I don’t think that we’ve alienated folks.  But I think they haven’t heard that message. They want to know that we’re passionate PC gamers too and that we’re not just people who play the console and, by the way, we’re going to dabble in PC gaming too. That’s not at all the case.

If you look at the areas of excitement today, if you look at what’s happening in the online space, we’re going to want to play a significant role in what’s happening online. You can postulate things like digital distribution. You can postulate things like making it cross-platform -- whether it’s achievements, whether it’s talking to your friends -- all of those are areas that we’ll continue to invest in. The roadmap we’re not ready to roll out yet, but it’s going to be a disproportionate part of our focus. There will be scenarios that we’re going to enable online over time that the console won’t do.

We came from a deficit. People said, “nobody’s championing PC gaming.” Five years ago, Valve was not getting kudos. People said, “This sucks! I just want to play Half-Life 2 and you’re making me install this internet thing!” and you guys tore them apart! This is the only thing that kept me going with Games for Windows Live. People are so hard on it at first, but you gotta start somewhere. And over time, you learn and understand what gamers want. And we have to deliver that.

Grade: C
Unangst begins with a tortured, almost Rumsfeldian self-congratulatory explanation of why Games for Live remains such an anemic service for PC gamers. While he hints at big things to come, we’ve heard lots of promises from Microsoft before. He ends with the legitimate point that Steam sent shockwaves of hysterics throughout the gaming community for its DRM, server problems, and other shortcomings at launch, but has now matured into a celebrated high-watermark for online gaming services.

PCG: The only games that Microsoft is developing or publishing for the PC that have been announced are Alan Wake and Zoo Tycoon. Meanwhile, there’s been a ton of first-party development for the Xbox. From the PC Gamer perspective, it looks like we’re getting the shaft from Microsoft Game Studios.

KU: And there’s the new Train Sim. Again, not for hardcore gamers – although in Europe they love Train Sim. But I think MGS initially did quite a lot for Games for Windows. They did Shadowrun -- the first cross-platform game, they did Gears of War (where they worked with Epic to do all the extra content). We did ship Flight Simulator X and that was a huge success.

We have a lot of development partners that have made good games on the Xbox that Microsoft has published. On the Windows side, it has been different. There have been lots of great third party developers.

For example, Microsoft has Halo Wars coming on the Xbox 360. Halo Wars is clearly meant to establish RTS as a significant genre on the console. I understand why that business strategy was undertaken.  And if you make it available on Windows, there’s an interesting question of whether or not that’s going to motivate people. There’s a business strategy. Would we like to see that on Windows? Sure we would. Is it necessary? Is the RTS genre healthy on Windows? Absolutely. It’s one of the areas that’s doing very well. So I think it’s a question of what the platform needs. And us deciding if we’re going to aggressively support our third-party partners. We don’t have an MMO so we’re going to support Age of Conan in a big way. That makes sense for us. And we’re excited about it. And we’re going to do things like support the family-friendly titles like LEGO Indiana Jones because we know that those are selling well at retail. We do both those things. Do we need to do more in first-party [development]? Yes we do. Can you expect to see more from us? Sure you can.