Head of Microsoft's GFWL division replaced

[legionaire45]

link: http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=40768

I'm on my Nokia so I'll keep this brief. Basically Microsoft switched some higher ups around in the GFWL division, including the head guy. Wonder why =P.

[TheGhost]

Ooh, this is an interesting move... I wonder what will come from this.

[Bodzilla]

i reckon it's just a reset, repeat, blame reset cycle.

it'll happen again. :(

but i am intrested.

[jcap]

I'm both glad and disappointed.

Glad because there's a possibility that something good just might come out of this.

Disappointed because I was hoping that LIVE for Windows would sink just like Microsoft Bob.

[Con]

I hope they're not going to continue playing the blame game. LIVE needs to get off windows.

[Bodzilla]

I'm both glad and disappointed.

Glad because there's a possibility that something good just might come out of this.

Disappointed because I was hoping that LIVE for Windows would sink just like Microsoft Bob.
WTF is Microsoft Bob

:completely misses joke: ?

[Phopojijo]

Microsoft's biggest waste of time and resources... arguably ever... ultimately canceled.

[Bodzilla]

lmao good old microsoft :XD:

ya gotta laugh at this, or you'll cry

[jahrain]

There are 3 BIG things that would need to change about the fundamentals of live on the PC in order for major third party developers to even think about touching it with a 10 foot stick.

1) Don't charge the users for any of it. The big thing about xfire and steam which are currently dominating the pc online gaming service is that users don't have to pay for it's services, attracting a higher range of users and players connected through the services adding more value to the games themselves. If live is to be successful, they are going to have the beat the competition. That includes offering more and better features, at a better price, and there is no price that is better than free. Also third party developers don't want their users to have to pay to get access to things that competing games offer for free, as it dulls the value of the game. The only thing they could get away with charging for is for cross platform play.

2) Give the third party control over servers and online features. Its good to have things like single user identities and profiles, instant messaging, standardized voice communication support, stat tracking, etc... But taking control over what the online aspects of game are (such as in halo 2 and having quick join, server filtering, and game hosting locked to gold members only), taking control over the user access to the online portion of the game, not the service (for example in halo 2, if your banned from live, your banned entirely from playing the game online) and so on are all things that the game developers should be in control of, not microsoft. Third parties are going to have a hard time making an investment in having their online portion of the game run by something they have no control over, especially considering that if the user is banned for doing something wrong on one game, their account is banned from every other game using live as well, which may significantly impact their player and fan base of the game. Instead of being forced, the services should be 100% optional to users, but offered and supported by the game for it's advantages such as cross platform play.

3) Stop the vista exclusive bullshit! Yes we know microsoft is desperate to sell their excuse for an operating system, but it is already being forced enough down our throats through the big OEMs. There is really no need or reasoning for them to even further shove it down user's throats and forcing them to get vista in order to enjoy any games that uses g4wl. And all the frivolous claims that it would be impossible to implement on other versions of windows is pure bull. Third party game developers won't stand for this while vista is still in it's infancy of release and knowing that the game will sell significantly less if it's minimum requirements is a machine that can run and has vista on it. They might get away with the vista exclusive bullshit at least 3 or 4 years from now, but not any time soon.

All in all, just bribing developers a is not enough to get g4wl up to speed. They are going to have to listen to the demands of the third party devs if they want them to support it. The PC is not an xbox where they have no choice but to support live or get no online functionality in the game, so they are going to have to rethink their strategy. Hopefully, this change will be for the better, but in the mean time, until they get their shit sorted out, Live needs to GTFO the PC.

[Bodzilla]

Jah's post
fucking dead on.

[-£§- §age]

For real Jahrain. Fucking win.

I'm already paying for Live on Xbox, so why the fuck would I pay for PC?
Plus, if you haven't heard, there's cracks for XP that run H2V. Goes to show how little they did on Vista to make it "better" than XP. The underlying API's are essentially the same.

[Lightning]

You use your Xbox account on PC.

D:

[ExAm]

That's only if you already have one, though.