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Railroad Tycoon II

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Re: Railroad Tycoon II

#131

Post by cyberax »

pjmlp wrote: post #48
InsideOutSanta wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a good chance that if that if Microsoft doesn't act soon enough, and a lot more devices running Steam OS are released, Proton might become the de-facto platform against which many new games are developed, and which engines target. At that point, there is nothing Microsoft can do.

Microsoft controls Windows and DirectX, Valve only gets to play until Windows landlord allows it. DR-DOS, OS/2 and EEE PC. Lets see if SteamOS makes the list as well, this is after all round two, Steam Machines didn't go that well.

> Microsoft controls Windows and DirectX, Valve only gets to play until Windows landlord allows it.

DirectX has to stay reasonably close to Vulkan. And Vulkan is not an afterthought for graphics card manufacturers, quite unlike OpenGL of yore.

And Win32 (sans Vulkan/DX) is mostly feature-complete for gaming purposes. Manufacturers can just target the current state of Win32 for a decade more, if not even longer.

Re: Railroad Tycoon II

#132

Post by pjmlp »

int_19h wrote: post #116
pjmlp wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If all one wants it to run games that use the Win32 API as defined today, surely. If all one wants it to run games that use the Win32 API as defined tomrrow, anyone's guess.

If the API only has additions, then Microsoft would still need to convince game devs to actually use them (and Valve will point out that if they do, their game will not work on Steam Deck, so there's a clear downside). If some APIs are removed, it breaks older Windows games. I can't think of any historical API that has been completely removed in this way - even stuff like DirectDraw and DirectPlay is still there even…

See ABK deal, Microsoft has tolerated SteamDeck thus far, they own the platform.

Re: Railroad Tycoon II

#133

Post by pjmlp »

cyberax wrote: post #131
pjmlp wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft controls Windows and DirectX, Valve only gets to play until Windows landlord allows it. DR-DOS, OS/2 and EEE PC. Lets see if SteamOS makes the list as well, this is after all round two, Steam Machines didn't go that well.

> Microsoft controls Windows and DirectX, Valve only gets to play until Windows landlord allows it. DirectX has to stay reasonably close to Vulkan. And Vulkan is not an afterthought for graphics card manufacturers, quite unlike OpenGL of yore. And Win32 (sans Vulkan/DX) is mostly feature-complete for gaming purposes. Manufacturers can just target the current state of Win32 for a decade more, if not even longer.

It certainly is, in what concerns NVidia, they keep innovating first with Microsoft on DirectX, and then eventually come up with Vulkan extensions.

Last example, AI shaders announced at CEBIT.

Vulkan has turned into the same extension spaghetti as OpenGL.

Re: Railroad Tycoon II

#134

Post by pjmlp »

jwcooper wrote: post #62
pjmlp wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They surely can, and Valve got lucky UWP didn't took off as they feared. Microsoft can easily do another go at it. That is the problem building castles on other vendor platforms. As reminder, https://www.extremetech.com/gaming/127475-valve-confirms-ste...

Microsoft is going the opposite of what you're suggesting. Their games are coming to Steam, Playstation and Switch. Also, their game division isn't exactly thriving right now. They have a ton of studios, but they are not selling hardware very well right now. The more that time goes on, and the more entrenched steamOS/Proton becomes, they will not have any sort of easy time trying to lock-in to Windows. Even now in th…

Playstation and Switch, for sure.

Steam, not on detriment of Windows, how can they allow something like SteamOS to put Windows to shame, with their own APIs?

I can bet on them changing that, lets see who's got deeper pockets.

Re: Railroad Tycoon II

#135

Post by pjmlp »

BlueTemplar wrote: post #71
pjmlp wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They already control enough studios, PC and XBox market. SteckDeck compatibility relies on "emulating" Windows ecosystem. Remember DR-DOS, OS/2 and EEE PC.

EEE PC was tiny, IBM (OS/2) were full of hubris, what happened to DR-DOS ? Valve is neither tiny, nor does seem to be under the thrall of hubris. Also Microsoft seems complacent so far, though that might change.

Originally Windows was designed to detect and not run if using DR-DOS.

Re: Railroad Tycoon II

#136

Post by pjmlp »

jwcooper wrote: post #61
pjmlp wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft controls Windows and DirectX, Valve only gets to play until Windows landlord allows it. DR-DOS, OS/2 and EEE PC. Lets see if SteamOS makes the list as well, this is after all round two, Steam Machines didn't go that well.

The Steam Deck is basically the successor to the Steam Machines. The actual hardware didn't go that well, but they laid the foundation in software for what we have now. So, in a way, the Steam Machines were a great success. Also, Valve has (for better and worse) far more power and control in the gaming ecosystem than most companies Microsoft has to deal with.

Depends on how many key AAA studios are part of Microsoft Game Studios portfolio.

Re: Railroad Tycoon II

#137

Post by pjmlp »

Yeul wrote: post #58
pjmlp wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft controls Windows and DirectX, Valve only gets to play until Windows landlord allows it. DR-DOS, OS/2 and EEE PC. Lets see if SteamOS makes the list as well, this is after all round two, Steam Machines didn't go that well.

Microsoft tried to put their games on their own store but they crawled back to Steam. Honestly Windows is more open than MS haters give it credit for.

They did, does mean they will let Valve screw SteamOS on their face.

Re: Railroad Tycoon II

#138

Post by pjmlp »

PittleyDunkin wrote: post #59
pjmlp wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on how much Microsoft decides Windows Store and XBox App are relevant for game developers targeting the PC going forward.

They can't stop publishers from targeting steam/proton, though. The publishers will go to where the market is. Sure maybe they can restrict the version published to whatever store windows has but they can't prevent the one distributed with steam targeting an older version.

They can on the studios they own, and publish.

Re: Railroad Tycoon II

#139

Post by pjmlp »

frankchn wrote: post #90
pjmlp wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on how much Microsoft decides Windows Store and XBox App are relevant for game developers targeting the PC going forward.

Right now, they are not even making their own games exclusive to Windows Store or the XBox App (see MSFS 2024, Age of Empires series, Forza, etc...).

Because until recently SteamDeck was a non issue for Microsoft.

If it starts being a big issue, they won't ignore it.

Re: Railroad Tycoon II

#140

Post by pjmlp »

mschuster91 wrote: post #113
pjmlp wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They surely can, and Valve got lucky UWP didn't took off as they feared. Microsoft can easily do another go at it. That is the problem building castles on other vendor platforms. As reminder, https://www.extremetech.com/gaming/127475-valve-confirms-ste...

> They surely can, and Valve got lucky UWP didn't took off as they feared. So what, assuming it had taken off it would just be yet another set of crap APIs to develop wrappers for.

So is the burden of playing with other people toys.
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