't know what's so awesome about it. "Sanomat" is just a word meaning newspaper in finnish. Just like in "The New York Times" or "The Sydney Morning Herald". City name and newspaper suffix. Nothing else.

Re:

[Floritard]

i know. i was trying to pronounce it in weird ways to see if it would produce a phonetically similar trick phrase or something but no luck. now how did your finger miss "w" for "v"? those keys are not very close.

Re:

[usv]

Hmm, don't really know how the "w" and "v" got changed, damn. Maybe I was too eager to write under the influence of high doses of caffeine, or maybe the suggested phonetic similiarity of the two characters in finnish caused this. Can't really tell.

DX10? Not likely.

[Jartan]

If it's really going to require DX10 then it's not going to be due out for a long long time. ATI just very recently released DX10 cards and Nvidia hasn't had them out very long either. All of them are extremely expensive and it'll take a great deal of time for DX10 to build the market mass to support any kind of reasonably succesful game limited to DX10 only.

Re:

[Frumply]

I don't see a problem, as they're releasing it on a console as well. Besides, isn't the whole point of the game being DX10 only to increase the Vista user base? Considering how reluctant people seem to be to adopt Vista, this seems like a fairly wise decision.

Re:

[MonsterSound]

ATI has not released DX10 cards. Nvidia released the 8800 series in November 06 (without DX10 drivers).

Re:

[cluke]

Their test lab IS fantastic, but unfortunately the developers close all their defect tickets with "WORKING AS EXPECTED".

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Oh *PC*/360

[John Zebedee]

Showing my age, I saw the title and flashed on a port to the really *big* iron. Consoles, eh? You kids don't even know you're alive! Games should be printed out in EBCDIC after showing in green screen. And get off my damn lawn!