in ,

Voodoo Founder Says Microsoft Is Doing Gaming Wrong

laptop exploding battery fire

laptop exploding battery fireI’m totally a PC gamer, especially when it comes to first-person shooters. I play Team Fortress 2 most nights of my life (Heavy, if you’re wondering), and I’ve even been known to pick up the odd bout of Modern Warfare 2. So this news gives me a bit of a shit-eating grin. My apologies in advance to the Halo-folk reading this.

Rahul Sood, whom you may or may not recognize as the founder of Voodoo, and also CTO of HP’s gaming affairs, recently sounded off on Microsoft’s decision to axe console/PC cross-platform gaming, and champion the Xbox as its gaming saviour.

“There was a project that got killed at Microsoft. This project was designed to allow console gamers and PC gamers to interact and battle over a connected environment,” said Sood on his blog. “I’ve heard from reliable sources that during the development they brought together the best console gamers to play mediocre PC gamers at the same game… and guess what happened?”

Here’s where I get that shit-eating grin.

“They pitted console gamers with their “console” controller, against PC gamers with their keyboard and mouse. The console players got destroyed every time. So much so that it would be embarrassing to the Xbox team in general had Microsoft launched this initiative.”

In short: the project was possibly axed because console gamers suck too much.

“You simply don’t get the same level of detail or control as you do with a PC over a console,” said Sood.

But before your butt gets all puckered and dry and you make a beeline for the comment box, that’s not the point of this. The point is that Sood makes a point about Microsoft’s stance on PC gaming. As the experiment shows, the PC is still a solid platform for gaming, and a cross-platform system, console gamers’ suckage notwithstanding, could have really helped everyone realize this.

“…because had they kept it alive it might have actually increased the desire of game developers and gamers alike to continue developing and playing rich experiences on the PC which would trickle down to the console as it has in the past. Instead they wanted to keep an old business model alive, and as a result they are (all) getting attacked by the most unlikely competitor, Apple.” Emphasis mine.

When Apple‘s gaining ground in gaming, you know something’s amiss.

I mean, I personally won’t be giving up the PC as a gaming platform any time soon, but I think Sood is right – Microsoft definitely isn’t attacking PC gaming with the gusto it once was, instead focusing its efforts on the Wii 2 Kinect and whatnot. Yeah, smart move.

What do you think, guys? Should Microsoft continue snubbing the PC in favour of Xbox gaming? It’s obviously the profitable thing to do, but is it the right thing for innovation?

What do you think?

Avatar of Ty Dunitz

Written by Ty Dunitz

Ty is an illustrator who stays up too late and must wear glasses. You can follow him on Twitter if you want to (@glitchritual), but he's just gonna throw your stupid PR crap in the garbage, so don't email him.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

GIPHY App Key not set. Please check settings

9 Comments

messy house 2

Five Apps To Declutter Your Online Life

Insert Obligatory Magic Mirror Joke Here