[dmeps]

What with genre definitions, "Alan Wake" has seemed an AG to me since it was announced, but many of us will have to miss on this one as it's just been announced to be for WinVista only. Do they sell games or OSs now?

[Kolzig]

Well it's an action adventure by definition, but I really hope that it won't be a Vista/360 exclusive.

But knowing what Microsoft is capable of, it's pretty obvious that that's exactly what is going to happen and one great anticipated game won't be played by me then...

[Wormsie]

Originally Posted by Kolzig

Well it's an action adventure by definition, but I really hope that it won't be a Vista/360 exclusive.

But knowing what Microsoft is capable of, it's pretty obvious that that's exactly what is going to happen and one great anticipated game won't be played by me then...

But the Alan Wake release date is still a year or more away? Surely it's feasible to update to Vista in another year?

[Melanie68]

I moved you to General because all the other Alan Wake threads have been here. I'm sure this has adventure elements but for now we'll keep the discussions in General.

I'm looking forward to this. I'm on XP now but who knows what kind of computer I'll have in a year?

[Kolzig]

Originally Posted by Wormsie

But the Alan Wake release date is still a year or more away? Surely it's feasible to update to Vista in another year?

Yeah maybe, but somehow I'm more likely seeing myself in the future using Mac OS X instead of Vista if I decide to upgrade to some new OS.

MacBook does look like an interesting option.

[dmeps]

What if we upgrade to Vista and won't be able to play most of the games we like? Will there be a need for Win95box or WinXPbox like it is with DOSbox?

[jacog]

Should be interesting to see if this ends up:

a) Boosting the sales of Vista.... or...
b) Damaging the PC sales of Alan Wake.

Judging by current attitude towards Vista I vote for the latter, but things might be different in a year.

[JemyM]

I had a theory earlier this year that Microsoft have wounded their vista sales by concentrating on XBox. Windows greatest strength have been the games. Even if you do not play them, you have someone near you who does, and when something is commonly used, chances is that you will default to it even if you are not interested in all it's features. It's simpler to have the OS that everybody else is using.

Without games, Linux is a cheaper platform and MacOS is simpler to use and more userfriendly.

By concentrating so much on XBox, moving exclusives from the PC market over to XBox (Halo, Jade Empire, Mass Effect, Gears of War), attention to windows as a gaming platform have died off and people can therefore move on to alternatives, taking on-gamers with them. If you use Linux at home, you can recomend Linux at work to save money, you can help friends and family to save money as well, and a new market grow up where Microsoft used to pwn before they got sloppy.

Alan Wake is one of the "Vista Sellers" though. Had Microsoft been smart, they would have added Mass Effect, Gears of War, Fable 2 etc to the list.

[samIamsad]

I'm not going to buy an OS (or anything) just because of a game. Or two. Or three. Or fo.. ok, ok! Chances are a next setup will come with Vista installed anyway so.. Regarding "Alan Wake", the game, not "Alan Wake" the application that will run on Vista exclusively: Would be cool if they used that day/night-cycle thingamabob for awesomeness, until then, it's just another supposedly next-gen™ game for me.

Originally Posted by Mels bells

I'm looking forward to this. I'm on XP now but who knows what kind of computer I'll have in a year?

Yeah, who knows?

[Spiwak]

Originally Posted by Kolzig

Yeah maybe, but somehow I'm more likely seeing myself in the future using Mac OS X instead of Vista if I decide to upgrade to some new OS.

MacBook does look like an interesting option.

I have a Macbook and like it a lot. Now would be a good time to get one, as Apple has smoothed out most of the problems I've encountered through firmware updates.

[Wormsie]

Contrary to my expectations and the Psychonauts Demo, I was unable to play the full version of Psychonauts of my MacBook with BootCamp.

Darn darn darn. It works on my age-old Windows/Linux machine, though, so not all is lost.

Anyway, Alan Wake and Vista.

[kuze]

There'll totally be some kind of patch by someone to make Alan Wake work on older versions of Windows.

[Spiwak]

Originally Posted by Wormsie

Contrary to my expectations and the Psychonauts Demo, I was unable to play the full version of Psychonauts of my MacBook with BootCamp.

Darn darn darn. It works on my age-old Windows/Linux machine, though, so not all is lost.

Anyway, Alan Wake and Vista.

I'm surprised even the demo worked, considering the video card in MacBooks.

[Kolzig]

Originally Posted by kuze

There'll totally be some kind of patch by someone to make Alan Wake work on older versions of Windows.

I don't think so, nothing such has happened with the 2-3 year old, but recently released for pc game, Halo 2. So I don't think a patch is going to happen with Alan Wake either, because both are Microsoft exclusives.

[kuze]

Originally Posted by Kolzig

I don't think so, nothing such has happened with the 2-3 year old, but recently released for pc game, Halo 2. So I don't think a patch is going to happen with Alan Wake either, because both are Microsoft exclusives.

Well it is after all just recently released. And then seriously, noone cares about Halo 2 on the PC anyway so people just don't bother. I doubt the game will rely on the underlying "superior" Vista exclusive technology - oh wait, there won't be a DirectX 10 for XP - so I guess they can make Alan Wake a DirectX 10 only game.

[RLacey]

Not that it matters to me - since I have Vista - but this, if it's genuine, might be worth keeping an eye on.

[SamandMax]

Argh. I was looking forward to this game too. This sucks.

[Wormsie]

Originally Posted by Spiwak

I'm surprised even the demo worked, considering the video card in MacBooks.

Believe me, many games run incredibly smootly on a MacBook despite its reputation. The Psychonauts demo was totally free of graphical glitches - as far as I can see it, there was no real reason for them to make the game not work on lower-end cards and that pisses me off.

EDIT: And originally I meant by "not working" that it pops up an error message "cannot create direct 3D device". If it ran, it'd probably play just fine. Though I'm hoping that a patch or driver update might fix this but so far it's looking pretty grim...

[Spiwak]

Originally Posted by Wormsie

Believe me, many games run incredibly smootly on a MacBook despite its reputation. The Psychonauts demo was totally free of graphical glitches - as far as I can see it, there was no real reason for them to make the game not work on lower-end cards and that pisses me off.

EDIT: And originally I meant by "not working" that it pops up an error message "cannot create direct 3D device". If it ran, it'd probably play just fine. Though I'm hoping that a patch or driver update might fix this but so far it's looking pretty grim...

Wow. Well maybe I'll have to give bootcamp a shot. I'm using Parallels for my Windows-ing at the moment so I don't have to restart and all that, and I doubt I could run a game in that. I tried to install Fallout onto Parallel's virtual machine but I kept getting a blue screen.

[Wormsie]

I was wrong! The legitimate version of Psychonauts does work afterall. Perhaps the one I dowloaded as a torrent (couldn't wait) was an older version or something. Or maybe the hackers just f'ucked it up. Besides, it was probably the American release, this is the European. Anyway, yay! And thanks, Doublefine and whoever did the conversion!