I'm not condoning it, but I don't really subscribe to Steam for the "ethics" of it -- I just want cheap games easily accessible.

If Microsoft can do that and provide some nice social tools to boot, then I will give them my money. Or GOG, or Humble, or anybody else. (thought the irony is with GOG/Humble is that they are usually Steam activated).

Or Microsoft's app store -- which is poised to compete with them in the combination of Xbox into their marketplace.

Will be interesting times, regardless.

Conversely, I really haven't had any issues with Origin's service either. And I play a bit of BF4 not to mention Mass Effect and some other games.

Granted my usage of Steam is far higher.

But this is a single instance where you don't. I don't either, for that matter. But the fact that when you do, or you might, that their customer service sucks beyond EA's... that's never good.

I think you misread it, then.

Valve is generally only interested in money. So I think HL3 is going to come, but it will come whenever it comes. The problem is that at Valve, Steam is the real moneymaker (even if they released HL3 tomorrow) and their focus is on the cash cow.

I never said Valve wasn't interested in making the game, I just said I'm not interested in talking about things that aren't here yet.

http://www.afterdawn.com/news/...

There are a hundred links to the article with a simple search, but just use "Valve customer service score" and search for dates in the last week or so, you should have a plethora. I just chose one at random.

Let's be honest... we love Valve because of Half Life, and GabeN's voice through the years.

That's been gone for a long time. They are a money machine now, and their Steam platform is basically a printing press for said money. Where are the improvements to the Steam platform? When you rank behind EA in customer service, you have to think that there's something amiss.

Don't get me wrong, I love Valve games, I love Steam not because it's a great platform (it's actually pretty shit), but because I have a whole bunch of games at a cheap price. The communication tools ingame are pretty terrible, the game updates themselves are pretty terrible (coming from a CSGO player), and they make exceptions to their marketplace to allow bots to trade, so they can keep a very shady betting scene from the likes of CSGOLounge/DotaLounge going strong. After all, they get a cut of every marketplace transaction. It's also the reason for the big push behind Steam Machines, which are positioned so that the likes of Microsoft and the Xbox/Windows integration to an app store (and games!) never competes. In short, Valve isn't that "indy" group of lovable "gamers who make games" any more -- they are a pretty ruthless business.

Long story short... I don't care about Half Life 3. That's about something that isn't even here yet. I care more about their attention to the games they have out now, engagement with the community (which is how they got this big to start), and a start to a conversation with the gamers. Half Life 3 will come when it comes; I am sure Valve wants to get it out too so they can cash in another big check.

For me, no. I do macro work in Excel that can't be replicated in LibreOffice. I assume many other people as well. I know it CAN be done, but when you need a specific tool there is no denying that Office is simply the best productivity suite.

When Linux has a worthy Office competitor.

Until then, people will always want Windows (yes, I know you CAN get away without Office but for practicality people actually do like it). And even then... Windows isn't as bad as it was when Linux was so advocated for. It is stable, boots fast, and is relatively easy to use. Yeah, Windows 8 is a trainwreck but Windows 10 looks very good, and DirectX is a very good API.

But their enterprise focus is extremely helpful. I manage our cloud relationships and dealing with MS as a business entity, and especially when it's concerning legal and regulatory matters, Microsoft is a *pleasure* to work with. Amazon on the other hand, is totally unavailable and seems to want to cater only to companies that start out in basements. That's fine, but given MS' focus on 'cloud' as a whole I don't see it being too long until MS catches up to AWS and even surpasses them.

On the licensing front they are miles ahead; they offer Oracle, SAP, and other things that AWS does not in prebuilt VMs. And to be frank... I have no issues with the service as I can compare and contrast them with AWS which we also use heavily. Only downside is that RedHat isn't offered at Azure, but given the per hour/minute licensing costs we've opted to look more heavily into CentOS.

I think Sinofsky envisioned himself AS a "Steve Jobs" type, and that's what he wanted as his legacy. He was stubborn in his principles because he did the same thing that Jobs did -- I am right, and customers are stupid.

In Jobs view it works out well, because his philosophy was one that won over customers. Sinofsky had no prior wins in the consumer or enterprise space, he was a cog in the machine helping push big products along. When he had the spotlight, he felt it was his duty to deliver his vision, rather than what Microsoft was known for -- focus grouping and telemetry reading the environment, which to their benefit, works very well in the enterprise space.

They axed Steve Sinofsky.

I have heard rumors from folks that work at MS that he was basically blinded by his vision, and didn't want to listen to anybody. The result as we all know, is Windows 8.

Windows 10 looks to be shaping up quite well, and that they are dumping RT isn't a big surprise; it's kind of relevant given that Intel/MS have huge synergies as well as the fact that Intel is making a great dent in the mobile space versus the ARM designs.

I have an x86 Atom Tablet that gets me plenty of battery life and works exceptionally well with Windows 8. I'll be glad to upgrade to Windows 10.

Gone are the days of instable, crashing Windows. Linux was a great idea for an alternative desktop for its stability, but nowadays there's really no issue with keeping a Windows system stable and running without any issue. Games run exceptionally well, and all the supporting software to go along with it (ie, TwitchTV streaming tools, chat, music, etc) are generally Windows only. Can you get things that run on Linux as well? Sure... but you're basically running Linux because you want to advocate for that as a platform; not because Windows is worse.

The only folks who seem to really be advocating for Linux are Valve; and they have a vested business interest in doing so since Microsoft has a competing "Store" to their own, that ultimately could even provide some gaming software among other things. With the tie-ins to Xbox Live with upcoming Windows 10 and shared achievements, etc, this is even a bigger threat. So there's easy understanding why THEY are doing it. But everybody else? I honestly don't know.

I am perfectly content with a Windows box for gaming and *nix for some dev/database/virtualization work. These are tools. I fail to see why people keep trying to put a square peg into a round hole and shoehorn Linux into things that it doesn't perform best at.

Simple fact is that now, it costs less for an OEM to use Windows than it does Android.

The big allure of Android was how cheap it was compared to Windows, and it's why it took off so well. I don't know that it will last if Microsoft can give the entire thing away for free. But this is how they won the console wars during the era of the 360, by undercutting the cost and also developing the software at a greatly increased rate.

If Windows 10 is any indication, I think Microsoft is actually doing a good job for once in a long while.

Of course not -- but access to the MS services (like their "store") is included. It is not with Android.