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Microsoft Windows XBox (Games) Games

Microsoft Could Turn Every PC Into an Xbox (theverge.com) 255

For the past few years, Microsoft has been trying to mold Xbox One system's user interface and functionalities to resemble that of Windows 8 and Windows 10's Modern UI. But the company has also hinted that we will be seeing a closer integration in the coming months. It is expected to unveil some of that at E3 tradeshow next week. Long-time Microsoft watcher Tom Warren reports for The Verge: Microsoft is currently working on a secret project internally, codenamed Helix. Kotaku originally reported on the Project Helix name, and the work is designed to more closely combine Xbox and Windows 10. Some of that work has started, but more of it is due later this year and next year with future upgrades to Windows 10. Microsoft wants to enable features like streaming PC games to the Xbox One, but sources familiar with the company's plans also tell us there are greater ambitions to make Xbox One games playable on a PC without needing a console for streaming. Part of this could involve bringing the full Xbox One UI and system directly into desktop versions of Windows 10. The latest Xbox One dashboards are built on top of Windows 10, so most of the work involved would be customizing the interface towards keyboard and mouse. Bringing the Xbox One UI over to Windows 10 machines would effectively turn every PC into an Xbox One, especially if they're also capable of running the latest console games.
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Microsoft Could Turn Every PC Into an Xbox

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  • Just No.

    Don't make PCs and PC games worse, make the consoles better.

    Console ports already generally suck. Leave them in the console controller ghetto.

    • Re:No. (Score:4, Interesting)

      by mrchaotica ( 681592 ) * on Tuesday June 07, 2016 @02:19PM (#52268977)

      "Turn your PC into an Xbox" is nothing more than coded language for "sabotage your perfectly good general-purpose computer by infecting it with even more DRM than it already has." The thinking at Microsoft clearly must be "well, the consumers are resisting our attempts to force them to use the Windows Store, so maybe we can force them to the Xbox Live store instead?"

      • I think you've nailed it. The Xbox Live store (especially since it has the Gold tier membership), has to be hugely more profitable than the generic Windows Store. I suspect a consolidation is brewing. Maybe WinStore accounts are going to be migrated to WindowsLive accounts?
      • Shit, accidentally clicked "Redundant" instead of "Insightful". Replying to undo my mod.

  • Er...this is a secret? Last time I checked, there was an "XBOX" icon on EVERY Windows 10 installation I'd ever seen...
    • by Nemyst ( 1383049 )
      The Xbox app is just for basic functionality (achievements, friends, recording, etc.) and for streaming games from an XB1, it can't actually play XB1 games.
      • >> it can't actually play XB1 games.

        You forgot "yet." Like I said, the fact that Microsoft wants to compete with Steam with the full Xbox catalog on every Windows 10 desktop is no secret. Otherwise they would have kept the "Microsoft Games" thing going, licensed Steam bloatware apps or gone in a different direction. Instead, everyone already sees the Xbox brand and expects that someday soon Xbox games will be there too.
  • by The-Ixian ( 168184 ) on Tuesday June 07, 2016 @02:09PM (#52268875)

    you will only have to buy 1 copy of a game. That is pretty appealing.

    I bought Diablo 4 on my girlfriend's console at one point but she got sick of me playing it all the time so I had to buy the PC version to play on my computer (which sucks BTW, the console version is much easier to use).

    • by Yvan256 ( 722131 )

      You're probably making the mistake of trying to use a gamepad for a computer game which was made to use with a keyboard and mouse.

    • I bought Diablo 4

      There is no Diablo 4, you mean Diablo 3, most likely the Ultimate Evil Edition.

  • App store lock in jail time / ban's for modding = no way.

    And there idea of modding that can get banned is putting your own sata hdd in. At lest the x box 360 used to that way.

  • I only want one game for XBox One. This will allow me to have my cake and eat it too. Now if Sony can make all Blu-ray players a PS4...

  • About Time (Score:5, Interesting)

    by CrashNBrn ( 1143981 ) on Tuesday June 07, 2016 @02:16PM (#52268947)
    It will be interesting to see if those of us predicting the demise of dedicated consoles within the next 1-2 console iterations are correct or not.
    If so, then Sony, Nintendo, and MS will switch focus to peripherals (controllers, VR, etc) and become platforms that run on any capable computing device. Perhaps with something like a Ubi-key for their locked down DRM.
    • Not necessarily, since game consoles tend to be good hardware/price compromise and games are optimized for those platforms since there are a lot of them.

      The gamers (with occasional desktop needs) will buy the Xbox ; the desktopers (with occasional gaming) will buy a laptop/desktop. The extreme gamers will build their own crazy-GPU configuration.

    • by jafiwam ( 310805 )
      Sony put PS2 or a PS3 (can't remember which) capability in their Blu-Ray players. So, if you want, you can pay a too large monthly fee, hook up a controller, and play games streamed to it from the internet. They are trying all the same stuff everybody else is; music, streaming games, movies, books, etc.
      • Sony put PS2 or a PS3 (can't remember which) capability in their Blu-Ray players.

        It's actually neither...and both. It is called Playstation Now and it's based on Gaikai technology. (with maybe some OnLive bits now too) It is in some TV's as well.

        So, if you want, you can pay a too large monthly fee, hook up a controller, and play games streamed to it from the internet.

        It's cheaper if you subscribe for longer periods. One month is 19.99
        3 months is currently on sale for 29.99 (regularly 43.99) That said, I don't use it...because if I wanted to play a PS2 or PS3 game (which I do rarely) it's cheaper to get the disc and put it into my backwards compatible CECHE model PS3.

      • The PS3 is better blu-ray player than most blu-ray players, so you are better off going the other way around.

  • by Guybrush_T ( 980074 ) on Tuesday June 07, 2016 @02:18PM (#52268965)
    That just a natural response to steam/linux. I'm even surprised it took so long for them to enable any windows PC to run XBOX games since the XBOX is a PC running windows.
    • That just a natural response to steam/linux. I'm even surprised it took so long for them to enable any windows PC to run XBOX games since the XBOX is a PC running windows.

      I don't think Steam on Linux requires responding to right now. It's still less than 1% of all Steam users.

      Source: http://store.steampowered.com/... [steampowered.com]

      • by e r ( 2847683 )
        Steam + Linux user here: you guys should come on in, the water's fine. And W10 seems to be annoying a lot of folks...
    • Well, the Xbox One is a PC running Windows, and the original Xbox was also a PC running Windows, but the Xbox 360 was a different beast. It had a three core PowerPC chip at its heart and ran a custom non-Windows-derived (IIRC) OS.
    • I imagine it's also a response to the Steamlink. I don't know how popular they are yet but, they are excellent devices. They work well enough that I just racked my gaming machine and put a Steamlink in my living room and another one on a desk with a monitor/keyboard/mouse.

      Who wants a console when you can just tuck a beefy gaming machine in an out of the way spot and buy some cheap Steamlinks to play your games in the most appropriate spot.

  • I know, troll.

    But this whole Win7 -> Win10 upgrade thing has caused me to lose any residual trust I had for Microsoft.

    • I know, troll.

      But this whole Win7 -> Win10 upgrade thing has caused me to lose any residual trust I had for Microsoft.

      ---> into a Linux box

  • to rule them all...

    Dammit Clippy! You only had 1 job!

  • 1. That would eat away at hardware cosole sales. MS won't go for that.

    2. The whole point of consoles is that you can develop for a specific set of hardware. Though not impossible, and it would be great news for devs, I find it difficult to believe MS has solved all the problems relating to developinig for the wide array of PC hardware by making the software think it's running on a specific set of hardware, and performing fine. I am sure some games do low-level GPU stuff, how would that even work with a diff

    • by vux984 ( 928602 )

      1. That would eat away at hardware cosole sales. MS won't go for that.

      I *think* Microsoft consoles are sold at a loss, for the first couple years anyway and they make it back on xbox live and game sales -- they probably don't really care about lost sales of actual consoles... that's just the platform for their profit centers not an important profit center unto itself.

      2. The whole point of consoles is that you can develop for a specific set of hardware

      Console dev's still would do just that. This doesn't change that.

      3. MS may try to block systems that aren't fast enough but some will get through.

      Probably. But so what? The "default" reference platform will still be the actual physical xbox. If your PC doesn't measure up, that's on you.

      many games simply were not made to handle systems that are too slow or too fast (thugh like the above, software running too fast is a problem that can be tackled).

      Its be

    • Think Steam client. Now think XBox/Windows store client. Now charge everyone on a Windows PC $60 a year for XBox live. You now just hit a large group that would have never purchased a console. Microsoft makes very little money on the XBox hardware. It will be almost pure profit with very little downside.

  • More junk on my system to support features I don't need or want.

  • Microsoft already tried to turn the PC into a console (At least with the Interface) with Halo 2 for PC. It failed SO hard Microsoft completely abandoned pursuing it further, then blamed PC users for the game sales and terrible interface. ...now they are trying again? Just bring back clippy already!
  • The Goal, (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 07, 2016 @02:29PM (#52269069)

    Microsoft looks at Google, Apple, and Valve and sees the piles of money they're generating from royalties. They're receiving 10-25% of revenues from selling software on these platforms at the cost of what? Maintaining their distribution software, paying for bandwidth, and a couple of servers to store the data.

    Microsoft believes this is their best future. Hardware performance is not gaining at the rate it used to. Many programs are being pushed to the web (Microsoft's other focus) which requires less computing power. This means consumers and businesses are not forced to upgrade their machines and OS's as often. The extremely profitable OS upgrading cycle is dead to them.

    This is why they might allow Windows 10 to run in Xbox mode. Much like Valve they see no gains to be made developing hardware. It's a loss leader. Selling SDK's isn't what it used to be either. Distribution is where the money is. But making Windows 10 machines run in xbox they increase their user base and extremely lower their expenses. While revenues would sharply decline, profits would increase greatly. And profits is what matters.

    This is yet another reason why Windows 10 is/was "Free" and another reason why "There won't be another Windows after 10." MS under the current CEO is going all in with Distribution, Cloud, and Data/Ads. Everything else (OS, Tools, SDKs, Etc) are just delivery mechanisms for their new profit model.

  • by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Tuesday June 07, 2016 @02:36PM (#52269109)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • A drunken and slightly bloated Steve Ballmer clad in black spandex will shimmy up a drainpipe and into your bedroom window, where he will sail moistly past your desktop and furiously begin applying "x-box" stickers to the mini fridge in the corner of the room while furiously grunting "developers" over and over again under his breath.

      That would be a terrifying thought if I believed for one nanosecond that Steve Ballmer had the athleticism necessary to shimmy up a drainpipe.

  • So we built another on top of that and that caught fire, burned and sank into the swamp.

    So we built one on top of that and forced everyone into compliance... and that UX, that UX son stood!

    Repeating the same mistakes and expecting a different outcome is a sign of insanity!

    I'm not even sure what the business model here is - That they'll save a few million by only having one development team across all platforms?

    A TV interface that you control with a D-pad or joystick is NOT the same as a PC interface with a keyboard/mouse is NOT the same as a tablet interface with a touch screen. No matter how much you try to unify the concepts the interactions/navigations/cues are DIFFERENT at the very least from an input standard and not even counting things like screen resolutions, viewing distances and, becoming more commonplace, display hardware.

    Now there's nothing wrong with having one app store with one purchasing account for all the platforms but the UX for those should be customized to maximize the benefits of each platform. My ATM, smartphone and bank teller are all ways I perform the same functions with my bank - But they're in NO WAY a unified experience!!!

    • I think that providing user configurable skins that optimizes for phone, tablet, PC and game console is an excellent idea..... unfortunately Microsoft has control issues and couldn't allow that.
  • Right in the middle of your COD match, the box will decide to upgrade itself to windows 10...
  • So long as devs are allowed to write to bare Metal.
  • The average console port is already bad enough, with barely sensible screen resolutions, mediocre graphics that ignore all capabilities of modern graphics cards, a network code that simply assumes you don't give a fuck about security because, hey, I was written for a gaming console where such petty things like antivirus and firewall doesn't exist, not to mention the barely (if at all) changed controls that fit perfectly for console controllers but are simply unusable for a keyboard and mouse setup (bonus po

    • a network code that simply assumes you don't give a fuck about security because, hey, I was written for a gaming console where such petty things like antivirus and firewall doesn't exist

      Or any other Windows service for that matter, no anti-malware, print spool, or any other thing that starts at boot on Windows.

      But I'm not for sure that PS4's and PS3's don't have some kind of basic iptables firewall running (after all they're BSD based).....let me zenmap the PS4.

      Rest mode:

      Scanning 192.168.1.101 [65535 ports]
      Not shown: 65534 closed ports
      PORT STATE SERVICE VERSION
      41800/tcp open http Mongoose httpd
      MAC Address: 70:9E:29:28:8E:32 (Sony)
      Device type: game console
      Running: FreeBSD, Sony em

  • Why didn't Microsoft do this long ago with original Xbox? The main limiting factor I can think of is that games of that era were written at such a low level that slight differences in hardware would break them. That's actually still a problem now - even if a user has a video card and CPU more powerful than what is in an Xbox One, even if it's an AMD GPU, PCs don't have integrated memory. There are ways to take advantage of both the CPU and GPU sharing the same address space, and those tricks would fail o

  • No. No. No. No. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Chas ( 5144 ) on Tuesday June 07, 2016 @03:59PM (#52269755) Homepage Journal

    If I wanted a fucking XBox, I'd buy a fucking XBox.

    I use my PC for actual WORK, and I wish those asshats at Microsoft would realize this and stop trying to turn my workstation into a goddamned game console!

    Wasn't Windows 8 enough of a fucking clue that people LOATHED a non-desktop UI on a desktop computer? How many more interface abortions do they need to foist off on us until they get it through their fucking heads?

    Do people want to pay $100-200 for an OS? No? Give THEM a fucking XBox.

    Let me pay for my OS AND LEAVE ME THE FUCK ALONE!

  • by Glasswire ( 302197 ) on Tuesday June 07, 2016 @04:03PM (#52269769) Homepage

    ...into a cheezy three hundred dollar X-Box and you're asking for trouble

  • No harm in Microsoft trying to blur the distinction between Windows 10 and an X Box. Because they're already done just about everything imaginable to get us to move our photography business to Mac.

    I swear Nadella must be a double agent working for Apple or Google.

  • by netsavior ( 627338 ) on Tuesday June 07, 2016 @04:36PM (#52270045)
    I swear to you we have gone full circle, wasn't Xbox supposed to be exactly this...

    I present to you, the DirectX Box! All the power of a gaming PC, but in a console. We will call it "Xbox for short"~
  • Games that support this will lack any unofficial or unsanctioned mods, no community fixes possible, something that PC gamers consider to be crucial advantages for the platform

  • The forced Windows 10 upgrades have been disastrous for our POS practice...

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