Console NewsJuly 22, 2010
Microsoft canned PC vs Xbox cross-platform gaming
by Darren Allan
The latest interesting gaming rumour we’ve spotted (via TechRadar) revolves around Microsoft, and the idea that once upon a time, the company was going to implement cross-platform gaming so PC players could take on Xbox’ers online in games like Unreal and Gears of War.
According to the Founder of Voodoo PC (now CTO of HP’s gaming business) Rahul Sood, the idea was tested at MS, but reliable sources said that the PC players beat the console gamers consistently.
Not because the PC players were superior gamers, but mainly due to the control mechanism of the keyboard and mouse versus the Xbox controller. Certainly when it comes to first-person shooters, there’s no way a controller stick can match the accuracy and speed of the flick of a mouse.
Indeed, Sood says they pitted excellent console players against mediocre PC guys, and those on the PC didn’t just beat but “destroyed” their console brethren.
Sood says on his blog: “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. Is this why the project was killed who knows, but I’d love to hear from anyone involved – what happened?”
Sood goes on to argue that had this project been kept alive, it could have resulted in the integration of the Xbox into the PC.
That’s a bit of a leap, but we’ll certainly agree it’s a shame it was killed off. If nothing else, it would have brought greater player populations and choice to the servers of the slightly less popular games out there.
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Tags: cross-platform, FPS, gaming, Gears of War, Microsoft, PC, Xbox
How difficult woud it be to develop a keyboard/mouse based game-pad for the 360
Comment by mcfly — July 22, 2010 @ 9:17 am
The solution is simple. MS should provide a keyboard and mouse that can be used with the Xbox. Problem solved!
Comment by Dai R Straits — July 22, 2010 @ 9:34 am
This is almost a non-story to most people who know what an x86 chip is. Consoles have only taken the mainstream gaming top spot during the last 5 years and this is only because firms could not control the prolific levels of piracy in the PC world. The PC is arguably the best gaming machine ever created, its expandable, customisable, networked, multi-purpose, portable, cutting edge… it really is the dogs danglers of hardware.
Comment by Mr Gates — July 22, 2010 @ 9:39 am
They had to do a test of this, its obvious that pc gamers will obviously dominate the console users as a mouse and keyboard is far superior, and its not a simple thing as give xbox users a mouse and keyboard because the mainstream players on xbox wont be able to use it and plus if they wanted to use a keyboard and mouse they would have bought a pc in the first place. i play both pc and ps3 and know for a fact how slower and unaccurate the console is, if you go on cod on pc u’ll understand how the normal pc gamer would trash any (supposedly pro) gamer on any console
Comment by stuart — July 22, 2010 @ 10:10 am
“Not because the PC players were superior gamers, but mainly due to the control mechanism of the keyboard and mouse versus the Xbox controller.”
I lol’d. After reading the article, I asked some XBLers why they don’t play games on their PCs. They all said that the keyboard and mouse is too confusing for them, among other complaints that they can’t afford PCs, and don’t know how to set one up for gaming. What does that say about console gamers?
Comment by Sighface — July 22, 2010 @ 10:28 am
i had to laugh as well. i don’t see whats so confusing about mouse/keyboard i play everything on my pc and quite simply cant stand anyone who’d rather use a cosole. the controllers really do suck.
Comment by emu — July 22, 2010 @ 11:36 am
edit…. i had to laugh as well. i don’t see whats so confusing about mouse/keyboard i play everything on my pc and quite simply cant stand anyone who’d rather use a cosole. the controllers really do suck.cant stand the controller and do not understand why people would rather use them not the people that use them hehheh
Comment by emu — July 22, 2010 @ 11:38 am
I use both pc and 360 as do most gamers and how many households out there have both as well
Comment by mcfly — July 22, 2010 @ 12:13 pm
This is new nesw? PC Gamer covered this story years ago, as soon as the Xbox 360 Controller for Windows came out. The staff, who hadn’t played much Halo before, challenged the Halo junkies at the Xbox magazine to a game (on PC) where the XBox players used the XBox controllers and the PC Gamers used the mouse and keyboard. The PC Gamers let the XBox players choose the maps (which they’d never seen before) and pretty much stack the game in their favor as much as possible. The PC Gamers still whooped them severely. They determined there was no way that an XBox player could compete with a PC player, and I had heard this was pretty much the general consensus on why cross-platform play hadn’t been going on for the last few years.
Comment by Kaylakaze — July 22, 2010 @ 4:31 pm
There is MORE TO GAMING THAN JUST FREAKING FPS MICROSOFT :@
There are racing games, sports games and even RTS games now
Comment by eViLrAcEr — July 22, 2010 @ 7:37 pm
Only thing that makes a controller better than a keyboard/mouse is the vibration. And I only use the controller when playing xbox ported games like dead space, racing games, etc
Comment by digitalthug — July 23, 2010 @ 1:06 am
I am not a consol fan, i play on a pc, and have done so for many years. obiviously the mouse and keyboard setup is far superior in FPS and RTS games. On a racing game i would prefer a controller.. connecting a controller to the pc is quite simple, so i will still prefer pc above anything. ^^
Comment by Einar — September 3, 2010 @ 7:50 pm