Interview With Initiator of DirectX 58
Miguel de Icaza writes "There's a great interview from Shacknews with Alex St. John, one of the earlier DirectX / gaming guys. He talks about almost losing his job going against Bill Gates, and talks a bit about the MS development & political process. 'You know why the X on the Xbox is a glowing green X? The original codename for Direct X was the Manhattan Project, because strategically it was an effort to displace Japanese game consoles with PCs and ultimately the Xbox. We called it the Manhattan Project because that was the codename for the program developing the nuclear bomb. We had a glowing radiation logo for the prototype for Direct X, and of course as soon as that got out and the press covered it, it caused a scandal.'"
WildTangent (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm glad he's calling vista's feature set stupid, but the thing is it's too fucking late, the system shipped Microsoft's not going to pull these features out because it's a problem and we're going to be stuck with them for 4-5 years.
And yeah he ran wildtangent a gaming com
And also, I know from personal experience... (Score:2, Informative)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
You know what Freud said about men who smoke cigars, right? They have a subconcious desire to perform fellatio.
That was just Freud's way of letting people know he had a conscious desire to perform fellatio.
Re: (Score:1, Informative)
Okay, it's apocryphal, but who cares who said it? Most psychiatrists agree with the sentiment.
Yeah, but not this time! (Score:2)
Codenames (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:1, Funny)
Them japs sure love rapin the commoners!
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Japan - 1
USA - 0
No offense to Americans or anything (I'm Canadian personally) but hemorrhaging cash to keep the XBox project alive is probably not scaring many Japanese console workers when you consider how profitable the Nintendo projects and even the PS2 are.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
The funny thing is that Sony is fucking it up big time right now, but even so, Microsoft seems unable to capitalize on it. This is quite astonishing, seeing how much money Microsoft has spent on their console business.
I'm actually not qu
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Most scathing comments about Vista yet (Score:5, Informative)
FTFA:
Holy shit, Batman! That's the strongest anti-endorsement of Vista I've yet seen. It's not news, but it's the first time an insider who is really in a position to know what's going on behind the scenes (assuming he still has friends inside Microsoft, which is probably a safe assumption) has said anything this negative.
This slightly earlier paragraph was almost as good:
If you still needed any evidence that Microsoft doesn't understand games or security... there it is.
Re: (Score:2)
What makes you think that the DirectX people are the same as the Vista OS people? The former understand games very much (and there's not much to security in games, since even the most connected online games are walled gardens). At any one time, half of Microsoft is actively impeding or undermining the work of the other half.
Re: (Score:2)
If the people who were developing DirectX were the only people with influence over DirectX, then you might have a point. But they aren't, so you don't. I said "Microsoft", not "developers of DirectX at Microsoft" for a reason.
Thank Jebus! That's probably the only thing preventing them from dominating the world and releasing Micr
Re:Most scathing comments about Vista yet (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Most scathing comments about Vista yet (Score:4, Insightful)
True but just by reading what he says you can tell he's smart as a whip. He knew that gaming was one of the primary reasons anyone stuck with windows.
Yes, but.... (Score:2)
Yes, but on the other hand, what positive stuff could possibly be said about Microsoft ?
(Been there since MS-DOS 2.11, still haven't seen anything compliment-worthy)
Oh, yeah, now I know : Thank you, Microsoft, for keeping the anti-virus makers in buisness !
Re: (Score:2)
1. How great Microsoft was
2. How he was the father of DirectX and how awesome DirectX was.
3. How Microsoft understood gaming better than Sony did and that the Xbox would rule!
Back then I considered him nothing more than a Microsoft astroturfer.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
From a certain point of view, they are great. They offer products which do just about everything important, although I agree that they don't necessarily do a great job of any of them (look at it this way though, Microsoft is to Computer Associates as Einstein is to Dubya.) Microsoft is the 800 pound gorilla and that engenders either fear or respect, either of which can be said to confer greatness.
And if we take a look at
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
He is (was?) a regular columnist for CPU magazine, and his articles fall cleanly into 2 categories:
1) Why doesn't anyone ask me what's wrong with Microsoft? I'll tell you anyway...
2) Why does everyone hate something as awesome as Wild Tangent, since it's clearly the superior delivery system for $10 games of amazing flash-based quality? It's a vast Antivirus-Wing Conspiracy!
Then when people a
Re: (Score:2)
But as I stated elsewhere, a few years ago his columns were very pro-microsoft. I figured that would come back to bite him sooner or later.
As for Wild Tangents games, Fate is fun little Diablo clone, It's not worth paying $20 for though, it's a $10 game. I suggested to "The Saint" back in 2005 that he contact SOE, borrow the Snowblind engine and port Fate to the PS2/PS3, since there's a pretty good sized market f
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Bottom line -- good security isn't about bug-free implementation. It's about having a sensible design that actually plugs all possible problems. It's about accurately identifying the holes and then taking the right steps to plug them.
The Microsoft way (Score:5, Interesting)
Alex St John: A month or so in, I still didn't know exactly what my job was until one of the guys who hired me said, "Write a strategy for how you would persuade the publishing industry to move to Windows." I spent a lot of time writing documents saying here's what our strategy should be, here's how we could convince companies to sign on, all that. I came in to do my presentation, and I got about three slides into it before I was interrupted by one of the executives saying, "This is all great stuff, you have a perfect plan. Developers who are reasonable should all support it, but what do you do if none of this works." "What do you mean?" "What if in spite of your best efforts, your best arguments, you best relationships, you can't get them to support them. How do you force the industry to support Microsoft anyway?" "Force them? Well, I don't know." "Come back when you have a plan that answers that question."
That perplexed me for a long time. I'm thinking, "What the hell does he mean, force them? I can't hold a gun to their head, so how do I put all these companies in a position where, regardless of what they see is in their best interest, they have to adopt your technology?" That experience had a major impact on my thinking. I realized that a major part of my job was to figure out how to use technology control to create economic force, or leverage, such that money and business flowed in Microsoft's direction, and people had to go [to them]. That, ultimately, is when I became a "Microsoft guy," when I got that concept.
Re: (Score:1, Informative)
Ford has beaten employees within an inch of their lives [wikipedia.org] and descided that death related lawsuits were cheaper than a recall [wikipedia.org].
Racism (Score:1, Flamebait)
/ vitriol
Re: (Score:2)
Most Canadians I know have pretty thick skins, and I hope you are no different. If Sony wants to code-name the PS4 "Pearl Harbor", why not? I'll take it in the spirit it was intended, and not immediately get offended and spaz out enough to "take a stand".
Now, if the Japanese were planning a "mod-proof" console targeting the Chinese with a code name of "Nanking" - well, that's a little different. Midway, on the other hand, was a decisive
Re: (Score:1)
Would it be acceptable to you if I create an OS company with the aim of destroy a certain American company's market share and name it's first project 9/11?
Personally I would have no problems (Canadian) but understand perfectly the point you are making. Part of this (and I know this is going to get modded flamebait) is arrogance; there's something about "us" that's just inherently better so if WE did it, it's OK.
The other is the timeframe involved. WWII was 60+ years ago. 9/11 is only pushing 6. As time passes, wounds heal and jokes become more acceptable. Gilbert Godfried did stand up on 9/11 a week or so after it happened and may very well have ru
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
They succeeded at something else (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Xbox 360, on the other hand, has been a success, by any measure. Except in the Japanese market, it's got respect and market share... and the Japanese market is a special case.
What Microsoft has done wrong, however, is pull a "Sony-like" attempt to force Vista down our throats with DX10. I'm not terribly happy that Halo 2 will not run without Vista, nor that games like Cry
Well... (Score:2)
Me, I'm going to keep using Linux, trying to get Linux titles going, and playing something OTHE
Re: (Score:2)
Can't you pick up a used XBox and a copy of Halo 2 (it's been out since 2004, remember) for way less than a copy of Vista, even an upgrade?
Sure you'll be left without Crysis, but there are things like BioShock that won't have a (possibly artificial) requirement for DX10.
Heh... No, they didn't... (Score:2)
Want to target Wii? OpenGL ES will make your life a LOT easier. DirectX doesn't work there.
Want to target PS3? Better use OpenGL. DirectX definitely doesn't work there.
Want to target MacOS? Better use OpenGL. DirectX definitely doesn't work there.
In reality, about only half of the total potential customer base for a title would benefit from a DirectX only titl
Re: (Score:2)
Strange.. Just last night I ran 3Dmark 2000, 2001SE, and 2003. All were rendered in OGL. Pretty soon, 05/6/7 will be working. All in OpenGL. I played some Guild Wars, Eve Online, and other direct3D games. Most of the rendered fine using OpenGL. Here's a Guild Wars OpenGL screenshot I took (using glsl as well for shaders)
http://appdb.winehq.org/appimage.php?iId=8219
BBH
He spoke at the Penny Arcade eXpo.. (Score:2)