FPS Rantings

Gabe Newell hates Vista

by Mike on August 28th, 2007

Here’s more fuel to fan your hate for anything Windows Vista. Remember Gabe Newell? He’s THE big cheese in Valve Software, creators of Half-Life and its excellent sequel. He’s also big, but that probably has nothing to do with being Valve’s big boss.

Gabe told Heise that Microsoft made a terrible mistake releasing DirectX 10 exclusively for Vista and not including XP in the mix. Why? The big kahuna thinks this decision affected the entire industry because only a small percentage of gamers can use DirectX 10.

Finally, we have an industry mover that agrees with everyone else.

The Heise article also revealed that a Valve survey found only one in fifty players that access Steam has a DirectX 10-compatible graphics card and Vista installed.

Count on Microsoft to use sneaky tactics to market their latest product, instead of actually creating a good one that would sell because of its merits.

When you think about it, the house that Bill built also did something similar with the Xbox 360—by pushing it out the door earlier than everyone else, M$ has placed itself at an advantage businesswise. There’s just one problem: the product fails 25 to 33% of the time.

Make no mistake, the 360 is a well-designed console (ahh, those spiffy menus!). On top of this, the games library is arguably the best among the other consoles. However, that 33% might be happier if Microsoft focused on coming out with a product that’s also stable.

Now if Vista were the next best thing since sliced bread, there won’t be any need to make DirectX 10 exclusive to Vista, would there?

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POSTED IN: Rant, Windows Vista