One question, what are the totals? The percentage is lowering but are the numbers declining?[/quote]
donno I think pc sales have been stagnant or slight growth (very low single digit) a year. Mac desktop IIRC has been growing an order of magnitude faster
heres the most recent figures I can find
http://www.engadget.com/2012/07/12/idc-and-gartner-pc-market-flattened-out-in-q2-2012/
-0.1% decline in growth, though mac numbers (which grew 12% are included in that) so PC numbers prolly shrunk by ~1% year on year, so yes windows PC numbers are shrinking
#3 well for indie game developers (like most ppl on this site), theres far more money in the android/IOS side of things than in the PC indie scene.
US numbers (in just under 4 years)
jan 2009 - windows (XP/vista/win7) 90.69%, apple (OSX,ios) 6.73%
nov 2012 - windows (XP/vista/win7) 76.87% apple (OSX,ios) 19.8% (OSX = 14.89%(*))
Yes MS (whom I think make the best desktop OS) are still king on the desk/lap/top, but the world is changing rapidly now, tablets,phones are ubiquitous. Perhaps the MS surface can change that, but I have my doubts. like the BBC website said so far reviews have been mixed the buzz so far is not there.
(*) i.e. the number of laptop/desktop mac's in the US has more than doubled in less than 4 years!
OK the numbers in china/india are like ~99% windows ~1% other, mainly due to piracy, but MS doesnt see much money from these pirated systemOS software
Microsoft under fire
Hear, hear... One of my favorite sayings is "Linux is free if your time is worth nothing" 
)
Now, I do respect OS X and Linux, but few people acknowledge the tremendous contribution to de facto standards that Microsoft has made over the years. The growth and proliferation of personal computing since 1983 is largely due to innovations in hardware, network speed, etc. This in turn has only been feasible because of a large market ready to pay cheaply for these innovations. The innovations are only affordable if they can be cranked out in large numbers, which requires standards.
Just like the Internet grew because of standards like TCP/IP, HTTP, etc., personal computing grew because Microsoft imposed hardware interface standards like GDI (that's Graphical Device Interface, not GUI) and many others. (Yes, I realize RFCs are democratic and developed by neutral committees, whereas Microsoft is a corporation, that's not the point.)
How many people have heard of WinHEC, much less attended one? Every year, Microsoft organizes the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference, where hardware developers are thrown into an arena to test each other's products against the latest version of Windows. Microsoft engineers are on deck to answer questions, execute tests, etc. in a huge effort to get all that stuff to work right before it hits the consumer's home. Extensive technical documentation is available. This is the kind of thing that has insured that Windows works pretty good over the years, and continues to satisfy consumer and corporate needs.
I attended the 2003 WinHEC, and got within pie-throwing distance of Bill Gates. I was blown away by the scope and extent of the conference.
There's a lot to be said in favor of Apple's "black box" model, where all the hardware is produced by one single vendor. A lot of money that would have been spent on hardware compatibility testing, is instead spent on perfecting the software. Not many people seem to appreciate this enough to pay for it, however.
)Now, I do respect OS X and Linux, but few people acknowledge the tremendous contribution to de facto standards that Microsoft has made over the years. The growth and proliferation of personal computing since 1983 is largely due to innovations in hardware, network speed, etc. This in turn has only been feasible because of a large market ready to pay cheaply for these innovations. The innovations are only affordable if they can be cranked out in large numbers, which requires standards.
Just like the Internet grew because of standards like TCP/IP, HTTP, etc., personal computing grew because Microsoft imposed hardware interface standards like GDI (that's Graphical Device Interface, not GUI) and many others. (Yes, I realize RFCs are democratic and developed by neutral committees, whereas Microsoft is a corporation, that's not the point.)
How many people have heard of WinHEC, much less attended one? Every year, Microsoft organizes the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference, where hardware developers are thrown into an arena to test each other's products against the latest version of Windows. Microsoft engineers are on deck to answer questions, execute tests, etc. in a huge effort to get all that stuff to work right before it hits the consumer's home. Extensive technical documentation is available. This is the kind of thing that has insured that Windows works pretty good over the years, and continues to satisfy consumer and corporate needs.
I attended the 2003 WinHEC, and got within pie-throwing distance of Bill Gates. I was blown away by the scope and extent of the conference.
There's a lot to be said in favor of Apple's "black box" model, where all the hardware is produced by one single vendor. A lot of money that would have been spent on hardware compatibility testing, is instead spent on perfecting the software. Not many people seem to appreciate this enough to pay for it, however.
One question, what are the totals? The percentage is lowering but are the numbers declining?
One thing I dislike about this is, Linux crowd, where are your "killer aps"? Where are your "killer games"? All these years complaining and talking nonsense and yet, absolutely nothing to make me even think about trying the OS. Windows 8? I tried it as soon as I could. Linux(anything)...why bother?
Question two, Why even bother with something like Linux?
Question three, Why does it matter to game developers? I mean, Windows 8 is already a viable platform isn't it? Its almost as high as a 3DS, it just came out(!) and obviously higher than a PS Vita. Much higher than an Ouya will ever be. And in a year or two, much higher than this current gen of consoles put together. And that's just Windows 8(and its own Store).
My view is, MS is king on the PC. I have no reason to switch. I would like an ARM based fully functional Laptop tho. Not here yet. x86 Windows 8 Pro it is! =P
Question 1 (Well the second part of it): Because of the open source nature of GNU/Linux all of the good killer apps are ported to other platforms and so you really wont have a big reason in that reguard to switch to linux. Would like to know exactly what nonsense you feel like the Linux community is spreading but in the hope of preventing a war I'll leave it at that.
Question 2: For those looking for something different usually, I personally just got tired of jumping through hopes with Windows and didn't feel it worth my money to buy a new Windows licenes when I personally could accomplish anything I would want to do on Windows on GNU/Linux (and the hit in performance for running Windows games through wine was an acceptable loss for me). Also most people that actually make the switch don't do it if they are looking for it to be Windows if you love windows and it works for you then your most likely looking for a "Free" Windows which GNU/Linux is not it is its own OS and if your trying it with the attempt of it being a "Free" Windows your going to have a very hard time enjoying it.
Question 3: Windows 8's rules on the new Windows Store is where Game Development gets impacted most they have it pretty restrictive on what they allow into their store and thats were a lot of the concern for it is. Windows is also the OS of choice for low end computer manufactors so yes its going to get a lot of numbers based on that alone.
If you have no reason to switch and enjoy Microsoft congrats. I sincerely wish you the best of look in the future, but please don't think down on those that use GNU/Linux. I don't down on those that use Windows and Mac.
Question 2: For those looking for something different usually, I personally just got tired of jumping through hopes with Windows and didn't feel it worth my money to buy a new Windows licenes when I personally could accomplish anything I would want to do on Windows on GNU/Linux (and the hit in performance for running Windows games through wine was an acceptable loss for me). Also most people that actually make the switch don't do it if they are looking for it to be Windows if you love windows and it works for you then your most likely looking for a "Free" Windows which GNU/Linux is not it is its own OS and if your trying it with the attempt of it being a "Free" Windows your going to have a very hard time enjoying it.
There are two things in this part of your answer that display a quite significant cultural difference between Windows users and Linux (for the sake of brevity let's drop the "GNU/" bit -you know what I'm talking about) users.
One is that people who use Windows generally have an awful time on Linux but people who use Linux generally also have an awful time on Windows. This I believe is not reflective of either OS but actually more reflective of the people using them. Why? At a guess I'd say that it's because people don't migrate their way of working to the other OS. If you try to use Linux the same way as you try to use Windows you'll have a horrible time, and vice-versa.
Two is the "love Windows" bit. To a Windows user this is actually borderline incomprehensible; you don't love an OS, an OS is just a platform for running applications on and you love the cool things you can do with those applications.
Question 1 (Well the second part of it): Because of the open source nature of GNU/Linux all of the good killer apps are ported to other platforms and so you really wont have a big reason in that reguard to switch to linux. Would like to know exactly what nonsense you feel like the Linux community is spreading but in the hope of preventing a war I'll leave it at that.
By the nonsense, I ment to the ones that say that it is better and hate on Windows. Maybe it runs "faster" or hogs less memory. But I already have a 5 year old lappy with 3GBs of RAM running Win7 and tested Win8 on and it runs just fine. But, yes. We should leave it at that.
Question 3: Windows 8's rules on the new Windows Store is where Game Development gets impacted most they have it pretty restrictive on what they allow into their store and thats were a lot of the concern for it is. Windows is also the OS of choice for low end computer manufactors so yes its going to get a lot of numbers based on that alone.
What don't they allow on the store that makes it pretty restrictive?
If you have no reason to switch and enjoy Microsoft congrats. I sincerely wish you the best of look in the future, but please don't think down on those that use GNU/Linux. I don't down on those that use Windows and Mac.
I don't think down on them. Just the fanatics. I like logic. And I don't see Linux as a viable platform to target for games. And that's the reason I run Windows, first.
I do see an Android type of PC in my future tho, and yes, I know, don't say it. But, it is different and more mainstream! jaja
Interesting ... Linux is also incompatible with 99% of the software out there, with no good alternative of it's own.
Also I swear to the gods ... Linux programmers have no clue what a wizard is for, or how to implement them!
I only use Linux when it's absolutely necessary, preferring all my tools and toys that work perfectly well in Win XP.
I do admit I have a Linux emulator ... my Linux box is sitting in the garage, and hasn't been ran in almost 4 years now.
Also I swear to the gods ... Linux programmers have no clue what a wizard is for, or how to implement them!
I only use Linux when it's absolutely necessary, preferring all my tools and toys that work perfectly well in Win XP.
I do admit I have a Linux emulator ... my Linux box is sitting in the garage, and hasn't been ran in almost 4 years now.
You're missing the core point though, which is that for the vast majority of end-users, OS is irrelevant.
Wrong, OS is very relevant, if the OS can't run the user's favorite program then expect that OS to be ditched immediately by said user - which is why Windows managed to keep its supremacy on PCs for so long, almost all PC programs are Windows-only.
It also doesn't help that Linux distros in general have completely sucky drivers - and it takes only one piece of hardware to not work properly for the user to ditch the entire OS. Video hardware? Sound hardware? Wireless network? Webcams? Etc., if it isn't hardware following some standard protocol, you're most likely going to be screwed, with some unusual exceptions (e.g. Nvidia proprietary drivers by general rule performing well).
Android is a great example of this. I see figures of something like 500 million devices, but of those, what percentage of users actually bought into it because of a Linux kernel?
Again, the kernel is not the OS, and in fact, in the case of Android it doesn't even matter because it's designed in such a way they could ditch Linux and replace it with any other kernel without any trouble. Everything is extremely sandboxed to care.
That said, using Linux did help Android at some point... I recall how there was this whole hype about Android using free software in an attempt to snatch users from iOS and J2ME phones (and it worked, look where's Android now). The problem though is that of course they never bothered to get their message right so both users and developers were given the thought that nobody should pay for anything on it - which is why even freemium struggles to make money there (at least it makes a lot less than on iOS).
That said, all this discussion aside, I think people stopped whining much about the new UI by this point. The real issue is that they're moving towards a walled garden much like Apple, and while they're leaving the desktop there for now, who knows what will happen to it in the future - especially if they get their way of replacing current PCs with the surface, at least for home use (which would make PCs spike in price if they become something considered only for work, which will only make things worse for those who don't want to be stuck to the walled garden).
It probably doesn't help that users these days think that the walled garden is the only way forwards not just for convenience but also for trust. Not like Linux distros didn't have something to fulfill said task already (repos, anyone?), but still.
Also jeez GDNet, fix your post editor, I keep getting annoyed at how it breaks newlines =/
Wrong, OS is very relevant, if the OS can't run the user's favorite program then expect that OS to be ditched immediately by said user - which is why Windows managed to keep its supremacy on PCs for so long, almost all PC programs are Windows-only.
That was his point o.O
Interesting ... Linux is also incompatible with 99% of the software out there, with no good alternative of it's own.
Also I swear to the gods ... Linux programmers have no clue what a wizard is for, or how to implement them!
If its Windows/Mac only software then yes your going to run into a lot of incompatibility, however I do find that the community does try and do a good job of making either native solutions available (Libreoffice can open and save to just about any Windows word format I've needed) or create work arounds using CrossOver/Wine. However keep in mind looking at it from the other side you will rarely find an application in the Linux community that will not also run on Windows and in many cases Mac, just something to think about.
As for install wizards most distributions have package management systems which do a far better job of taking care of installs in my opinion however compiling from source when such a solution isn't available in the repository's does become a pain sometimes I'll admit.
[quote name='Badwolf1' timestamp='1352067107' post='4997314']
Question 1 (Well the second part of it): Because of the open source nature of GNU/Linux all of the good killer apps are ported to other platforms and so you really wont have a big reason in that reguard to switch to linux. Would like to know exactly what nonsense you feel like the Linux community is spreading but in the hope of preventing a war I'll leave it at that.
By the nonsense, I ment to the ones that say that it is better and hate on Windows. Maybe it runs "faster" or hogs less memory. But I already have a 5 year old lappy with 3GBs of RAM running Win7 and tested Win8 on and it runs just fine. But, yes. We should leave it at that.
Question 3: Windows 8's rules on the new Windows Store is where Game Development gets impacted most they have it pretty restrictive on what they allow into their store and thats were a lot of the concern for it is. Windows is also the OS of choice for low end computer manufactors so yes its going to get a lot of numbers based on that alone.
What don't they allow on the store that makes it pretty restrictive?
If you have no reason to switch and enjoy Microsoft congrats. I sincerely wish you the best of look in the future, but please don't think down on those that use GNU/Linux. I don't down on those that use Windows and Mac.
I don't think down on them. Just the fanatics. I like logic. And I don't see Linux as a viable platform to target for games. And that's the reason I run Windows, first.
I do see an Android type of PC in my future tho, and yes, I know, don't say it. But, it is different and more mainstream! jaja
[/quote]
The fanatics go with everything and I would agree that I'm just as tired of the whole "Mines better and greater then your's" responses as you I am sure are as well. They are unconstructive and just plain wrong in many cases. Yes you can tweak to make it boot faster and run a little faster but you usually can with any operating system if you know what your doing and in general it comes down more to the hardware then it does the operating system itself.
As for the store I'm not aware of the specifics so if someone more well informed then me would please answer this question I was just making a general statement from what I've read from others and the stores policys appear to be a hot topic.
I dont for see Linux itself become a main player without a big corporate backing however I do think operating systems based off Linux/Unix/FreeBSD will become more popular and its not that the OS itself can't be stable enough to be I just think that its more likely to be forked/split into a different project as Google did with Linux or Mac OS X did with FreeBSD.
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