Windows 10 - Heavy Xbox Integration

[Nebor]

Because you can stream it to your Tablet running Windows 10. Potentially Windows Phone running Windows 10.

Also don't underestimate the ability for women to hog the TV for their shows when it's time to go bust some skulls with friends online.

This has the potential to allow PC gamers into the Xbox world. Stream the new CoD to your PC and use a mouse & keyboard. It'd be a slaughter.

I have an Xbox One and the only games I really like are "couch multiplayer" like peggle 2 and Fibbage.

 

[sze5003]

I'm looking forward to be able to stream my Xbox games to my PC in the bedroom. If I can't play in the living room I can on my PC monitor which should be decent.

 

[Anon_lawyer]

What about Universal apps? Could Valve build a universal Steam app for my Xbox One and then use Steam Big Picture/streaming to play a game from my PC on my TV? That IMO would be a much bigger deal than going the other way.

 

[cmdrdredd]

This has the potential to allow PC gamers into the Xbox world. Stream the new CoD to your PC and use a mouse & keyboard. It'd be a slaughter.

I have an Xbox One and the only games I really like are "couch multiplayer" like peggle 2 and Fibbage.

No, I don't doubt it requires an xbox controller. Xbox has no idea how to translate mouse movements.

 

[Nebor]

I'm looking forward to be able to stream my Xbox games to my PC in the bedroom. If I can't play in the living room I can on my PC monitor which should be decent.

What games are you playing on your Xbox that you can't play on your PC? I'm just imagining the issues of my Xbox streaming 1080p content to my 1440p monitor and it looking like crap. Plus I'm, you know, playing an xbox game on my 27" computer monitor.

 

[cmdrdredd]

What about Universal apps? Could Valve build a universal Steam app for my Xbox One and then use Steam Big Picture/streaming to play a game from my PC on my TV? That IMO would be a much bigger deal than going the other way.

No reason why they couldn't. However, given Gabe's ridiculous hatred of Microsoft for no apparent reason...it won't happen.

 

[destrekor]

Can someone explain to me why I'd want to play an Xbox game, designed for the Xbox and a big screen TV, on my PC?

When you really get down to it though, "big screen" is relative: it's further away from where you sit, whereas a PC monitor is right in your face. The proportions are often quite close, if not larger for the PC.

It could be you want to play a multiplayer game with your Xbox Live buddies, and the PC and Xbox games don't share multiplayer. Or perhaps you have a console-only game you want to play, but would rather be at your PC. Perhaps you'd rather use KB&M, or just want to sit at your PC and still use a controller.

It's all relative, people like different things, perhaps just based on the time of day or which way the wind is blowing.

Frankly, they should have made it two-way: play Xbox games on the PC, and PC games on the Xbox.

 

[Aikouka]

Damn that'd be a killer app if they enabled XB1 streaming to Windows 10 phones. I'm up for an upgrade soon and I'd seriously consider a Windows Phone if they announced something like that. Though I'm not too sure an XB1 controller can connect directly to a phone without an additional receiver. It's a proprietary wireless protocol (as opposed to bluetooth) right?

It connects to a PC through the USB port. It just required some drivers to be installed, which means it could theoretically work on the phone too.

EDIT:

Frankly, what I'd love to see in Windows 10 is Microsoft putting a bit of polish on Windows Media Center. I know we won't get it, but honestly, given the environment that Microsoft established, I think the consumers ought to demand Microsoft at least fix what's broken. The biggest problem is that protected content can only be played using Microsoft's PlayReady, which is used solely through Windows Media Center. WMC is so antiquated, that it doesn't even support proper playback on a DisplayPort monitor -- only HDMI and DVI. It threw me for a loop when I tried to use it on my monitor only to find that it worked fine when I dragged it over to my other one (that's connected via DVI).

 

[destrekor]

No reason why they couldn't. However, given Gabe's ridiculous hatred of Microsoft for no apparent reason...it won't happen.

There's a reason all right: Gabe feels Microsoft is trying to butt-in on Valve/Steam's market.

And he is right. Microsoft wants in on that. I don't know if they'll take the Xbox Games marketplace far into that kind of market space, but they probably would like to slowly build into that. They half-assed it with Live for Windows, and it honestly seems like Xbox Games for Windows is even more of a joke.

 

[AdamK47]

A bunch of stuff for me to uninstall, turn off, or disable.

 

[Anon_lawyer]

No reason why they couldn't. However, given Gabe's ridiculous hatred of Microsoft for no apparent reason...it won't happen.

Yeah, but Xbox owners buy a lot of games. Currently none of them off of Steam. If they can make it work, it's gotta be an awfully appealing market for them.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Yeah, but Xbox owners buy a lot of games. Currently none of them off of Steam. If they can make it work, it's gotta be an awfully appealing market for them.

As a gamer I have no interest in who gets the money for the games I buy. That's not my concern when I choose to purchase a new title. I just want the game.

Xbox owners by and large aren't PC gamers. Many of them have probably never played a game on a PC.

 

[Kalmah]

Is this going to further encourage developers that initially plan on making a PC game to say, "well, might as well make it Xbox too; to cut costs we better make the UI designed for console, lower the texture resolutions, and design the game for the console audience rather than the typical PC audience(dumbed down mechanics and everything that tends to come with console games)"...

I mean, if the Xbox isn't going to at least have modern hardware then stuff like this is going to just drag PC down even further. I would suggest they put a big "Designed For Console" warning label on the box of these games.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Is this going to further encourage developers that initially plan on making a PC game to say, "well, might as well make it Xbox too; to cut costs we better make the UI designed for console, lower the texture resolutions, and design the game for the console audience rather than the typical PC audience(dumbed down mechanics and everything that tends to come with console games)"...

I mean, if the Xbox isn't going to at least have modern hardware then stuff like this is going to just drag PC down even further. I would suggest they put a big "Designed For Console" warning label on the box of these games.

Knew it wouldn't take long for one of these posts...doom and gloom. If anything it will make PC gaming better as it will be easier for developers to work with. We might actually start seeing games we would normally not get on PC. That's a good thing.

 

[imaheadcase]

Free, or free for a year?

Windows going subscription?

FFS people. The said why already. Its because of licensing they can't do that. They have to have a base price whatever that may be. Its just after a year the licensing expires.

Anyways, i don't know how i feel about this. History has shown that having a PC and Console based together is never a good thing. Console players get the shaft or PC players get the shaft when it comes to games. No matter how you cut it, the console is always going to be a disadvantage..and with the already announced Fable Legends its easy to see how that could play out.

 

[mizzou]

Windows 10: Steam banned

Why do I feel like that is coming?

 

[Nebor]

It connects to a PC through the USB port. It just required some drivers to be installed, which means it could theoretically work on the phone too.

EDIT:

Frankly, what I'd love to see in Windows 10 is Microsoft putting a bit of polish on Windows Media Center. I know we won't get it, but honestly, given the environment that Microsoft established, I think the consumers ought to demand Microsoft at least fix what's broken. The biggest problem is that protected content can only be played using Microsoft's PlayReady, which is used solely through Windows Media Center. WMC is so antiquated, that it doesn't even support proper playback on a DisplayPort monitor -- only HDMI and DVI. It threw me for a loop when I tried to use it on my monitor only to find that it worked fine when I dragged it over to my other one (that's connected via DVI).

WMC is dead. Support ended years ago IIRC. I don't know why you'd need to use it anymore.

 

[destrekor]

FFS people. The said why already. Its because of licensing they can't do that. They have to have a base price whatever that may be. Its just after a year the licensing expires.

Anyways, i don't know how i feel about this. History has shown that having a PC and Console based together is never a good thing. Console players get the shaft or PC players get the shaft when it comes to games. No matter how you cut it, the console is always going to be a disadvantage..and with the already announced Fable Legends its easy to see how that could play out.

History has shown?

History has never had a moment like today.
Consoles and PC are now on the same exact architecture. Everything is now on an equal platform with x86. That's huge. Previously console-only developers will now be learning development on platforms that ultimately share the same instruction sets. While the PS4 is a Linux-based system, the APIs and base code will more readily port to the other platforms. It's even easier for Xbox One games to port to the PC.

Now yes, if they take the easy route, that will mean more half-assed ports. I don't think that will be the case, as PC gaming really has actually surged lately, IIRC. All this doom and gloom for the PC industry has actually been rather comical, considering all of the available statistics point to the fact that the PC gaming industry is completely outselling, embarrassingly even, that of the combined console gaming industry (software sales).

There's a slight issue with everything here: consoles used to be an easy way to get great gaming performance in the home. Not only from the couch, but also simply better than what you could buy with similar money in the PC world. This trend has slowly evaporated, and now it's not all that out of reach to get the same performance from PC without spending that much more. And you don't have to replace the entire system to keep up with things. PC manufacturers and other groups are even striving to put more emphasis on the PC as a living room gaming object, either through streaming or mini-box systems that offer limited upgrade potential.

We'll be quickly moving past the point of games that simply aren't optimized due to bad ports. Which is a huge marker of progress, a rather significant hurdle on the track toward cross-platform perfection. We might see some bad UI designs or control schemes that leave something to be desired, but I think this will happen less and less. Again, with more emphasis on PCs in the living room, with the Steam Box initiative and other efforts to compete with that business model, game developers are going to understand that PC-style control efforts will be important, and just as well, more PC-specific developers will begin to feel out how to reach the 10ft UI crowd, how to add quality controls for those who prefer controllers.

 

[destrekor]

WMC is dead. Support ended years ago IIRC. I don't know why you'd need to use it anymore.

Why? He spelled that out completely (and I have... I think it was in another thread on a related topic in the Video Cards forum... and many times before I'm sure). There is no alternative. Without WMC, one cannot record protected content from a cable company. I use an HD HomeRun Prime, and while many apps can access a fair portion of the available content in the cable subscription, much of the content is protected by a copy-once flag. This stuff can, unfortunately, only be recorded by WMC. And worse, that recorded content cannot even be shared with any other device on the network. I had an app that accessed recorded content to stream wherever I was in the world, set up a dynamic DNS service for it and everything, but only non-protected content was available to stream. Even with two PCs on the network, both having WMC, they couldn't access protected content on the other machine. The only way to access protected recorded content on the network is with a WMC Extender, and there remains only a single third-party extender, which will not work on Windows 8. The only other device is the Xbox 360. Not even the Xbox One will do this.

We users who love and enjoy this feature, are pretty much screwed. Granted, we're in a period of time where, eventually, the CableLabs consortium will get behind new specifications, and hopefully the FCC/FTC will enforce compatibility to a further extent than before. That said, this is an in-between period, and it may take a decade if not longer for any new technology to actually trickle down into the market. I have a fear we CableCARD consumers will be screwed until any new technology is fully ratified and available. Nobody else seems to be taking up the effort for protected CableCARD content - last I heard, the licensing and whatnot is insanely expensive, unless you're a behemoth of a company. This saddens me, because I seriously, seriously do not want to deal with the shit that our local cable company calls cable equipment. Seriously, fuck Arris equipment. And I want the freedom and opportunity to do everything media related I want on one machine: Live, Recorded, Streaming, Nefarious sources, perhaps some streamed gaming through Steam, some console emulators, and ultimately, whatever the hell I want. That's a dream machine right there. Granted, due to power consumption and, for the moment, simply a better user experience, all my streaming would go through a Roku. The Netflix Windows 8 app is decent, but really, that's the only one available. I don't really care to deal with the browser-based solutions, as most of the time, they don't work well with universal remotes, and they usually don't offer the highest image and sound quality. It's stupid easy on a Roku or other streaming box, and it all works well with a universal remote. Plus the Roku uses basically no energy, I think it's around 5W during active streaming? Get the HTPC to sleep when not recording or otherwise in use, and bam, you seriously save a good chunk on your bills, especially when you factor in that a cable box and the associated fees are also not on your bill, which usually draw power constantly and add even more to the cost. Really, it still comes down to having an awesome box you control, or a shittastic cable box that crashes or wigs out more than half the time.

 

[cronos]

WMC is dead. Support ended years ago IIRC. I don't know why you'd need to use it anymore.

I think WMC is still the best free channel guide out there.

 

[Nebor]

I had the original HD homerun and a WMC HTPC back in the day when that seemed like a reasonable thing to do.

Now my Xbox One can play Netflix, Hulu, Amazon VoD, HBO Go, FXNOW, Vudu and play any of my movies or shows right off my NAS. Plus I can watch whatever I want on AT&T Uverse, record 4 things at a time, and play back those recordings on any networked device in the house.

I just switched from a WMC HTPC to the Xbox One in the last month and it's great. WMC was creeky and limited. I do think it's annoying that HBO GO doesn't have a Windows 8.1 app. But their Xbox app is top notch.

 

[Ancalagon44]

I'll upgrade to 10 from 7.

 

[sxr7171]

I had the original HD homerun and a WMC HTPC back in the day when that seemed like a reasonable thing to do.

Now my Xbox One can play Netflix, Hulu, Amazon VoD, HBO Go, FXNOW, Vudu and play any of my movies or shows right off my NAS. Plus I can watch whatever I want on AT&T Uverse, record 4 things at a time, and play back those recordings on any networked device in the house.

I just switched from a WMC HTPC to the Xbox One in the last month and it's great. WMC was creeky and limited. I do think it's annoying that HBO GO doesn't have a Windows 8.1 app. But their Xbox app is top notch.

What's your solution for OTA? I've been wanting to get off WMC for the longest time.

 

[Aikouka]

WMC was creeky and limited.

Well, that's kind of what we'd like to see fixed. Personally, I like being able to watch TV on any computer that I own using my Ethernet-based tuner.

 

[tidy]

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