I genuinely think Microsoft are out of the running

[Ironic Pirate]

I meant to say graphics card instead of OS, my bad. I'm not a huge PC gamer, but according to a friend of mine there's all different graphics cards and some of them aren't always supported. Granted, he's one to make things sound a lot more complicated to make himself seem smarter.

I would say that they're a lot less complicated than your friend makes them out to be. While it's true there is a large variety of cards to choose from, it really just boils down to a select few for each price range.

As for not being supported, there might be some errors with specific cards or driver issues, but for the most part it's fine.

Ah, I suspected as much.

 

[Kabutos]

Eeeeeesh.

I come into this as a PC-gaming hater already, so... I'll just keep quiet.

Eh, I'll agree GFWL is pretty horrible, but the point I was trying to make is regardless of how you feel about PC gaming, buying games for whatever system you own is the same; PS3 label for the PS3, and PC-DVD or GFWL for PC.

 

[Kabutos]

The guy was probably talking about specs, video card compatibility, driver unstability, screen resolution, usage of multiple cores, scaling the graphics, calibrating the controller, and validating the CD key, accessing the online registration and BWAAAARGHHH

I was pissed off just because The Saboteur wouldn't install on the 360. Imagine if I had to go through all that. And imagine if one of the steps doesn't work and I have to ask on forums or look for a previous driver version? BWAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGHHHHHHHH

PC gaming? NO THANKS!

Um, the things you mentioned aren't really as much of an issue as you think.

Specs are just looking at the back of a box and checking them off one by one. I'm not sure exactly what you mean by video card compatibility exactly. Do you mean making sure your card is compatible with your mobo and PSU? Or compatible with certain programs? Either way, There are only a few cards/drivers that are incompatible with only a few programs. I've never had driver problems, although I have an nVidia card, while driver issues are more of an ATI problem, which happen less often then you'd think.

I don't see why screen resolution is a problem; if the game is running slowly, turning down the resolution will help. Usage of multiple cores is really only applicable to a few specific programs; most games will only use 1 or 2 cores. What I assume you mean by scaling the graphics is just as simple as changing a few settings to make the game run faster, or if you mean upscaling, which is simply adjusting the resolution to be HD. Again, I'm not exactly sure what you mean by controller calibration, but I'm guessing it means plugging in a controller and downloading some drivers. Not difficult at all. As for CD keys and online registration; those are a just a form of DRM, which admittedly is fairly annoying, but it varies from game to game.

 

[Atmos Duality]

Microsoft was trying to break into the Japanese market, so, they bought exclusivity deals (timed or not) with several JRPG devs/publishers early in this gen (including Square Enix with Star Ocean 4, Last Remnant and Infinite Undiscovery).

This was wholly unsuccessful.

Advertising dollars rule the world.

More like "Idiot marketers rule the industry".

 

[StBishop]

It's also likely that other titles could jump off the "Exclusive" bandwagon in the future like FF13 did (I saw the Xbox 360 version while shopping last week. Good grief, it must come on like 3 DVDs).

I don't know about where you live but they came out on the exact same day for both ps3 and 360. I got both. The xbox 360 one is indeed 3 dvd's.

FF13 started out as a PS3 exclusive, and was marketed as such until a few of months before its release.
Keep in mind; I bore witness to years of hype and intrigue for the game, and every one of them gladly reminded me that it was a PS3 exclusive until Squeenix changed their minds.

I distinctly remember Tim Buckley (Of Ctrl+Alt+Del comics) quoting Square Enix circa 2006 that it was not going to be a PS3 exclusive. They did not confirm or deny whether it would be on 360, PC or hand helds though. I remember it because it was my tag line on myspace (Yeah, I was 16, shaaaaaadup) and I believe it still is, I've not looked at it for a couple of years.

I was closely following the exclusivity or lack thereof for ages because I was holding out on buying a PS3 until I knew whether I could get FF13 on 360. I ended up getting the PS3 anyway for Heavy Rain, White Knight Chronicles (that was a mistake), and Demon's Souls.