Windows 7 Gaming – Not As Good As XP?
I read this article with great interest as I realize fully that many Windows gamers may be having mixed results with their Windows gaming experience since upgrading to Windows 7. And after all, with the promised compatibility in play, there should be no problem, right? Well, maybe.
As the article points out, it almost feels like there was so much breath holding with the Windows release going well that everyone forgot to exhale somewhere along the line. Worse, it seems like Windows 7 gaming is a moot issue all of a sudden.
The piece goes on to point out that Microsoft took on a strong role in making sure that games would be certified “validated” to have undergone extensive testing. So what the heck happened to that, as I am not seeing much action there at the moment?
Apparently headliner games will be shipping this holiday season without any real validation that they are certified to run with the latest and greatest. That is a bit scary, if you are a gamer looking to upgrade to Windows 7. Who’s doing the bug testing?
I have a theory, but I am not sure gamers are going to like it much. I see a shift in where Microsoft is putting its eggs. More with the Xbox on the gaming side, while still half-supporting PC gaming with its various efforts. Most of its focus will be on the budget conscious. Generally speaking, this is not where Microsoft likely views gamers.
So what do you think? Are we throwing the baby out with the bath water here? Perhaps, instead, all is fine and MS is just slow going with its games certification process? Hit the comments, but be kind. Otherwise I might be forced to hit the reset button. :)
5 Comments
Kingdutch
November 6th, 2009
at 7:57am
I don’t have an XboX myself, I do have a wii, but I do all my games on my (now windows 7) PC and it’s fine for me, I haven’t had alot of time to game since my upgrade so I can’t comment on that issue, but I hope Microsoft doesn’t throw gaming out the window.
Having said that another part of me does hope Microsoft thows gaming out of the window because I’ve recently worked with macs and gaming is probably the biggest reason I’m not switching.
Jeremy Newton
November 6th, 2009
at 8:52am
I doubt Microsoft would turn their back on PC gamers but I would expect that certifying games are secondary to getting the entire operating system launched as smoothly as possible. However, I do think that if they said they would certify games for the holidays they should do it.
boots
November 6th, 2009
at 7:45pm
I upgraded from XP to W7 and had to go back to XP because my games won’t run.It’s a shame because I really like the feel of W7 but Iz gottz to have my games.
philrm
November 9th, 2009
at 9:19pm
Don’t expect Microsoft to go back to games like Oblivion etc for certification. If the developers want it to happen thay will have to do it themselves, or pay Microsoft to do it. Expect new games that start development from now, and some that have started but not yet released, to be in the mix for W7 certs. Pitty but the rest of us will either stick with xp or dual boot for some time.
GraveDigger
November 10th, 2009
at 10:20am
I expect people to have problems letting go of their old games for Windows 7 until there are newer games that take advantage of DirectX 11 – the same thing happened when XP came out. It was over a year before I gave up Windows 98SE. I had all kinds of problems installing games to work under XP and without a real “DOS-mode” many of the games I was playing at the time wouldn’t work under XP. Eventually developers came out with new games that took advantage of the features of XP and I wanted to play those games.
I moved to Windows 7 full-time when the release candidate came out and installed the upgrade version of Windows 7 on my old desktop without any issue. I’m probably going to create a multi-boot system running Windows XP, Windows 7 and a few flavors of Linux over the next few weeks. Hard drives are REALLY cheap and it’s not necessary to completely give up on your old games and applications for the newest OS. But I’m sure that most of my computing will be under Windows 7.
I’ve been computing for over 20 years and have upgraded from MS-DOS 3.2 all the way through to Windows 7. I’ve run EVERY version of Windows since 1.0 and even missteps like ME and Vista advanced the computing experience. I’ve come a long way since my turbo-XT and have tried other operating systems but I really think that Windows 7 may be one of the best I’ve ever used.