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Satya Nadella admits giving up on Windows Phone and mobile was a mistake

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Re: Satya Nadella admits giving up on Windows Phone and mobile was a mistake

#201

Post by iforgotpassword »

musicale wrote: post #196
iforgotpassword wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, there is absolutely no way to integrate the Kinect into games in a meaningful way. Name just one example where it was done so that you would think "wow this has potential". Throwing grenades by gesture in call of duty? Biggest LOL ever. When I'm playing a competitive multiplayer title, I want precise, quick controls, and not let go of my controller to gesture around like a brain-damaged monkey. With Kinect, you h…

> Name just one example where it was done so that you would think "wow this has potential" Dance Central 3 and Just Dance 2015 (?) were terrific. Kinect was great for music/rhythm/dance games in general. Now I want to go back and try Fruit Ninja, Kinect Adventures, and the Gunstringer.

I actually listed dance central in my comment! But I'd still consider that a casual game and nothing most hardcore gamers would be interested in. The thing it had going for it was that it kept you motivated for way longer than most other titles. Kinect adventures got boring quite fast, and like most other titles turned into that fun game for small casual evenings with a couple friends over.

Force-bundling it with the Xbox one enraged the (hard)core gamers as they had to pay for an addon that the last few years showed they have no need for, and for the casual gamer, it was too expensive. It had success with casual gamers on the 360 because that console was already relatively old and thus affordable when the Kinect appeared.

Re: Satya Nadella admits giving up on Windows Phone and mobile was a mistake

#202

Post by lotsofpulp »

jinushaun wrote: post #199
lotsofpulp wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft still has no equivalent to the Preview app. Signing and filling out PDFs is a common use case.

IIRC, MS is not legally allowed to make an PDF editor that would compete with Adobe. The DOJ monopoly case against MS really killed innovation at MS.

That is very interesting. I will have to look that up, but would be unfortunate if true.

Re: Satya Nadella admits giving up on Windows Phone and mobile was a mistake

#203

Post by potwinkle »

pjmlp wrote: post #123
chithanh wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft both directly and indirectly turned app developers away from Windows Phone. Mobile games at the time were all OpenGL ES, which Microsoft refused to support in favor of Direct3D. Then there was Microsoft's perpetual need to start over. WM6.5 to WP7 broke app compatibility. WP7 to WP8, entirely new APIs. WP8 to WM10 there was UWP and Continuum, again forcing major rewrites if you wanted the new features. And…

There was no lack of games, Valve even needs to emulate DirectX and Win32, as Android developers couldn't care less about Steam Deck. The rewrites across multiple versions, that is what killed the desire to target the devices.

What does the Steam Deck have to do with an ARM phone running a shitty locked-down version of "Windows" with a lobotomized DirectX that has half the features? You can whine all you want about OpenGL/Metal/Vulkan but it doesn't change the fact that Windows Phone failed where Android and iOS succeeded.

Re: Satya Nadella admits giving up on Windows Phone and mobile was a mistake

#204

Post by jrnichols »

iforgotpassword wrote: post #128
VyseofArcadia wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're glossing over a big part of the story. It is hard, really, really hard, to convince game developers and publishers to make games that require an optional accessory. It's been tried again and again and it is never more than a mild success and usually an abject failure. They want to target the base platform, which will always have a dramatically larger install base. Thr original Kinect was just such an optional…

No, there is absolutely no way to integrate the Kinect into games in a meaningful way. Name just one example where it was done so that you would think "wow this has potential". Throwing grenades by gesture in call of duty? Biggest LOL ever. When I'm playing a competitive multiplayer title, I want precise, quick controls, and not let go of my controller to gesture around like a brain-damaged monkey. With Kinect, you h…

microsoft had the potential with Kinect to tie it into xbox live or something + Skype. In my opinion, they had an epic opportunity to have a great video call solution and they blew it.

Re: Satya Nadella admits giving up on Windows Phone and mobile was a mistake

#205

Post by vitorgrs »

toast0 wrote: post #42
DonnyV wrote: post #9

Do I smell a round 2 for a Windows Phone? Imagine a new Windows Phone....that runs Android apps.

Microsoft had an Android compatability layer in WM10 betas, as well as an iOS layer. They didn't launch either, afaik, running the apps without platform services isn't great, so then it's a push towards developers --- port your app to WM10 much easier... But there's still work, and IMHO, the user share on WM10 wasn't compelling enough for new developers to do the work. https://seekingalpha.com/article/3447036-microso…

iOS layer was launched - and is open source if I recall well. Candy Crush was made using the layer. Not sure if still use currently on Windows
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