14 DAY TRIAL // Blizzard has seen a lot of coverage lately, mainly because of the fact that it announced the development of Diablo III, one of the most anticipated games of the decade. One thing that slipped under the radar for most commentators was the fact that the game is set to come out for PC and Mac only, with Blizzard completely ignoring the always growing market of console gaming. So, when Blizzard talks about PC gaming and what could help this segment, gamers should be listening.
Rob Pardo, senior vice president at Blizzard and the man dishing out the details regarding Diablo III, declared that "With Microsoft, I think they have a bit of lip service with PC gaming. They have their own game system now, so I don't think it's really in their best interest to support it". The statement came as a sort of a response regarding the flurry of information that Microsoft had been recently offering regarding Games for Windows and the newly formed PC Gaming Alliance. The company even sent an open letter to gamers detailing how it was supporting the PC through its initiatives.
Now, another Blizzard man, Paul Sams, is saying to Gamasutra that Microsoft should be doing more regarding PC gaming because of the fact that they pretty much control the operating system market. He said "they have a lot in Windows. And Windows is a system that supports all the business applications as well as games". He continued by pointing out that "they own and operate that system, so having them put more energy and effort against it - and they would say that they are, but I think that there's more that can be done".
Microsoft's latest operating system, Windows Vista, has been sharply criticized by some gamers for eating up system resources and for limiting performance in gaming. The release of Windows Vista Service Pack 1 has eliminated some of the issues, but gamers tend to stay away from Vista even if it's the only platform on which DirectX 10 is currently running.