There is starting to be some considerable controversy around Windows 8. What I’ve seen of Win8 so far, I don’t like. I suppose if you are using a tablet or smart phone it is great. But, if you are a gamer, it probably is NOT going to work for you.
Take a quick read of an article appearing in BBC’s New Technology: Valve boss Gabe Newell calls Windows 8 a ‘catastrophe’. Microsoft is including Windows Store in the Win8 operating system. It will be the only way to download apps to your Win8 device. Sound like fun?
I am not sure the Win-Store is really going to be the only way to get software into Win8 devices. But, a number of people are saying the same thing. So, it may be that is what Microsoft is planning.
Microsoft will take a 30% cut of every sale made through their store. The massively successful Steam online game store that Valve runs gives a commission on every title sold through their online market. But the Win8 users will not be able to use Steam’s store. So, if true, we are seeing Microsoft once again trying to lock out competition.
Some think that Win8 will be like Vista, a flop. Win9 will then be built to work and deal with market place realities and be what Win8 SHOULD have been.
The majority of Second Life users may well be holding on to Win7.
Win8 on desktop is ok. it has the metro interface but you can click the Desktop tile and it works like Win7. like taskbar and desktop icons as you like. is no Start menu on it but if click the bottom left corner and Tile start. you can mod the Tiles as you like as well. can have everything on your computer shown on there if you want
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the restrictions are in the Metro interface which is designed to work seamlessly on all MS powered devices including phones. most notably the metro version of Internet Explorer. is HTML5 only for vids, same like Apple are doing on their phones
If use the Internet Explorer 10 on the Win8 desktop then is full browser everything just like Win7. so can run all the normal interwebs stuff on there, including Valve and everything else
just add. the future of Win8 is more about business i think. same as it always is with Windows. if business uses it then people use it at home as well
the ones who most worried about Win8 are companies like Citrix and VMWare for medium size businesses. Win8 Server is a direct assault on them. is pretty powerful as a private cloud without any other dependencies. with close integration with Azure and Office Live
we done some tests at our place. for remote desktopping then is as good as Citrix, and better in some cases like multi-desktopping heavy content like video and 3D Microsoft invent a whole new bunch off protocols for this stuff. and is way cheaper per terminal. dunno what Citrix are going to do about it
dunno either if we will go to Win8. but probably will eventually if we can get rid off our VMWare and Citrix. just to simpify things and hopefully reduce costs
Windows 8 is an off cycle version.
Just about everyone has observed that every other version out of Microsoft is crap, although you would not know it from the advertising campaign.
I do not expect much of W8, it is the trial run for W9 (or whatever they decide to call the next version)
Windows 8 still has a desktop. That desktop still runs Steam and every application that Windows 8 runs (except for Windows RT, the ARM-only based version). So Windows 8’s new start screen and its Windows Store supplied apps is entirely an additive experience, not subtractive. You can’t speak of it as if it takes something away, it doesn’t.
As for comparisons to Windows Vista. There’s that weak argument going around that “Windows 98 was good Windows ME sucked Windows XP was good Windows Vista sucked Windows 7 was good I”ll wait for Windows 9”. Whatever. Windows 8 is faster and uses less memory than Windows 7 and it’s only a $40 dollar upgrade that’s available as a digital download. Contrast that to Windows Vista which was the usual 100-200 dollars, slower, more resource hogging and lacked backwards compatibility with some XP things. Windows 8 and Windows Vista are incomparable in terms of the reasons Vista didn’t work out well.
On Gabe, context matters behind his “catastrophe” quote. He was speaking about his doubts of whether Valve or Google could emerge from Windows 8 the way they did prior versions of Windows. I think they could but Gabe’s a competitor to the main features of Windows 8, its store for software and games, so of course he’s going to be down about the direction Microsoft is moving.
But considering it’s 2012 and I’m -still- downloading crap from Sourceforge and other ad-laden download pages of this and that website, I wholly welcome a Windows 8 store and hope I can get more there than touch-driven apps.
And gaming, I welcome a new avenue for indies to make a living off easily getting their games out there. I love that Xbox Live is integrated in Windows 8. Steam is becoming more indie-friendly with its new Greenlight thing, but it’s great that the Windows Store will be an option too. Also the royalty split is only 20%, which is 10% less than Apple’s app store and other similar app stores where 30% seems to be the norm.
All and all Windows 8 is entirely additive. It’s available for digital purchase for the first time ever and it’s only 40 dollars. The only reason Second Life users or anyone should abhor it is if they don’t want to spend 40 dollars for better.
I find this part of the article which quotes Valve’s CEO quite interesting:
————————— start of quote ———————-
Mr Newell said Valve was preparing for the future in other ways. In particular, he said, it was trying to make tools and services that players could use to make games and gaming more fun for everyone.
“We think the future is very different [from] successes we’ve had in the past,” he said.
“When you are playing a game, you are trying to think about creating value for other players, so the line between content player and creator is really fuzzy.”
One harbinger of this future was perhaps found, he said, in the success of one Team Fortress player in Kansas who was earning $150,000 (£97,000) a year making virtual hats.
“This isn’t about video games,” he said. “It’s about thinking about goods and services in a digital world.”
————————— end of quote ———————-
This seems to confirm that there is a concerted effort between Valve and Linden Lab and that the direction this is taking is to position SL as a creativity platform with, but not only, gaming elements.
I am not sure which of the two companies is the larger one, but I suppose Valve is. I wonder if this move will lead to a future acquisition of Linden Lab by Valve.
As for Microsoft, if what is reported in the article is true it seems to me MS is likely to run into issues with the EU anti-trust legislation, again. And as we know, the EU is less forgiving than the US on these matters.