Scobleizer - Latest Comments in Penny Arcade wonders why Halo is only on Vista

Re: Penny Arcade wonders why Halo is only on Vista

camo — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 23:18:38 -0000

well i know the xbox doesnt have a fast proccesor or any thing kick ass like a core 2 duo or sumthing, i have vista basic and halo 2 is compatible with every thing i have exept my proccesor it recommends 2GHz but im running at 1.60GHz will that 4MGz effect my game play??? im going to buy H2 sumtime this week and try it out....i think i might be able to barly play BUT PLEASE if anyone thinks im running too slow email me at big.boy172@gmail.com

Re: Penny Arcade wonders why Halo is only on Vista

Paul Wheeler — Wed, 01 Mar 2006 15:54:13 -0000

First, asmany comments have pointed out, of course Microsoft is going to release some products Vista only, do you think they *don't* want to sell copies of their new platform (the chief money maker and microsoft)? Stop sniffing you Open Source/Free Software glue and grow some business sense.

Second, the real reason Halo will be Vista only is right here: http://www.extremetech.com/... It's called DirectX 10, and its got a lot of new stuff. And those of you who think Vista is just XP SP2 + DRM should read the rest of the article.

Re: Penny Arcade wonders why Halo is only on Vista

Wed, 22 Feb 2006 18:42:25 -0000

Two words: Bull Shit

This is a complete crock. Vista is only different from XP in that theres more DRM, nothing else.

Re: Penny Arcade wonders why Halo is only on Vista

James — Wed, 22 Feb 2006 18:34:29 -0000

LAME. Seriously. It's all just marketing.

Re: Penny Arcade wonders why Halo is only on Vista

Spider — Wed, 22 Feb 2006 10:54:13 -0000

It is plain and simple M$ marketing bullsh*t. To be completely honest, I will openly applaud the first bunch of guys out there to hack it to bits and port it over to XP (as is what will invariably happen).

Re: Penny Arcade wonders why Halo is only on Vista

Steve — Wed, 22 Feb 2006 06:41:31 -0000

History's repeating itself. When Halo came out on the x-box, the console gamers went nuts because they didn't have anything like it. Most PC gamers showed only mild interest because there were already several arguably superior games in the same genre on the PC. The delay in releasing it for PC merely meant that it was old hat by the time it came out and no-one cared since PC games had more so far beyond that level. I've nver seen it played at a LAN and know only a few people who have played the PC version when it finally came out. None were terribly impressed since it was competing against the likes of counterstike and BF1942.
Halo 2's going to be the same. When it came out, it was already more than matched by PC games like Far Cry, Halflife 2 and Doom 3 (all of which I personally think are superior games, each for different reasons). If it was released on pc then it would have given all of them a run for their money though. Delaying it even more is pretty much guaranteeing failure on PC since it will look downright primitive compared to the crop of pc games it will be competing against.

Re: Penny Arcade wonders why Halo is only on Vista

Goebbels — Tue, 21 Feb 2006 19:30:09 -0000

"Cause his hardware isn’t good enough.

So, here’s an example ALREADY of a game that doesn’t work on XP."

No, the hardware won't run the game, not XP. Jesus, what pathetic logic. What game does not, besides mentioning OS compatability, mention memory, video card, etc... as recommendations/requirements?

Why would anyone need to say: what we want is this video card, this memory, etc... but instead we'll just say the software we hope for because even then a machine with that software might not meet our hardware reqs? No one.

"my son’s game doesn’t run because the hardware isn’t appropriate. Has nothing to do with the OS."

So... you know you've already thrown out 2 or 3 bullshit excuses and are happy to keep sliding along to the next bullshit excuse that might sound half reasonable even though you have no information whatsoever? Brilliant!

Re: Penny Arcade wonders why Halo is only on Vista

aa — Tue, 21 Feb 2006 19:19:22 -0000

This is one of the stupidest things i have heard in a long time. I am not even going to try to describe all the holes in this statement because there are too many. Scoble, i have one word for you - shameful !!

Re: Penny Arcade wonders why Halo is only on Vista

Matthew — Tue, 21 Feb 2006 19:10:33 -0000

It's not clear to me what MS accomplished by announcing H2 for Vista so early. We're looking at something 1 or maybe 1 1/2 years away, no? For an operating system which hasn't been released yet? Why announce it now? I think *maybe* this could have waited until midsummer (at least after E3). Just a thought.

Re: Penny Arcade wonders why Halo is only on Vista

Dmad — Tue, 21 Feb 2006 18:15:45 -0000

@26.More evidence to the fact that bloggers are no where near being journalist. So, we might stop implying they are. A journalist would have done the research to answer the questions before "reporting" on the topice. What you posted seems more like gossip.

Re: Penny Arcade wonders why Halo is only on Vista

Beranrd Odjidja — Tue, 21 Feb 2006 15:07:44 -0000

If you can get games like Call Of Duty 2 running on both Xbox 360 & my 4+ year old XP machine (running at 1.533Ghz), it shouldn't be that much difficult to have Halo 2 do the same

Re: Penny Arcade wonders why Halo is only on Vista

J. Random Poster — Tue, 21 Feb 2006 14:30:11 -0000

Guys, there's nothing to get excited about, here. Halo is going to run only on Windows Longwind, because it belongs to the evil empire, and they have the prerogative to do that.

Of course, if the only benefit to longwind is the ability to run yet another shoot-em-up game, I doubt that anyone over the age of 18 will need it.

Re: Penny Arcade wonders why Halo is only on Vista

Christopher Coulter — Tue, 21 Feb 2006 10:43:29 -0000

I don't know why people trust Microsoft anymore, they must think their customers are stupid, and watching Scoble quicksand on this spin, is quite amusing. Bloodsport.

Bungie has just killed a potential marketbed of millions of users, but they maybe think the numbers of XP users will be so small as to make Vista more viable? Why rope a Game Developer into this Microsoft upgrade strategy hell?

Re: Penny Arcade wonders why Halo is only on Vista

Christopher Coulter — Tue, 21 Feb 2006 10:15:22 -0000

Gosh, just admit it, it's not technical, and if it is, then Microsoft/Bungie are incompetent.

But even so it's a pointless thing methinks, Halo 3 will be out by that timeframe or near, and Halo has never played well on PC, nor had much volume. Halo got the console mantle, and Microsoft taking all this bad press and losing sales just to push a platform strategy. Chinese Wall the Bungie group, I thought they said they would, and not wrap Bungie in the Microsoft soup. Mark that down as another broken promise.

Make a Halo 3 for 360 and Xbox 1. Make Halo 2 for Xbox and PC. But no, Microsoft playing the force upgrade game. I don't care what techincal excuse wand cop-out you wave over it, it can be done.

Would they play the SAME game with say Office? Office 12 doesn't run on XP? Come on...

Re: Penny Arcade wonders why Halo is only on Vista

Jake — Tue, 21 Feb 2006 08:35:49 -0000

What's the limitation? Improper DirectX driver support for some integrated video chipset with insufficient ram most likely (usually the killer in the under $XYZ category where $XYZ is the street price of the killer machine that is always less than the price of a Mac).

Wasn't there just a back and forth on Slashdot and integrated video and Vista and glass?

I would echo what Tim said above: wait for David Weller to explain this away.

Re: Penny Arcade wonders why Halo is only on Vista

toast — Tue, 21 Feb 2006 07:57:44 -0000

I won't be playing Halo 2 when it comes out, I'll be playing Vista! LOL at all those 'angry', 'angry' people.

Re: Penny Arcade wonders why Halo is only on Vista

John C. Welch — Tue, 21 Feb 2006 07:21:43 -0000

I just talked to my son, Patrick. He has a year-old computer. He just bought Star Wars Battlefront 2, but it won’t play on his Windows XP machine. Why not? Cause his hardware isn’t good enough.

So, here’s an example ALREADY of a game that doesn’t work on XP. I guess everyone will say “there’s no technical reason why that shouldn’t be,” right?

Robert, that's like saying "My car can't run on Diesel, so Diesel's bad fuel" even though you have a gasoline engine. Your example would only work if Halo 2 was brand new and state of the art. It's not. Halo 2 is an old game running on older hardware. The fact that Microsoft is using any reason other than "Drive Vista Sales among gamers" as a reason for limiting an old game like Halo 2 to Vista shows that once again, MS still has that old "Our customers are too stupid to know how things work" streak going. Gotta purge it some more.

MS bloggers can provide all the clear information they'd like, but when the company engages in idiocy like this, it taints everything they do. I don't really care if Halo 2 plays on Vista or not. My reasons for buying it have more to do with the moribund state of the gaming industry and how 40% of the games out there are still nothing more than remakes of Wolfenstein 3-D. (Hell, iD's been making the same game for decades, but it obviously works). But don't try and come up with BS about technical issues when it plays on an old POS like an original XBox. I mean, Honky Puh-LEASE!

Re: Penny Arcade wonders why Halo is only on Vista

Brandon Clinger — Tue, 21 Feb 2006 06:59:00 -0000

Must have been a low end year old computer. It should have at least a Radeon 9800 Pro in it, which is more than a year old now I believe. Battlefront II is a fun game at first, but seems to get kinda boring after a while. The way the guns feel is weird. I truly don't mind the OS upgrade, just as long as the Halo 2 port is effcient and quick as possible. Halo 1, at least in my opinion performed poorly, it could have been so much better (for PC). If the Xbox can play it, it should feel fluid on the PC.

Re: Penny Arcade wonders why Halo is only on Vista

feedscot — Tue, 21 Feb 2006 06:13:09 -0000

In the channel 9 interview, Bill Gates talked about the importance of backwards compatibility. Talk is cheap. I don't buy the spin on Halo 2 needing more system or OS requirements. Most of the graphic processing is video card dependant not cpu. The issue of sound is whimsycal, almost no resources needed. So the argument just doesn't hold the H20. To put it in a nutshell, it is all about money in this case. I don't think the XBOX is running Vista. Is it Scob?

Re: Penny Arcade wonders why Halo is only on Vista

MJ — Tue, 21 Feb 2006 02:32:58 -0000

"multitasking in Windows NT4/2000/XP was never quite as good as UNIX”

Wow. I don’t want to argue about it here, but I hope that’s some kind of joke. said Brandon Paddock.

I don't need to argue about it. I have a screenshot which reminds me how "bad" the multitasking can get under Windows. I'm NOT saying it is BAD, but that in my experience, I've seen a lot better - especially when under load.

If you don't believe me, then we just need to go to the local Microsoft Technical Evangelist to get the full story:

Hey look, we're at his web site already - the reason he gives for Halo 2 being on Vista only is that XP's audio won't play properly when the machine is under stress. How much more transparent can you get?

Re: Penny Arcade wonders why Halo is only on Vista

scobleizer — Tue, 21 Feb 2006 01:48:32 -0000

Jake: my son's game doesn't run because the hardware isn't appropriate. Has nothing to do with the OS. But, I can certainly see situations where the game manufacturer might want to rely on technologies that exist only in a certain OS.

Hint: the game he has DEFINITELY won't run on Windows 95.

Re: Penny Arcade wonders why Halo is only on Vista

Jake — Tue, 21 Feb 2006 01:43:13 -0000

There's an argument form in your case. Maybe Bad Analogy.

For some reason, call it "the cruft" that develops on a year old installation of Windows XP on a typical home computer - that ruins it from doing anything useful or interesting. Your son is experiencing this common disappointment in trying to play a new game. And that example becomes the justification for tieing a nearly two year old last generation console game port to the new OS.

I get it!

Re: Penny Arcade wonders why Halo is only on Vista

scobleizer — Tue, 21 Feb 2006 01:36:52 -0000

Jake: I know a family who has an old computer that's never used simply cause it wouldn't run games that their eight-year-old wanted to play.

Re: Penny Arcade wonders why Halo is only on Vista

scobleizer — Tue, 21 Feb 2006 01:36:07 -0000

Jake: it might run Vista, but definitely won't run the glass interface.

Re: Penny Arcade wonders why Halo is only on Vista

Jake — Tue, 21 Feb 2006 01:31:57 -0000

I guess Patrick's machine won't run Vista and won't run Halo 2. Shame to have throw away a 2 year old computer to run a game.