"Every time there's a new generation of consoles in the works," says game developer Greg Costikyan," there are stories about how consoles are going to kill the PC as a platform. The fact is, they never have, and never will. There's a larger base of PCs than there is of any console platform. People buy them for reasons other than playing games, but want games to play on them too."

Costikyan has a long track record as a game developer, consultant and writer on gaming issues. And as far as he is concerned, not only is there no certainty that Microsoft is going to be able to dominate a completely new market, but even if it did somehow end up controlling the next generation of games, that doesn't mean PC games will go away, and it most certainly doesn't mean creativity will somehow inevitably blossom.

"Hardcore gamers will never be satisfied by a platform with frozen specs, not if they can get a better experience on an open one," says Costikyan. And they will. The PC is a platform in continuous evolution. We got decent online games and decent 3-D games on PCs earlier because of that, and the same will continue to be true as technology evolves."

As for that renaissance?

"Nonsense," says Costikyan. "Yes, a stable platform makes some aspects of development easy. [But] a 'bigger market' will simply drive development budgets higher, driving increasing conservatism."

Nothing like a good dose of cynical realism to dash Utopian fantasy. But if you look harder, there's still hope, from an unexpected quarter. In the hardcore gaming world, Microsoft enjoys a far better reputation -- from the press, programmers and game players -- than it does in other software arenas.

This includes Bungie founder Alex Seropian, among the most admired figures in gaming. Seropian says the Bungie team was looking for a publisher that could work with it and its elegant (albeit complex) game titles. "We talked to maybe a dozen publishers in the last five years," he says.

"The Microsoft guys were pretty smart. They didn't want to break what worked ... They believed in what we were doing." What's more, Seropian says, Gates' new gaming console made that offer irresistible. "When we started talking to Microsoft, we got the opportunity to be the premier developer of the Xbox."

One game designer who asked to remain anonymous had nothing but praise for Gates' game wing. "From what I've seen, Microsoft is intent on taking the time to do things right and listen to developers."

And despite all efforts to coax a discouraging word from industry leaders directed against Microsoft, I could drag not an iota of malediction from anyone, anonymous or otherwise.

There are unattributed rumors that some publishers have indeed felt the company's crushing hand upon them -- that they've been pressured away from developing certain titles and to accept unfair royalty rates.

But it's all according to one's perspective, if you believe Kevin Bachus, Microsoft's director of third-party development for the Xbox.

"We're starting off with an install base of zero. We would be negligent if we didn't go to publishers and say, 'You've got to bring your best ammo to this fight.'"

So in other words, I ask Bachus, you advise publishers which Xbox titles they should develop and which ones they should put in turnaround? "Absolutely, just like any other console manufacturer."

As for the royalties, Bachus characterizes this as a decision impelled by the developers themselves, when Microsoft offered to make the Xbox royalty-free. "And unanimously, they said, 'No, we don't want you to do that.'" Without their direct stake in its marketing, the console's fate would be insecure, suggests Bachus.

"Are there people who don't entirely agree with the royalty structure? I'm sure there's some," says Bachus. But it was game publishers that set the terms, in effect telling Microsoft, "'Look, Microsoft, you wanna do a console, OK, here are the rules. The rules are, you have as low a price as you possibly can, we'll chip in [to cover the Xbox's low retail cost], and you'll chip in part of that. And two, you make sure that all the stuff that comes out on the Xbox, especially in the early years, comes out as fantastic as it could possibly be.'"

"They're being very good about cultivating developers," concedes game developer Costikyan. But "the pliers won't come out until they have a large-enough installed base that they can dictate the terms. That's certainly been the history with, say, Sony."

But it isn't just about the developers. Gamers seek unity too. In this small sector of software design, Microsoft almost seems like an avuncular presence, and even the hardest-core gamers, who are often also advocates of Microsoft's' bête noire, Linux, give Gates grudging approval.

Simon Robertson, a teenage Photoshop whiz and Linux fan who sometimes fights in the online Quake world as "palpy[SC]" of Clan SoftCom, perhaps represents this reaction best.

"When I make my purchase," says Robertson, "I know that Blockbuster will be renting the games, and that the majority of America will be joining the Xbox bandwagon. This may sound like simple Microsoft communism, but as a gamer, this is good. A unifying console is what we're after."

Alternately, I could find little game-boy enthusiasm for the Indrema, even though this console, scheduled for a spring 2001 release, will run on Linux-based operating systems and includes both a hard drive and a modem. The general reaction among gamers is polite interest at best. With only a small list of planned game titles, geek advocacy for all things Linux appears to end at games -- though Indrema's CEO, John Gildred, sees things differently.

"We are offering a gaming experience unlike any other," says Gildred. "New-game developers will be able to release titles on IES before any other console, as we offer open-source access to our operating system components and APIs [application programming interfaces] ... We get the game developers involved in the process of evolving the game APIs and underlying system architecture through the open-source process. There has never been such an opportunity for game makers to change the face of console gaming as there now is with the IES. And the result of this is more games, better games and more choice for the consumer."

Maybe so, but no one appears to be placing any bets yet. "Even without the Xbox," says Old Man Murray's Erik, apparently oblivious to the apostasy involved, "Microsoft's done more for me as a game player than [Linux creator] Linus Torvalds ever has. Or ever will. If the revolution involves me having to figure out how to recompile my kernel, count me right the fuck out."

The Free Software Project
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