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I remember when the xbox was in development - a PC in a box that was touted as. Is just an xbox but with a steam dashboard that the PC community already has? Another nail in the coffin of physical media? If this catches on i expect "PC" games prices will skyrocket. What are comparative PC/steam/console games sales like at the moment?

What if this is Durango? I've mentioned before the possibility of Durango running Windows 8. Why shouldn't it therefore run Steam, EA Origin and everything else?

Because that would almost certainly involve Microsoft selling a full pc at a loss which would no doubt piss off the likes of HP and Dell a hell of a lot.

Also do you really think Microsoft will just jump from having an extremely closed off console in the 360 to the most open console ever released? The Live walled garden seems to be working out just fine so far.

But if the rumours of Wii U have a completely open system are to be believed, how long can Microsoft stick with that model before looking incredibly restrictive and outdated?

Surely that's already happened?

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Because Live makes a gooseberry fool load of money, why change it?

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Because that may not always be the case. Complacency kills.

I'm sure that if Live were to start to see profits drop off, they would change things up.

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People seem to ignore the fact that a closed system brings the advantage of universal standards in all software, that's what people like. People now have a lot of time and money invested in their Xbox Live Profile and as long as MS carries that forward then people will carry on with it.

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Indeed, universally low. I have a lot of time and money invested in my steam account, on my lovely open system.

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They can still have Live, in the form of GFW Live, which links to your Xbox Live and Windows Phone 7 profiles.

Oh lawd

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videogame graphics...n' gooseberry fool
TFPG: Some 2012 gooseberry fool about bad games

I would literally rather eat 10 babies than have to use GFWL any more than I do already, which at the moment is is "begrudgingly and only when absolutely necessary". If GFWL is anything like Xbox Live, then I feel a deep, deep sadness for those who use it.

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It's not quite the same thing as not every game uses Steamworks and you can't get every game on Steam.

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But the beauty of the open system is we're not limited to using Steam. You can't get every game on Steam, but you can get every game on the open system.

No, they don't. Hell, a lot of the games available to buy ON steam don't use "Steamworks" - cloud saving, achievements, workshop wtc - however I can add games I have bought elsewhere to the shortcut list, which gives me the shift+tab steam overlay. The only thing I don't get are steam achievements, tracking time played etc, which I couldn't care less about anyway.

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As long as the one system does what you want then it doesn't feel limiting, lots of people like to have every game have features across the board. On Xbox Live you can press your guide button and access the same features across Battlefield 3 and The Orange Box.

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How about having a unified login that links to your Steam account, your EA Origin account etc, and features its own voice chat that works in the background (similar to how we use Mumble, running alongside our games and allowing cross-game chat with the ability to set up seperate rooms) and is able to track things like achievements by linking with these other accounts?

Surely we need to wait and see just how "open" the Wii-U is before getting excited about it? After all it's only last week we found out that they were not letting The Binding of Issac be released on the 3DS Eshop due to religious concerns.


I'd love to see a more open Xbox Live and have been saying so for ages. Sadly MS don't see the need.