Microsoft Backs Off?

Posted by Rampant Coyote on May 8, 2013

This article is mostly speculation, and so there’s a good deal of likelihood that there’ll be minimal changes to Windows 8 (or the roadmap for Windows 9) in the future, but it’s interesting nonetheless…

Microsoft Prepares Rethink on Windows 8 Flagship Software

What it all boils down to: Microsoft is starting to acknowledge that trying to force desktop machines to act like a tablet might not have been the Best Idea Ever. Of course, they are kinda spinning it by calling it a failure to properly educate and train consumers – basically saying, “Windows 8 is totally awesome but we failed to show people how totally awesome it is!”

Yeah, well. Whatever.

Maybe one day, when touch-screen displays are ubiquitous on the desktop and people are very used to touching their screen for stuff, some of the changes they have made might make sense. As for me, while some people are into that, I don’t see it happening. I actually prefer to sit back from a (hopefully larger) screen, and the mouse gives you the ability to keep that distance and offers some precision you can’t get with the fingertip (without doing the whole magnification gesture with your fingers like you have to on a tablet or phone).

I am fairly new to owning a tablet, and while I certainly think it’s cool, there are a lot of things for which I feel it’s a very poor substitute for a desktop (or my beefy laptop). Even if you were to add a USB wireless mouse and keyboard to the thing, it’s strengths and weaknesses are often mirror images of the strengths and weaknesses of a computer. I really don’t think “one size fits all” trying to merge the two is really a good idea. Sometimes convergence is The Right Thing, but at other times, specialization is the key.

I still have a bigger concern that Microsoft may be trying to deprecate the desktop (although the push-back might mean they have to slow down their plans) and make their new Metro interface the standard – and of course, that’s now a locked-down, closed environment. They really, really want to be Apple, I guess, and are quite pleased with the results of XBox Live and Xbox Live Indie Games.

As far as my own plans as a game developer, this potential retreat changes nothing. I may be a little late to the party, but I make big games that take a long development time, so I don’t get a lot of opportunity to turn on a dime and jump on short-term trends. So I’m looking at long-term “sea changes.” Windows has become a “loose cannon” as a platform for me. Windows 8 was something of an early warning for me that I cannot make my games for a single platform, or even have a single “primary” platform anymore. Yeah, I knew that a long time ago, but this kinda turns it from a “should” to a “must” with me.

Filed Under: Game Development - Comments: 11 Comments to Read

Xenovore said,

Having played with HP touch-screen PC, I’d have to say, yeah it’s cool, it’s fun, but ultimately comes across to me as a gimmick; I just don’t use my desktop PC that way.

Like Jay, I like a big-ass screen that’s “over there”, out of reach, and the mouse is the perfect input device for that. I also like things to be *MY* way, not Microsoft’s way; no garish colors, no stupid blocks cluttering my screen, no full-screen windows, toolbars with exactly what *I* need on them (screw that damn Ribbon), etc. etc.

Also, one of the coolest features of Vista/Windows 7 is the ability to just pull up the Start menu, click in the Search, and start typing, and have it find the app I need. To hide/remove that functionality is assinine.
LateWhiteRabbit said,

I have friends that sell computers at some of the big retail stores, and they are constantly telling me stories of customers pawing and poking at the screens on demo computers running Windows 8 and getting annoyed – because those laptops and desktops do NOT have touch screens. Then, once they use the mouse, most can’t figure out how to do anything in the OS. Their response is nearly universally, “Don’t you have a computer with Windows XP, or Windows 7?”

I saw a Wall Street Journal article basically blaming Windows 8 for dramatically downturned PC sales, and from my friends’ stories, I can believe it.
Adamantyr said,

The funny thing is, MS stock is up in price…

The original Windows 8 lead was fired RIGHT after release. It’s pretty clear why; once again, a total failure to deliver apps and get 3rd parties was the culprit. What point to getting a Surface when the iPad has TONS of apps? And IE10 in Metro is awful to use.

I think this may be Ballmer’s swan song at Microsoft… if the board thinks removing him as CEO at this point will increase consumer confidence, they’ll do it.
eedok said,

“Also, one of the coolest features of Vista/Windows 7 is the ability to just pull up the Start menu, click in the Search, and start typing, and have it find the app I need. To hide/remove that functionality is assinine.”
They made it even easier as you don’t have to even click anything anymore, just type when your start menu is open.

I really enjoy using Windows 8 and think Microsoft did a lot right with it. Though out of habit I spent a lot of time getting to know all the new stuff in windows 8 before trying to work with it, so nothing was really shocking to me when it came time to actually work with it. Just a habit I guess I picked up from my Linux days
Maklak said,

> failure to properly educate and train consumers
Well, the thing with that is that (most) people don’t want to be trained – just learn enough to get their job done and keep to old habits. This is what hurts companies who try to switch over to Linux as a cheaper alternative – their end users take much longer to do anything and keep complaining and since employee’s time is employer’s money, Windows turns out to be cheaper in the end.
Of course if Linux was popular to begin with, things would be different, but it never snowballed on desktops. It can’t without pre-installs and those few companies who did that had a lot of computers returned because their customers assumed they would be getting Windows.

I was to a CS exhibition at Faculty of Mathemathics and one of the strangest things I saw was a database user interface based on Kinect. This was supposed to be cool and the presentation had a screenshot from “Minority Report”, but seriously, what they hay? I would understand it in a game, but for a business application this is stupid beyond words.

> Windows 8 was something of an early warning for me that I cannot make my games for a single platform, or even have a single “primary” platform anymore.
Well, Valve decided they needed a “hedge strategy” too. Steam Linux is now sitting at about 2%, but they’re working on a gaming console running Linux.

As for me, each new Windows was the worst thing ever until I got used to it. This was true for 95 and XP and I still hadn’t accepted 7. Gnome 2 was pretty good at the time Win 7 became popular, so I decided that maybe Linux was the answer. Then Unity and Gnome 3 came along. I understand that a for-profit company like Microsoft wants to keep selling their OSes, but I’m baffled as to why the Linux crowd can’t decide on what would make a good desktop, make it happen and stop screwing around with adding animations and other crap. Canonical is especially notorious for this. I want something rectangular, with good visibility and not tiring to the eyes, not useless sparkles.

> > Also, one of the coolest features of Vista/Windows 7 is the ability to just pull up the Start menu, click in the Search, and start typing, and have it find the app I need. To hide/remove that functionality is assinine.
> They made it even easier as you don’t have to even click anything anymore, just type when your start menu is open.
Actually works the same in Cinnamon. Unfortunately it also has the two-panel list of programs, instead of the Windows 98-style cascading start menu.
Bad Sector said,

Well, in Linux at least you can run your own desktop environment or even just a tiny Window Manager :-P. LXDE is my personal choice, but people also like XFCE (which is a bit Gnome2-ish). And there is also MATE, a fork of Gnome2 that continues down a sane road UI-wise.
Maklak said,

I tried xfce and could work with it, but didn’t like it much. I went for Cinnamon instead of MATE. It may not have been the best decision at the time, but they fixed the worst bugs and now it hardly ever crashes and I usually don’t even have to log out or #shutdown -r now to make it behave again.

Windows has some UI configurability too, through third-party programs. I’ve even seen some alternative shells for Windows 98, but they didn’t work out for me.

Oh and luckily for FK2, Unity is going to work for Linux and Mac OS too, so you get mulitiplatrorm cheaply. Although FK1 worked under WINE too, just slower than under Windows.
alanm said,

It’s just the usual MS bait-n-switch. Remember all the furor over the Vista security stuff? The “fixed” it in Windows 7 with a solution that’s less user friendly than XP… but better than Vista. Cue great public acclaim for Windows 7.

So now they’re turning platform the screws tight in Windows 8… only to turn them back half a notch for the next version.

Think you’re right, we can’t rely on Windows as the sole gaming platform any more. Gabe from Valve is right, although I’m not convinced by Linux on the desktop either.
Adam said,

I agree there are some rough edges on the current build of Windows. Seriously though. I could pick up a copy of VB6 (released in the late 90’s) and build a game that will run on windows 8. They are trying new things! They are exploring the space! But I can still build apps with technology released in the late 90’s! What more could we ever want? I know you guys are going to flame me and call me a fan boy but let me tell you.. As a developer I’ve been burnt by MS myself (Silverlight anyone?) I just don’t understand why people are all up in arms against MS taking their own product and trying some new things, but doing it in such a way as to allow CRAZY OLD stuff to still work. Plus if Win8 Metro takes off how long until Unity builds a player for it? Heck have they already, I never looked? But of course I do admit that choosing to build in a multi-platform way is really the way to go. Regardless of what MS does or doesn’t do.
Xenovore said,

@eedok: Good to know. I do keep hearing that, Metro aside, Windows 8 has a lot of good things.

The problem though, and it applies to everything — OSes, games, etc.: it doesn’t matter how amazing the software (functionality) is if the UI sucks.
BarryB said,

What it all boils down to: Microsoft is starting to acknowledge that trying to force desktop machines to act like a tablet might not have been the Best Idea Ever.

Heh, yeah. One of my editors regularly asks his freelancing staff (including me) whether we’d like to take on some Win8 peripherals to review. It’s almost a joke, since nobody has any interest in the OS. Some of us have been in the field for more than 20 years, and we all smelt a dud a mile off.