Steve Jobs Got Mad After Microsoft Bought Bungie

[Usersname]

Bungie produced some of the most innovative and imaginative games before MS's acquisition. The MYTH series were brilliant strategy games with great story depth, beautiful graphics and wonderful humour. The Marathon series (pre-cursors to HALO) were similarly clever games with epic story lines. There was widespread fury when Mac users heard about the buy-out. Why? Because there were no PC games that came close to the quality of those produced by Bungie. You needed no autoexecbat tweaking, there were absolutely no in-game crashes…it was tight, polished coding the like of which I had never experienced on my PC gaming rig. They were Mac developers, head and shoulders above the PC gaming brigade and that was why MS snapped them up. Of course Jobs would be furious. Though he only had himself to blame. Little was done inside Apple to support games developers. Now there is OpenGL 4 and that sees off DirectX 11. Sadly, sloppy PC coders, used to feeding from the sourly lactating breast of mother MS whilst ignoring the smell and discomfort to themselves and others, will snuggle into their shit filled diapers until every one of them have been weaned off the Home Computer and onto Consoles.

Valve appears to be the exception to the above and that may reap dividends for themselves and developers with vision. May Bungie be back on the Mac soon.

 

[rantoc]

[citation][nom]vektsilver[/nom]this is just a blatant back track lie of a story.Steve Jobs never thought Gaming was important to MAC which is why support for games was always on the backburner.Steve Jobs was actually a negative force when it came to gaming. This is just another article trying to change the image of MACs so they can be a gaming platform too.[/citation]

Frankly - I think Steve is smart in the regards of keeping Mac out of the gaming arena, the hardware is usualy atleast one generation behind the newest on a win PC and at the same time costs more and if poeple would start to see the truth of whats inside their shiny cases the sales would dvindle. So yeah, i understand that desiré completly. Ofocrse in Steven style he have to maintain the Mac is best in everything so his believers wont start to think for themselves but everyone with some knowlage sees the truth!

 

[tolham]

thomshardware needs to find some new stock photos of steve jobs. i'm tired of seeing the same 3 over and over.

 

[Usersname]

[citation][nom]Trashit[/nom]Who gives a rats ass whats stevie thinks....i was rather unhappy though tbh. But seriously, gaming on a Mac is and never will be a viable option for anyone with functioning frontal lobes.[/citation]Yeah, there are not enough developers with functioning frontal lobes to see that coding in OpenGL would give them Windows, Mac, Linux market share. DirectX does not a good game make…great game development should not be dependent on proprietary API's. OpenCL and OpenGL will give you all the eye-candy you need with fantastic physics.

 

[back_by_demand]

Steve Jobs Got Mad After Microsoft Bought Bungie

Nah, Steve Jobs has been barking mad for many years now

 

[rantoc]

[citation][nom]usersname[/nom]Yeah, there are not enough developers with functioning frontal lobes to see that coding in OpenGL would give them Windows, Mac, Linux market share. DirectX does not a good game make…great game development should not be dependent on proprietary API's. OpenCL and OpenGL will give you all the eye-candy you need with fantastic physics.[/citation]

And as a developer, im sure you acounted for the extra time it takes to develop titles using thoose API's instead when you get pretty much everything served with DX9-DX11 allowing you to spend more resources to develop the content rather than the engine?

Open GL have really taken a turn downhill and its for a reason, windows machines (including xbox that only support DX9 thoo) stand for the vast majority of the matketshare so why spend extra recourses that won't even repay in the end ?

 

[Usersname]

Sites like Tom's should be dispassionate and objective. That means looking at what is best for all consumers and not just one group or another.

When it comes to gaming, if THW contributors and editors were a little less trenchant in their MS world-view bias they would champion all open standards.

People hereabouts may knock Apple to the core but their own coddled brains are trapped in proprietary DirectX which actually makes them no better than Mac fanboys (as some people ironically like to term them). Remember, DirectX is as closed as Mac OS X. Your choices are subsumed either way. All you're really left to fight about is Frames Per Second. So, don't kid yourselves.

Oh look ATI just gave Nvidia a black eye…but wait, Nvidia struck back and ATI has a blooded nose. Ding…Ding!

 

[Usersname]

[citation][nom]rantoc[/nom]And as a developer, im sure you acounted for the extra time it takes to develop titles using thoose API's instead when you get pretty much everything served with DX9-DX11 allowing you to spend more resources to develop the content rather than the engine?[/citation]Argue that with Valve then. They are quite happy with their increased market share…and Steam for Linux will be coming soon.
[citation][nom]rantoc[/nom] Open GL have really taken a turn downhill and its for a reason, windows machines (including xbox that only support DX9 thoo) stand for the vast majority of the matketshare so why spend extra recourses that won't even repay in the end ?[/citation]So, you don't want to help change the world then? Steve Jobs has, over and over again. I suppose some people are simply too lazy or mollycoddled to think beyond the cradle. OpenGL has actually come on a staggering pace (or hadn't you noticed?). I can't help it if you prefer to have your hand held. Bungie managed to produce excellent games for the Mac without any aid from MS. That's what good game developers did/do. XBox has been a commercial disaster, I'm not even sure if MS have yet turned (much of) a profit on that particular division. They hadn't last time I looked. DirectX 9? Yep, wonderful…cough.

 

[back_by_demand]

[citation][nom]usersname[/nom]Bungie managed to produce excellent games for the Mac without any aid from MS. That's what good game developers did/do.[/citation]
And now Microsoft has put games made by Bungie to a potential marketplace 18 times larger than Apples.
Go figure.

 

[zachary k]

i would happily accept halo on mac if it means it is on PC. the custom maps in halo CE were the best! beat the hell outta "forge".

 

[Usersname]

Oh…
Just in case people are LOL'ing about my comment re Steve Jobs changing the world…
Think…Apple
Think…Mac
Think…NeXT
Think…WWW (Berners-Lee)
Think…Carmack (iD)
Think…iMac
Think…iPod
Think…iPhone
Think…iPad
Think…what other technology persona has added so much colour to our western culture?

 

[Yuka]

[citation][nom]usersname[/nom]So, you don't want to help change the world then? Steve Jobs has, over and over again. I suppose some people are simply too lazy or mollycoddled to think beyond the cradle. OpenGL has actually come on a staggering pace (or hadn't you noticed?). I can't help it if you prefer to have your hand held. Bungie managed to produce excellent games for the Mac without any aid from MS. That's what good game developers did/do. XBox has been a commercial disaster, I'm not even sure if MS have yet turned (much of) a profit on that particular division. They hadn't last time I looked. DirectX 9? Yep, wonderful…cough.[/citation]

All developers know that OpenGL has one major drawback wich Khronos hasn't been able to leverage in all these years: backwards compatibility. Since OpenGL was "the man" back in the day, a lot of complex things were made, and want support even on this day in current APIs. That leaves little room for real improvement, since you have to watch the whole thing so it doesn't break old code. DirectX doesn't have that "flaw" since you could really call it a "gamer API", wich has no relevance at all in "srs business". That's why DirectX is a really nice API to use, contrary to Source, wich is very complex/hard/brain-hurting, but it's been for every piece of hardware out there from some time now.

On the other side, if you ask for a change in the market, well... Telling developers to do so is a little immature or naive, since the cash for every project out there using DirectX is not from the Devs, but the Publishers in like 90% of the cases. And a 100% in AAA games.

Cheers!

 

[captainnemojr]

Microsoft bought Bungie. Jobs gets mad and buys Sony.

 

[blueeyesm]

He should have Interplay when he had the chance.

 

[dman3k]

Wasn't Halo at that point a RTS and not a FPS as we have now grown to love?

 

[rantoc]

[citation][nom]usersname[/nom]Argue that with Valve then. They are quite happy with their increased market share…and Steam for Linux will be coming soon.
So, you don't want to help change the world then? Steve Jobs has, over and over again. I suppose some people are simply too lazy or mollycoddled to think beyond the cradle. OpenGL has actually come on a staggering pace (or hadn't you noticed?). I can't help it if you prefer to have your hand held. Bungie managed to produce excellent games for the Mac without any aid from MS. That's what good game developers did/do. XBox has been a commercial disaster, I'm not even sure if MS have yet turned (much of) a profit on that particular division. They hadn't last time I looked. DirectX 9? Yep, wonderful…cough.[/citation]

The chooices are three today if you like to be able to play games with your computer beside working with it - Windows, Apple wich have poor performance and you cant get the latest hardware and it lack titles or Linux that provides good bang for the buck... when a title is actually available to it.

So i choose the first since it has a great numbers of titles, least issues (especially now with win7). If you choose any of the underdogs and can live with the issues plaguing them then congrats, i sure hope a more open standard will come up to pace but sadly it dont look like it will be anytime soon.

The Xbox might not have generated alot of direct revenue to MS with its 41.7 milion sold units sold (as of june 30) but for the developers its a great platform, easy to develop titles and you get the PC market for free. Its a reason it has the most attached sales to it (meaning most sold games/machine). Then add in the Xbox Live account subscription needs ect i think MS earns more than they let on.

But back to the prev subject, compare the ratio of DX developed games vs OpenGL/CL its like the Windows PC vs Mac market shares. Wich is in a way sad, MS keeps their possition in the game market by making it profitable to develop titles since its soo much easier for the developers. The gfx card makers strides hard to keep the card drivers shining and what do you think they choose to optimize when they aren't limitless on recources? Directx or OpenGL?

So goahead and call people narrowsighted ect as much as you like, just take a look in the mirror once in a while!

 

[digiex]

"Ok Steve, you have gone too far, you snatched my toy maker", said Steve...

 

[Usersname]

[citation][nom]back_by_demand[/nom]And now Microsoft has put games made by Bungie to a potential marketplace 18 times larger than Apples.Go figure.[/citation]

That's One Game, HALO, MS has offered to the marketplace. The guys at Bungie managed to code several brilliantly imaginative games in less time than the years spent trapped in MS's DirectX web. And if they had coded for Apple, PC and consoles they would have had 25 times the market. Hell, it's going to take them an age to wipe off those dusty DirectX cobwebs. I don't blame them for going to MS, Apple was in a terrible state. But I do understand SJ's frustration/anger over the debacle.

If, however, games developers and GPU manufacturers said 'sod MS and their DirectX we'll use openGL in future' all proprietary games consoles would vanish into their own orifices, games would become more stable, easier to port around and you'd probably get better FPS as dedicated OpenGL drivers improved. Developers could then concentrate on their game content (though most unimaginative ones would continue to code generic rubbish).

 

[tonydu]

In theory, free markets are supposed to be competitive and thus lower prices and create consumer desired products.

But if you think about it, none of those things are occurring. There are too many ways to undermine a "free market" system. (Think cable, phone, garbage, health, walmart,...)

As Joseph Stiglitz -- the Nobel Economics winner -- said: "The free market does not work"

 

[Usersname]

[citation][nom]rantoc[/nom]...I sure hope a more open standard will come up to pace but sadly it dont look like it will be anytime soon.The Xbox might not have generated alot of direct revenue to MS with its 41.7 milion sold units sold (as of june 30) but for the developers its a great platform, easy to develop titles and you get the PC market for free.[/citation] But all console titles are linear and frankly, generally, unimaginative despite the millions poured into them. They have such constraints imposed upon them. What artist wants caging? Okay, masochistic ones. Necessity should be the mother of invention, but that simply hasn't happened with console titles. IMHO the very best games are still exclusively Personal Computer titles. And with each year more developers are suckered into console because that, they believe, is where the money is. But Valve is making money for itself and developers. Heck, soon it will be virtually impossible to pirate them because the whole game purchasing/playing loop will tied into their SSA. Great for developers because you don't have a second-hand market to cannibalise your sales nor widespread piracy. Great for consumers/gamers because they hopefully get fewer linear games dependent on paddles and twaddles. With MS you have an autocracy which stifles creativity.

So what if Apple Mac users have to switch to lower resolutions/features or drop some fps, it will be their choice, they wont mind, they are not that fussed. My partner plays Valve games on a MacBook at well over 65fps (all features on) and it's more than adequate. On the iMac it's over 100fps. On my MacPro/GTX285 I can get over 150fps on some games. Most PC users (98%) had settle for poor settings in order to play Crysis…it's the nature of the beast.
I'm not a fanatical technologist, I am a passionate gamer and there isn't a best platform. There are only good games and bad games. I play good games happily on different OS's. Each to their own.