Do you think this is possible?
I mean the hardware has to support it right? I don't want to buy the thing if I can't port my games to it.

the last thing xbox needs are bad allegro games, and games made by a rogue bunch of neck bearded amateurs.

Better sell your 360 then, so you don't have to put up with our crappy games

Xbox360 and OpenGL? Sure... when hell freezes over!

I haven't bought one yet, but I was planning on it cause they really do as much as I hate to admit it have the best games out now.

[rant]
Dammit M$. I knew 5 years ago when they got into the gaming business they were gonna screw it up. Its a real dick move by then not to support OpenGL. I wholeheartedly hope they go out of business before 2015.
[/rant]

Looks like I'll have to find a "decent" wrapper of opengl around directX - vista comes with an implementation for their non-compliant 3D drivers, perhaps someone could revere-engineer it - though I doubt its that good to start with. That or I get to port my game engine to a middleware GL/Direct3D platform- ugh.

MS actually does do a decent job, no open source game is half as decent as any recent MS games.

The companies that MS buys do a decent job.

I'm not criticizing their games, I'm criticizing the way they do business. The decision not to support OpenGL can't make it any more obvious that they want to make it impossible to develop without using their proprietary API's - and I think thats bull----

Not at all. It's their console. So it's their API. Why should they waste time developing TWO APIs to their console when it doesn't help them in the slightest? DirectX is already used far more on the windows platform anyway (very few commercial games these days ship with an OpenGL renderer, at least compared to the number of D3D games) so it makes sense to support the majority.

Besides how do you figure you're going to develop for the 360 anyway (XNA is C# and the XNA api only, not DirectX directly)? It's not like you buy a PS3, or a PS2 or a Gamecube/Wii and just develop for it so why should the 360 be any different?

At least you can code on their hardware with the official APIs for free.

But not in all of the official languages. The similarity of the PS3 and 360 versions of many cross-platform games makes me suspect that they haven't been simultaneously implemented in C# and whatever Sony support (which I assume is C++, but I don't actually know).

That said, since you pretty much couldn't officially develop for the last generations of console at all, I applaud Microsoft's moves in this direction.

As if OpenGL support takes 5 minutes to implement and was avoided to deliberately restrict developers... Some how I think not.

As if the Microsoft Army couldn't add in OpenGL 2.0 in a month or three. Considering they just came out with a new operating system , maybe they should put a little effort into supporting conventional GPU programming? But hey , now there's DX10 right?

Learn C# and use XNA, so that you get rid of any DirectX/OpenGL low end code. Because you are too lazy to convert your existing code doesn't mean that they've made a bad business decision.

XNA is the best move towards the gaming community ever made by a console manufacturer, so please don't bash it with stupid "M$" trolling non-sense.

Would you you complain to Apple because the iPhone doesn't support Windows? Because that makes as much sense as XBOX supporting OpenGL.

It doesn't really make as much sense given that Windows is a proprietary standard that Microsoft will deliberately protect from reimplementation as far as they are able whereas OpenGL is an open standard that Kronos actually want other people to reimplement.

That said, I'm pretty sure that Apple and Microsoft had an IP sharing agreement between 1997 and 2002, so Apple probably could reimplement large parts of the pre-Vista API and get away with it.

How about this: complaining to <no-name brand MP3 manufacturer> because their players don't support AAC?

Good idea! Let me just throw away my years of experience in OpenGL and spend months learning a fake language & API that only works on one type of system because I'm a follower of trends. Ten bucks says all your XNA code will break once the next xbox and windows version comes out? hmm wonder why....

I wouldn't have thought so, xna is based on .net that talks directx. Directx has been going for some time now wouldn't you say?

I suspect you're simply jealous that the nearest you can get to a game on linux/unix is either cribbage, tic-tac-toe or bz-flag.

You aren't throwing anything away, and C#/.NET are hardly fake. Also, don't forget, the C# and .NET stuff is proving to be more portable, Mono already works better than Wine and has less dev time behind it.

Also, get your ten bucks out, because I bet the XNA code doesn't break with updated stuff. .NET apps are primarily the ones that work identically the same on Vista with no mods.

Now that's what I call funny!

Seriously, what kind of future do you want your children to have?

A: Welcome to the year of 2027. Today is a big day, I just got off work and I'm off to buy the latest xbox with my friends!, where going to play halo 23 until out eyes bleed and It's going to so much fun!. I heard that the new xbox supports an really awesome new technology which apparently going to make the new halo really awesome! I also heard 1000 people where working on the new halo! It's going to be something i tell you! Nothing like those hypes Microsoft have made so far, ah, i LOVE Microsoft, they give me hope!

Anyway, We went to the store to buy the new xbox but my friend Perry didn't have enough money with him, he's such an idiot sometimes. We put together the few hundred dollar we had left and barley made it with a sum of 20012$ of the 19999$ needed, thank god! A small price to pay for such a splendid piece of hardware.
We finally got away from the store, and that's good because the cries of all the middle class children who cannot play games because of the expenses drives me mad!.

I'm so excited, my friend Bruce is plugging in the xbox, Bruce is so awesome, he's actually a certified Microsoft-hardware-interface-dude and works at Microsoft's support center, last year Microsoft's support center became founded on taxes, apparently Microsoft thought that the support center was more of a social service than a necessary service by the company. I guess that makes sense.

Bruce has finally finished the installment of the xbox! Were all so excited right now! I look over my shoulder and see my father standing behind a dark corner, he's crying. My father has always been kinda strange, always looking out of the window whispering "what have i done?...". While my father is a bit crazy me and my friends respect him a lot, he was actually one of the supporters of the Microsoft standard!. He made a lot of games using Microsoft's XNA, an so called API which apparently was the greatest idea ever! It made it possible for developers to not spend as much time on their games and instead finish games earlier, sounds brilliant to me!

Bruce turns on the xbox, a loading screen appears, Bruce says It shows that the developers have made many features for the xbox, we wait 3 minutes, wow! This really shows how awesome the xbox is! The menu turns up and before i can do anything the screen goes blue, lucky!, the blue screen indicates that a problem has been avoided and i just need to restart the xbox. Microsoft is really top notch when it comes to protecting your products.

We restart the xbox and wait another 3 minutes, this time it works. Perry places the holy halo cube into the the xbox and it loads for 5 minutes. An awesomely highly detailed "halo" appears and just spins in the background of the menu, I really get the feeling that the game developers know their trade.

Loading the first level takes 8 minutes, Bruce keeps saying that stuff about loading times but I must admit I get a bit tired of waiting. We prepare our selfs for one heck of a journey, I am the chosen one, the one who will have a go at halo first. My first impressions wasn't very good, the game looked like a upgraded version of the last game, still, It looks so good, Bruce says the character models is made of more than 12.5 million triangles, awesome!.

I take the first step into the new and refined halo, the movement glitches a bit, i try to make my way down the road I'm presented with, there is so much vegetation i can't see anything but It definitely looks good! Suddenly a plasma projectile hits me, I look at my shield bar but the power has already been regenerated, awesome!, i heard that in the new halo it would be almost impossible to die, who wants to die right?

I play some more and then it hits me like a boulder made of lead.. I'm not having fun, as a matter in fact, i have never been more bored in my life. How can this be? Wasn't the new halo supposed to be the funniest game ever? I start to panic when the meaning of my life slowly turns to ashes. I turn to Perry which apparently also realized this and is having a sesiure.. I quickly turn to Bruce who just puked all over the floor then started screaming lightly.

Where at the hospital, a doctor is closing in on us and he's face tells us everything, Perry is dead. 3 years have passed since Perry's death, Bruce is in a state of denial, locked up in his house playing halo 23 all day, pretending to have fun, the look on his face when he opens the outdoor is just to much. I decided to do something, to go up against Microsoft and start a rebellion. A few years passed, i found some people with the same ideals and they where working on something called OpenGL 4.0 and It was absolutely mind blowing, It was like a whole new world to me, the idea was to present the programmer with something good to work with, something that can only be mastered with love and dedication, and thus, making sure that only people who are prepared to sacrifice something should be able to make games.

However, Microsoft's resources was humongous and after another 2 years we were arrested for "hindering the development of mankind", They threw us into the worst prison of all, there we spend the rest of our life's being raped in the ass by out cell mates.

I finally realize my fathers pain.

THE END

B: When I was little my father use to tell me about a monster company called Microsoft, they where very evil and wanted do make all the games really boring and make a lot of useless money that where spend on shit anyway.
My father confesses that he once supported their cause, but after realizing their impact on the world of games he started to repent by making awesome games that could run on other platforms than windows, more people began to make games that works on other platforms, some even made good games, something almost impossible to find when Microsoft dominated. A battle between Microsoft and the people representing freedom broke out and there were many losses, fortunately it was a battle of money against brainpower, and Microsoft couldn't do much against human rights.

I think remembering my fathers story is important, it reminds us that we must act against evil if they want to keep the things they love from harm. I play games everyday and sometimes i cry because they're so good, I'm glad it turned out so well.

My father is a hero.

THE SECOND ENDING

By Albin Engström.....

I just realized that I used Bruce Perry in my story without knowing it.. this is a pure coincidence, I have a fever and my brain acts a bit weird right now.

I hope no one takes offense of this load of crap(some of it at least), i had fun writing it .

EDIT: crap.. i just assumed you're a guy epsi. Well it doesn't really matter.

Microsoft really aren't that scary. I'd rate their chances of world domination extremely low right now. In 2001 they seemed unassailable — since then Google have ballooned, Apple have rebounded (statistic of the day: 66% of computers sold at US retail during Q1 2008 that cost $1,000 or more were Macs) and despite pouring nothing but money into their multimedia division they're still the third place console manufacturer in Europe and Japan, and only just clinging onto second in the USA. The Zune has been a major flop, trailing Sandisk & Apple and being only just ahead of Creative Labs. And their browser has fallen from ~90% market share to ~60%.

EDIT: oh, and despite their best efforts, the leading mobile OS is the same thing it has been pretty much from the start — Symbian. Meanwhile the most used mobile browser is currently iPhone Safari, a WebKit browser. WebKit is also being adapted by Nokia and Google for their browsers.

My point: don't bother hating them by default. Hate their products on their merits if you want, but at least argue the point. The fact that a product has the Microsoft logo on it does not inherently make it bad.

Microsoft Logo = Closed Source = Evil

Being Open Sourced matters to me, and as long Microsoft does not prescribe to that philosophy, I shall not support them monetarily by buying their product, or by advertising it over the online media, or by pirating it, or whatever, no matter how useful, usable and user friendly their product might be. Moreover, Microsoft on multiple occasions has tried to actively harm OSS efforts, which makes it even less likely I would be supportive of their products.

I'd support parts of Microsoft if the company were to be broken up, but when I know that the money I paid for my Windows Vista license goes in part to bribe the ISO officials in other countries, I have to extend my disapproval over the whole entity.

If that is not important to you, then yes, discriminating against Microsoft is hypocritical. If that is important to you, however, then not discriminating is hypocritical (graded by the relative importance of that, naturally).

OpenGL is open source, it is a standard, and it is already cross platform. It is pretentious for DirectX to even exist in the first place. It is pretentious for the .NET framework to have existed before Mono. It is pretentious for XBox 360 not to be able to use OpenGL.

Closed Source != Evil.

Commercialism != Evil.

OpenGL is great. MS didn't chose to use it. They make the product, and they don't have to let you use their API (look at Sony and Nintendo). Quit yer' bitching. Competition drives innovation.

I personally feel that anything under GPL = Forced Open Source = Evil.

I think it's pretentious for you to call everything MS does pretentious. Welp... it's about time for me to let you get back to crying about everything a company does because they have the audacity to be successful and earn money.

[edit]
Forgot to shoot a big at Albin...

Sure, too bad MS is trying to kill every and all competition..

No it isn't. MESA is an open source library that attempts to duplicate the OpenGL API, but it isn't officially an OpenGL because nobody has stepped up to pay for certification.

UFO: Alien Invasion rocks(orz) your socks(orz).

1) How do they count computers purchased at more than one store? (Like choosing store X for your GPU and store Y for your processor because it's cheaper that way.)
2) Considering all macs are so damn expensive for no good reason*, it's not surprising they have an unproportional share of the >1000$ market.
*-good reason = for the consumer, not for apple

I'm open for debate, but please try to make some sense. Bringing in Halo and blue screen of deaths (seriously, is it 1998?) is completely irrelevant to XNA.

Now if you have any better alternatives on another console, please tell the world about it!
AFAIK the last best way to create indie games on a console legally was the Net Yaroze, which was far far far from what XNA is today.

By the way, Microsoft has just released their new service as beta: XBOX Live Community Games. Sharing games on a console with a service name that sounds like Communism?! Pure evil

Also you'd be interested to know that the father of Allegro is working for MS on XNA, and doing a kickass job at it.

I assign opposite truth values to all of those statements.

Crying? I am doing a little more than crying. I am voting with my wallet against that company by choosing not to buy/pirate/promote their products, and contributing code to GPL projects to help the Free alternatives prosper. Let them be successful/popular etc, but they shall not have my money as long as they bribe everyone to get their way, introduce and impose inferior standards, slander perfectly good open source solutions etc.

Every time you buy/use/promote Microsoft software you say "I support bribes, I support inferior standards, I support non-cross platform software, I support slander". And if you don't think you say that, you are viewing the world through rose coloured glasses.

I've no idea. But I was careful to include the qualifications so as not to misreport. Original report here.

There speaks someone who doesn't understand the value of software and ignores inconvenient differences in hardware. E.g. Intel are currently supplying a version of Santa Rosa upgraded so that it includes some of the Montevina features (the 1066Mhz FSB mainly) exclusively to Apple. Similarly, Apple had extensive stocks of the Core Duo long before it was released to other manufacturers in quantity.

Yeah, we get spontanious resets by default now. You have to configure it to get the BSOD

Doesn't Microsoft own (a large portion of) Apple?

OpenGL is an open standard, though. The certification is the only thing they need to pay for (and choose not to), but it is still a fully compliant implementation of OpenGL. Contrast MESA (who are under no threat from SGI/Khronos) to Wine (who have to be very cautious of, and are on legally shakey ground with, Microsoft), even though both are developed the same way (using public specs, and clean-room/black-box reverse engineering where the spec is quiet).

Just because you don't use DirectX directly doesn't mean you don't get a reliance on it. Here's a funny story.. I'm sure most people have seen my post from a while ago about implementing a "native" D3D lib (using OpenGL) on Linux/Unix. In all this time of working on it, though, I've found conspicuously little code that actually uses Direct3D (and thus not much to easilly test my lib), save for the odd tutorial, or a number of engines that supercede D3D in the same way XNA does.

Even owing to the assumption that Windows coders are much less likely to have open source code ((L)GPL or not; just something beyond simplistic tutorials with source code), there is a reason to believe most developers simply use one of these pre-fabbed engines without touching much D3D, but because these engines have a reliance on D3D, so do the apps. Then assuming this, how would XNA, which similarly "hides" Direct3D as most engines do, change anything about reliance on Direct3D?

There's also the issue that XNA is designed to work on .NET, which is used largely on the XBox and on Windows. Sure, .NET can be used, limittedly, on non-MS systems with Mono, but if you notice: A) MS isn't really acknowledging the existence of Mono, B) the C# "standard", which Mono implements, is consipicuously missing some oftenly-used pieces of .NET (C# is a free standard.. the extra things in .NET aren't), including Windows.Forms. So, again, it's not hard to see XNA as an attempt to further Microsoft's monopoly by getting more developers reliant on proprietary APIs.

TL;DR version: There's no difference if an app uses D3D, or if it uses something that uses D3D. They both have the same reliance on D3D.

I don't think so. They have at various points in the past, most famously buying in so as to effectively keep Apple alive in 1997. But those particular shares were non-voting and the best guesses of people whose opinions have been found by Google is that they're long since sold.

Microsoft does still make a lot of profit from their Apple software, and maintains a Mac software development division. Until something like 2003, Internet Explorer was the default browser on Macs. Now I don't think any Macs ship with Microsoft software that Microsoft have received money for (i.e. I know some of the consumer ones had the Office test-drive but I'm not sure what's going on now, especially as an Office 2008 test-drive doesn't seem to have been forthcoming).

Oh, completely agreed. It's just not open source. Sorry — I didn't mean to be argumentative.

looks like I started a war! break out the spears and blue war paint!

Nope, but did your post lead to eggs being thrown at Steve Ballmer?

I thought people would bash me because of my post more .

Turning to the more serious side, I don't like Microsoft because they abuse their power, they use dirty tactics to gain more power by lying, cheating and deceiving people. Sure, it's probably all legal but that doesn't make it ok, at least not for me. But that's what they do, make money, I can't blaim people for trying to make a bit of money, but..

You don't have to be smart to figure out that Monopoly is a very tempting thing for any business making money, and a very very bad thing for our society. Competition assures that products have to be good in order to make money, i you somehow think that is a bad thing you're an idiot or someone who benefits from Monopoly.

I can't think of one reason one could oppose me when i say that Microsoft is trying to kill their competition and create a Monopoly. And let's face it, if Microsoft has Monopoly they won't get all nice and spend a lot of money to make their programs better than normal.

I'm very afraid of Microsoft, you know, I'd rather face demons than letting Microsoft get Monopoly over my world. There is nothing scarier than Microsoft.

I don't own either a ps3 or an xbox 360 (although I've played them), why?
Because i don't have enough money, and I'm not exactly poor. It's a bit sad not being able to play a lot of cool games but I'm having fun with my pc, using a pirated version of windows of course, since i don't have enough money to buy windows. I might hate windows, but i love games, and most games use directX which only works on windows. I think Microsoft's existence have been important to us but It's getting out of hand..

You might find it obvious that one should pay when using something, but we live in a new age where the things we sell are intellectual properties and can be copied as much as we want. I like to think that we have to change the ways business work, instead of forcing people to buy our products, they should pay if they feel satisfied and want more, much like how street performers make a living. Are we not artists? Do we not want people to appreciate our work? I'd rather loose 25 percent of the profits and allow 100+ percent more people try out my game.

Have you noticed that demos are getting rarer for new games these days?
If they're released at all they are always released a long time after the release of the original game. That is one example of not letting the user try the product before buying.

Also, all those trusted rating sites are easy bribe targets for companies with a lot of money. Most people are idiots, they fall for any amount of bullshit and hype.

I have spent a lot of money on video games during my life and I'm glad i spent most on it on good games, I often find myself getting back to old games because they're a hundred times more entertaining than all these new graphics is everything games.

What do you guys prioritize? money or entertainment?

I think prioritizing money is kinda stupid, since you would no longer be able to have fun with them .

Just being alive isn't my thing really, if you get my drift..

Ah, the "evil Microsoft" thread. Gotta love it.

Anyway, there's some people who really hate M$ as if they've committed a crime against them personally. As for me, I think some of M$'s business tactics are a bit shady and often strongarmed, but as long as the "big bully" provides me with fun games/consoles and doesn't come over to de-pants me, I will not boycott them.

Which are these games you speak of onewing? I want to see good games by Microsoft with my own eyes.

So basically, you won't boycott Microsoft as long as you use their systems? Just saying, the "big bully" actively prevents people from using fun games, even those that they aren't directly involved with (because of DirectX), simply because they aren't using a Microsoft OS. But if you weren't using Microsoft OSs and did feel the sting.. you'd already not be using their stuff, and a boycott would be rather ineffective.

And it's not even about them pushing DirectX like they are (although in their position, it's not like they should need to).. it's the active prevention of allowing developers to use more cross-platform alternatives. OpenGL should work much better on Windows than it does (and lets not forget what they tried to do to OpenGL with Vista before certain companies complained), and they can at least try to support the POSIX standards they claim to.

For SiegeLord and the other boycotters:

Is it acceptable to work for a company that uses Microsoft products if you work with sufficient competency that you are in any way positively involved in whatever generates the company profits?

To everyone arguing on the freedom side:
I used to argue on A.cc about it too. I decided there was no point because neither side is going to change opinion. I now try to avoid entering in to these pointless arguments. I recommend you do to.
Just saying.

EDIT:
Though I must say, I enjoyed reading this thread.

Everyone's arguing a freedom side. One side are arguing that the others shouldn't support Microsoft because Microsoft use their clout to try to restrict consumer freedoms. The other side are arguing that they should be free to pick each product they use pragmatically and not be hassled by people who disagree with them.

Because it's easy to see merits in both arguments, it's interesting to try to find out how people on the extreme fringes defend their position.

What a completely useless statistic. That's a bit like saying 66% of cars that cost over £1m are MacLarens so they must be popular. It's only like that because nowadays the only high cost computers are Apple.

No it's not. It's like saying "66% of cars that cost over £1m are MacLarens". If you want to add "so they must be popular" to end of my quote and then dispute it then knock yourself out. If anything, I would have thought that the qualification of "at retail" was the real reason that the statistics swing Macward — as it obviously removes the contingent of techy people that order from the internet and 99.999% of all business purchases.

Other statistics from the same article, should you want to attach a meaning to them and dispute it:

Go ahead, they don't need your money anyway.

And when I buy Microsoft, I say "I support Microsoft, a successful company with a product that I would rather buy than use the free alternatives."

Macs aren't that expensive these days. I need a new notebook for university in the fall, and I never thought a Macbook would be on my consideration list, but it's in the top two (Thinkpad vs Macbook).

You don't even get those unless you've done something wrong or have bad hardware. I think (albeit due to iffy hardware) I've seen more kernel panics on Linux than I have BSODs on Windows.

Where is the reliance on it? Obviously your lib doesn't fulfill much of a purpose if you can't find any code to test it with...

Why should anyone care? It works the way it's intended to, so it doesn't really make a difference. And I say that hiding DirectX does lower reliance on it, because you are using an intermediate API. That API can be simulated or ported to OpenGL and the apps won't have to even care about the difference.

Okay, so within a short space of a post, you first say you hate MS and would rather face demons then let them monopolize you, but then you say you use a pirated version of Windows to play games. Which is it? Are you anti-MS, or indifferent?

I'm not sure what you're talking about here, but if you're talking about losing profits to develop the game for Linux, then its FAR from being 100+ percent more people.

You can wait for the demo.

You can't be serious. What about the big bully over at Sony that prevents you from playing their fun games on a Nintendo Wii? They aren't preventing you from playing the games on a Microsoft OS at all. I'm sorry that they aren't handing everything to you on a silver platter, like you and fellow GPL zealots expect.

There are sub-$1000 Apple computers, and over-$1000 PCs.

And I agree with Thomas Harte. I'm not anti-Linux as it may seem, hell I use it where it's appropriate. I do hate GPL, but I do appreciate their effort. I just don't like being harassed by self righteous zealots repeating the same arguments if I have the balls to say I like Windows or OS X.

Not to mention, that statistic is for a quarter that is during a (arguable) recession, thus discretionary spending will likely drop, resulting in persons purchasing cheaper computers (thus further reducing the +$1,000 computer market). And how they calculate that statistic suspect; I built a really nice desktop fall last year for about $1,200 from parts. I doubt they track those sells (aka; the "gamer" rigs; the ones that are going to be more than $1,000 anyway).

Thus, you have a statistical conundrum. Did apple sell the majority of US retail computers over $1,000 in Q1 2008? Perhaps (although I'd love to see the sample data and collection methods used to arrive at that conclusion.). Does that mean they sold the majority of computers over $1,000 in Q1 2008? Hardly. This is due primarily to the fact that once you exceed about $800-$900, a good portion of PC's that are purchased aren't prepackaged retail devices (eg. Dell, HP, etc.), they have a much higher tendency to be custom made, and thus dodge said statistics.

At least, from the sample of persons I know about this would be the case (including relatives, schools, etc.).

Apparently you didn't. Per Neil Walker "nowadays the only high cost computers are Apple". And you are not Apple.

Is it relevant? I believe I was making the point that Microsoft are looking a lot worse now than they were a few years ago, i.e. it is incorrect to claim they are unassailable. So the question you should be asking if you're sceptical about the point I used that quote to support is: how does this statistic compare to the same statistic, calculated in the same way, in recent years? If you're asking any other question then you're engaged in some other debate.

The same statistic shows 57% share to Apple in 2007, 16% in 2006.

A small ad hominem aside: you probably disobey the speed limits on the road when there are no police to monitor you. Just because there are no consequences to your actions, does not mean you should do evil, or shouldn't do good.

Yep, as well as saying that you support bribes, inferior standards, non-cross platform software and slander. You cannot have one without the other. Your giving money to the Microsoft explicitly approves all of the non-competitive practices it utilizes.

The only time I disobey speed limits is when following the limit would impede traffic. And I do so even if a cop is following me.

First, "fun" and "good" are completely opinionated. Second, M$ itself has developed a relatively small list of games. However, there are several in-house studios (that M$ owns) that have made some good games. I like "The Movies" by Lionhead and I'm about four hours into "Fable" (also by Lionhead), but it seems like it has potential. The Halo series I could care less about.

Call me shallow or selfish, but I don't think much beyond actually purchasing a game. I get it because I want to, not because I'm supporting or not supporting someone or something. Well, to clarify, I'll also buy a game for research (otherwise I wouldn't have played Halo) purposes because of my line of work.

For those who hate M$ and want to boycott their products, go for it. I could care less. Your views are not going to convert me into a person who doesn't buy the games he wants. And I could really care less about the tools used to develop the games underneath; so I don't care about the DirectX vs OpenGL debate. I'm much more concerned about the degree of change in the difficulty curve of gameplay rather than the optimization of algorithms.

Sorry for not being clear enough, It may sound like I'm contradicting myself, while I'd rather face demons than letting Microsoft monopolize me I'd rather face god himself than not being able to play games . EDIT: btw, i don't see how using a pirated version of windows is supporting Microsoft. (deja vu??)

I'm not using windows because I like it, I use it because I have no choice. And i think that not having a choice is the same thing as being forced.

I'm talking about lowering the prices on games, seriously, they're just ridiculous. Lets use crysis as an example, they only sold 1 million copies which isn't very much considering the kind of game and the hype factor. Still, when crysis was released it was sold for a unbelievable 350$(estimation from my currency kr) and in this day and age you still have to pay 225$.

I'm not sure how many people where working on crysis or for how long but It is not impressive in my eyes, the game works like SHIT, ok, i don't have a "good" computer, but i could play "less advanced games" which >looked better and ran more smoothly<, people for some reason believe that using the latest technology is better than maybe not using the latest technology but implementing it well. Anyway, let's say that crysis made about 300000000$, to me, that quite a lot of money .

So lets start breaking down the costs, I don't know how well paid 30000$ per month is but sound pretty over paid to me so lets go with it, how many employees was working on the project? lets say 60 people worked on the project( i think this a very large amount of people ) that makes the month payment 1800000, they work for 12 month a year which makes it 21600000, and how many years? They where probably a bunch of retards so 4 years sound fair. 86400000! That is really expensive! But even as I over exaggerate it does not even cover a third of the profits. Of course there is a lot of other things to take into consideration, such as the very very very expensive shipping costs caugh, how come games is the only thing that is expensive to ship? Reason: It's bullshit. But since someones going to wine about this lets say 50000000 goes to shipping just for kicks, so now we are at 136400000, we are closing in on 50%!. The last factor is the greedy shop keeper which for some reason wants to make a shit load of money and demands 20%. Another 60000000 is lost. We land at a mere 103600000 profit, aaw.. what a failure .

Consider this: We hire competent people, this way we don't need 60 people on our projects that works as fast as snails. We cut the middle crap, meaning we sell our games on the net instead of spending so much money on nothing. I must say that selling games over the net makes me a but sad because i LOVE getting an awesome box with really cool box art and a super detailed manual that really shows that "here, since you were so nice to buy our product we give you this really nice box with an awesome manual which you can place in your game collection to show how proud you are of supporting us". But I mourn over something that has already been lost, game BOXES made of paper, which where about 6 times the size of these new plastic versions. But i don't really care if boxes will disappear completely since they look like this anyway:

http://www.allegro.cc/files/attachment/595400

Look at this thing.. It's an abomination! Games for windows!? Why do hell should i have to put up with commercials on my products if I don't want them!?

Have you ever seen boxes such as the the first version of the Diablo 2 box? Darkstone? Shogun total war? Wing commander prophecy? I'm just picking random boxes i own and they look a hundred times better than the crysis box.

It's the inside that counts but i like having proof of supporting things i like.

Onewing: I'm sorry, I get the feeling I've said Microsoft's games where automatically bad, I've played a few games made by Microsoft game studio and i actually likes some of them, I think i actually bought one of them, i just can't remember which one it is.. I memory says something about age of empire 1 but that feels wrong. Fable was a big disappointment, halo was fun playing coop with my friend.

I don't have much agains most people making games for for Microsoft, It's just Microsoft's business tactics which makes me angry.

Favoring openGL over directX isn't a question of which performs better, the only reason i favor openGL is because it supports more platforms, it makes games able for more people, I do not believe in a world where only the rich can play games, my vision of video games are that they will be able to everyone, rich or poor. That sounds so gay.. (definition of gay should you have taken offense)

You are increasing their market share. And you are buying games from those evil game makers who use platform specific tools and create games that are only for Windows, which in turn supports Microsoft.

It's not an advertisement anymore than PS3 games saying PLAYSTATION 3 or Xbox games saying XBox. It's simply stating "yo, this is a game for windows."

Yes, but said games are not viably released for many other platforms. You can't easily release a closed source game for Linux because nobody seems to be able to standardize anything. Your only other platform option would be Macs, and Mac users don't game as much as Windows. Mac is seen as a platform for graphics artists, Windows is a platform for gamers, and Linux is seen as being for hardcore developers.

Haven't read the whole thing but got pretty far -- there is some serious lack of knowledge in this thread concerning xna, xbox, and microsoft.

Commercial Xbox developers were mostly using C++ last I checked, XNA is pretty new, the only reason indy developers CAN'T use C++, and must use C# is because of the security risk imposed by allowing joe-blow to run a native unsigned binary on his xbox, with .NET you have CAS which will prevent you from doing anything terribly evil on the hardware.

Seriously? What other console developer has released a free kit that will let you make games as an independent developer for their console? Not to mention that the code is cross-platform from xbox to windows, and soon to the zune.

Regardless of whether closed source == evil, Microsoft != 100% Closed Source, they're releasing sources to all kinds of their products and add-ons (I heard .NET 3.0 was going open source soon).

I buy the games because they're good, somehow, i believe that the only reason game developers make games using directX is because they're afraid of going out of business, like you say, windows is the main platform for gamers and due to the extremely bad openGL support from Microsoft I must say that It feels somewhat scary to make games using openGL.

I would stop whining if it wasn't so obvious that Microsoft is going for Monopoly.
I do not see the good things in letting Microsoft getting total control.

Old games often have a small [PC GAME] label somewhere on the back or at the bottom of the box. I'm not saying I like it when other people display their logos in huge ass text on their products, I'm more than ok with information about what it needs to run existing on the bottom or on newer boxed at the back. Windows 95 or 98 can be read at most of my boxes, with small text on the side or in the requirements section.
A HUGE logo on the front is clearly there for commercial purposes.

[quote ]Seriously? What other console developer has released a free kit that will let you make games as an independent developer for their console? Not to mention that the code is cross-platform from xbox to windows, and soon to the zune.
</quote>
How can you use cross-platform support as an argument to defend windows? Microsoft is really good at doing business, they're not focusing on making their products better, they realize that there are more profitable ways of doing business . Both Playstation 3 and Wii supports OpenGL.

Gah! this thread is so depressing .

Yeah, that's fine. It does not erase their other sins however. Now if they really end up releasing the sources (in a GPL compatible license no less), then good for them. I highly respect companies that do that (Id is completely awesome in this regard for example, they have released the source to so many of their games, as well as Parallax with the Descent series, Relic with the Homeworld et al).

You are buying games and supporting the developers who chose to use DirectX. Microsoft doesn't provide OpenGL support at all, unless you are using basic video drivers from them. OpenGL/DirectX support is provided by the video card drivers you install.

And yet their SDK/API is closed, so a real lot of good that does. I think an open SDK like XNA is more valuable than wether or not it uses OpenGL under it's skin.

I should have specified.. small(ish) apps that have more of a purpose than being a tutorial. As I said, engines (particularly closed source ones) do use D3D, and would benefit. It's just difficult for me to develop it with this all-or-nothing situation.

And the reliance is that regardless of how many layers there are between the app and the graphics subsystem, if the final product can only use D3D, the app relies on D3D. It's that simple.

Not working on a potential customer's system isn't intended behavior (I hope). Granted, there is a cut-off where some system requirements must be met, but OpenGL vs. D3D isn't an impossible hurdle. They both have the same capabilities, and work with the same target hardware (though one works on more systems than the other..).

Or even D3D itself. But that doesn't change the crappy situation we're in now.

Though there's more to it than just getting more customers. There are people that use Linux almost exclusively, but boot into Windows just to play games, or try to play, with varying levels of success, with Wine or some VM. Think of how much happier you'll make those customers by developing for their target OS (lest not forget: happy customers are loyal customers.. loyal customers will come back for repeated bussiness).

There's a difference in that the Wii is an established console, and developers can and do develop for multiple systems simultaniously (barring the odd exclusive titles). Microsoft prevents competitors from establishing themselves in the first place, or attempts to remove their competitive edge.

I do have to agree with BAF, here. If a game is Windows only, and you steal Windows to play a Windows-only game, you're giving the developers money for making a Windows-only game (which encourages them to make more Windows-only games, thus increasing Microsoft's hold).

Personally, I'll only buy a Windows-only game if it works well in Wine (and is thus not really Windows-only). Would be nice to know if developers/publishers actually track to see who is/how many are using things like Wine to play their games, though.

Just an aside, to point out the kinds of things I'm talking about. The drivers made by the vendor typically include OpenGL drivers (at least for ATi, nVidia, and Intel). These are the same drivers Microsoft distributes, with the OpenGL driver purposely removed. Make of that what you will.

Well, any serious gamer gets their driver fix from the vendor, not Microsoft anyway.

If the road is clear, I speed

Just keep taking the Oxytocin

I don't entirely understand what you mean, but, what?!?!
You're not allowed to run code that you've written on a device that you've purchased?
They consider it a security risk to allow people to write their own programs in a powerful language?

Because you could theoretically do evil, horrendous, inexplicable things with such hardware access.. such as using a copy of a game to play it (bypassing copy-protection checks).

I have a question.. if C++ can't be used for developing xbox 360 games how come large developers can? What makes the xbox think: "Here's some C++ code, It's by an large developer so it can pass" If there is a way to play C++ games on the console shouldn't people be able to by-pass the security checks somehow? Also.. are you saying the current copy protection is impossible to break?

While their actions makes some sense in regards to their words i think this is another reason: "We want people to use C#".

Albin Engström: simple answer: those developers are using an official XBOX SDK machine (not XNA) and needs to pay to release official retail games. Do you think that any studio is going to include a tool to play pirated copies in their retail games?

Now, if any body could release unsafe code and execute it on the XBOX, it would probably be hacked within a day.

There are a variety of ways to do this, some of which rely on crytographic solutions, some on trademark law and some on disc format.

Re: cryptographics, you can use clever maths so that the XBox 360 knows how to decode part of a disc to look for a particular series of numbers, but a person having knowledge of the drecryption method and the series of numbers doesn't have enough information to know how to encrypt other numbers. It's a similar principle to the way that something like RSA can be used so that your computer knows how to encrypt your credit card details but another computer inbetween that also captured the information on how to encrypt can't work out how to decrypt in a reasonable amount of time. What's more, the machine can be set up so that if any part of the rest of the disc changes then it looks for different numbers. So you can't just copy someone else's. Then Microsoft know how to produce the numbers that allow a particular program to run but no-one else does. See digital signing for a probably better explanation.

Re: trademarks, Microsoft can have the machine check a certain part of the disc for a trademark they own. If anyone else produces a disc which reproduces that trademark then Microsoft can sue them in trademark law. This is used to prevent unlicensed copying.

Re: disc format, it's possible to manufacture discs that aren't like the discs a normal DVD burner would produce. The hardware will only play the game if the discs match this alternative spec. The specific schemes I'm aware of from previous years include:

• in Atari/Amiga land, you could write data so that it was written, e.g., 10% more densely than the drives on normal machines would write it. The machines would still read these discs because they were within the acceptable timing tolerances. Code could time the loading and refuse to work if it took longer than expected — because that would probably mean that the disc had been duplicated.

• in the PSOne world, Sony would deliberately write bad sectors in certain places, malformed in certain deliberate ways. Because CD burners can't normally be told to deliberately produce bad sectors, burning an ISO doesn't generally work.

• the Saturn has an even more elaborate system that, to my knowledge, has not yet been fully decoded. The outer rim of the date side of Saturn discs has a pattern that makes a copyright message to the human eye. Something in that pattern is used by the machine to determine if it is an original disc — though there doesn't seem to be consensus on whether data is hidden in the pattern or if the drive laser is actually used to do a sort of image scan.

Meh, it's probably already been hacked. Someone ask le_y_mistar if the XBOX360 has been hacked.
(I know that the regular old XBOX has been hacked, since my friend has one [we ended up playing Metal Slug last time we played it, which might [or might not] attest to the quality of games on the XBOX )

EDIT: This message was meant to be after Epsi's

Sure it has been "hacked". Well, AFAIK its just really bypassing the security checks by modding the box with a chip.