Windows 8: Microsoft to relaunch PC gaming?

[riso]

Those who claim PC gaming is dead mainly blame Microsoft. Ever since the company launched the Xbox, it has let the Windows PC gaming platform fall over the wayside. Since the software giant's number one product is Windows, the company's number one gaming platform is still the PC, no matter how much of a success the Xbox platform becomes. Rumors are now suggesting that things will really start to change with Windows 8.
"Windows 8 will represent a real new push into PC gaming," an anonymous source told TechRadar. "Gaming will be a key component for the whole OS."

Of course, we've heard things like this before: PC gaming was supposed to get a boost with the launch of Windows Vista, and there were definitely improvements, but none were particularly noteworthy. Meanwhile, multiple games from Microsoft did not receive PC versions, including Gears of War 2 and every Halo game released after Halo 2.

Two months ago, Microsoft said that it was "doubling down" on PC games. The company launched a browser-based Windows store for PC games called Games for Windows Marketplace, but it hardly made a big splash.

The fact of the matter is that Valve's Steam dominates the PC gaming market already, and it's thus difficult for Microsoft to do anything revolutionary. Including features directly in Windows, while making sure to avoid anti-trust issues, is the only way the software giant could really make a difference. The company of course currently refuses to talk about Windows 8, so as with most rumors, we'll just have to wait and see till the time is right, or till something leaks out.

[Jake]

Anyone who thinks Windows is the main problem with PC gaming obviously has bad hardware, or has never tried gaming on a Mac or Linux box.  

The problem is and always will be exposure and consumer wants.  Gaming systems are more attractive because they're cheaper, dedicated to gaming (similar performance on a PC can be expensive), and the advertising is there.  I haven't seen an ad for a PC-only game in several years, the only exposure is the brief mention at the end of an ad "available for PS3, Xbox 360, and PC."  The only way to reverse this trend is to create PC exclusives--lots of them--and push them more than the PS3 or Xbox titles, which isn't Microsoft's job.

On topic:
The only problem I ever had with gaming on Windows was annoying dialouge boxes from applications.  Switching to MSE and closing any other programs (good idea for performance anyway, depending what it is) mostly took care of that.  So, beyond that, I wonder what we'll see with the impending OS leaks...