A leaked internal Microsoft video allegedly provides some hints as to what the company's Windows Gaming eXperience (WGX) team is attempting to do. The video, dug up by ZDnet, showcases what appears to be several concepts that could cross between Windows, Xbox and mobile platforms. The video is PC-focused, but features Microsoft's Avatars moving around screens using Kinect functionality, while interacting with social games and media, along with the Avatar Marketplace.
A now-removed LinkedIn job posting reportedly described the function of the WGX Team as creating a "new world-class gaming platform" to define "the next generation of Windows and Web gaming to 300 million potential customers."
According to ZDnet, the video was dated May 2010 -- in this world of corporate ADD and division restructuring, take nothing of what you see in the clip as the gospel of Windows future according to Microsoft. Just remember how that whole Kinect object scanning video turned out, or didn't turn out ...
Oh wow. This is actually pretty neat. I love my avatar and would love more ways to use it. Kicking keflings around is fun, but I do so desire more. And this, this looks like what I am wanting.
Pretty much the only thing that interested me in the video was the part where it had the Xbox avatars shotting each other. I'm totally for a laid back, cartoony Xbox avatar FPS game.
Let's not just leave it to Steam. We need them to have competitors like Impulse, GOG and Direct2Drive keep them in line and not screw over their customers. What Valve has done with Steam is great, but a total monopoly is never a good thing.
"The video is PC-focused, but features Microsoft's Avatars moving around screens using Kinect functionality, while interacting with social games and media, along with the Avatar Marketplace."
To be honest, I'm kinda hoping this succeeds, I don't like PC gaming in it's current state, Valve making monopolizing the PC market and turning it into a huge in joke with games like TF2 and such, And besides, it would be nice to see some actual normal people on PC rather than 4channers (you know who I'm talking about, the tards who try to use memes and the ">implying" crap outside their terrible congregation)
I hope Microsoft does good with this, I love the Xbox 360.
This looks like they're still abandoning us... It's just in a more "yea so I'm not gonna hang out with you guys anymore, I've grown up. i'm gonna go hang out with those cool dudes 10 feet away from you. I'll always be there if you need anything, but I probably wont respond to you because I'll want to look cool in front of my new friends. No hard feelings?"
Well, the impression I got from this video is a sort of merger between "the casuals" (facebook/PopCapish games/middle aged women) and "the hardcores (BF2 "p0wners")". And THAT is a bad thing.
Sure if your a casual person, or maybe a 360 gamer with a pc this wouldn't be bad in any real way (from what I could see). But us hardcores who have spent more money when steam has their sales than on pretty much anything else see some MAJOR problems.
Microsoft is clearly trying to cater to the casual here, and the hardcores almost seem like an afterthought. Is that how you would like to be viewed as? An afterthought?... "Oh yea that Qehb guy's still here, what should we do about him... hmmm... Maybe we can give him a t-shirt?"
Hardcore games and casual games are 2 distinctly different markets, and I believe they should be viewed as such. I don't want your cranberry juice mixed with my apple juice thank you very much.
Didn't they already try this with Xbox Live and Games for Windows Live? They didn't even support their own platform so why would this be any different?
I would rather have that obtrusive, weird sounding menu jumping out at me telling me to update 5 times before I can play a game that we've got right now, than I would have any form of avatars even TOUCHING my computer!
Sounds like overkill. I want my games to be self-contained experiences. I don't want the console or the platform to be part of the experience or even be the experience itself.
Power up the 360 and it looks like an explosion of content and it leaves you shellshocked, and now they want to extend this across multiple platforms and tie it into Avatar and Live! and the Marketplace... guh! Too many buzzwords, and too much clutter. It's a chore to get to the games themselves with all this meta crap, and it's constantly changing and expanding.
The PS3's been the same spartan interface since it's launched, and although it's gained a ton of functionality it stays clean and usable. Like it or not, it's easy to use and stays out of the way, and lets you do what consoles are supposed to: play games. I don't care about tying all my platforms together and being able to access my shit wherever I go, I have a set time when I'm into games and I enjoy it, but it doesn't consume my life. I go out and do other stuff, I've got games I can take with me but I really don't need this ADD fuel that's coming from Microsoft.
Exactly. One of the reasons why I sold my 360. Aside from the controller and Halo, there really wasn't much I wanted for it. Most of the games I played were "meh", and the interface is absolutely atrocious now.
I prefer the PS3 and Wii's clean interface cause it's easy to navigate and they don't try to shove things down your throat.
OMG, Sins of a Solar Empire: Diplomacy is in the game add-on list! Is/was Microsoft planning on combining with Stardock/Impulse? That would be great for those of us who are anti-DRM :D
