SkyOS Forum

Games is the only thing that sell a computer and also an OS so SkyOs must have the big companys behind them to succeed. I am not saying that they must have all the crappy games that is on the Windows but the must have the big selling title.
Just think what sort of games we could see on SkyOs that is impossible to make on Windows.
What I have seen of the SkyOS is good but games sell and that is a fact.

really? i thought it was the general stability and aknowledgement by the IT community that sold Software, if all the IT world turned its back on windows and no longer supported it, it would die out or would have to evolve, Gaming is a by product of Pc's success, so your saying everyone buys pc's and software to play games... hmm.... schools dont play games, oh wait they have pc's so they must do.... no wait.... i was right they dont have games, they have windows, and office plus some other software packages, but no games, office workers play games.... no but wait you said all pc's are used to games.... no i was right office workers pc's only have necessary software, and last time i checked Age Of Mythology couldn't word process an order form for a company.

sorry about the extreme sarcasm but i think i made my point, the majority of pc's, and software arent sold for games, games are just a cool by product.

Actually, he's right. Windows is the major desktop OS because it has the best games support. OSes without games support have NO marketshare at all. Mac and Linux have a little game support, and have a little marketshare. No other OS has game support and also have no measureable marketshare.

IT people look at other things when deciding what OS to use for their company, but these systems make up almost nothing of the total computer market. The VAST majority of computers sold are standard desktops aimed at the home.

That doesn't mean people shouldn't make other OSes. Small doesn't mean non-existent. Every OS out serves a purpose, and you never know what will happen in the future. At one time in the late 80's and early 90's, the Amiga was the dominant home computer due to it's lock on the gaming industry, but who foresaw the coming of Irving Gould and Medi Ali who would gut the company and drive it into bancruptcy, thereby allowing the PC compatible to take over the home market?

also remember virtually 100% of systems are sold with Windows, so in reality games dont have much to do with it, OEM vendors are locked to MS via agreements, and alot of users dont want to change to another Os because they've been brought up on windows, or they dont know alternatives exist

Most games are made for Windows only because it has the largest demographic. People don't use Windows because games are made for it, its the other way around.

Most game companies are very small, and work on a very small budget. They don't have enough money to risk developing their game for all three major systems, because who knows if anyone will ever buy it on Mac or Linux. With Windows, they know that they have a very large audience.

This can be confirmed by looking at the larger development companies, who can spend a bit more money on game development. Case in point, id software (Quake/Doom) and Epic Games (Unreal Tournament). Both of those companies have a large amount of resources, and can take the risk of developing a cross-platform game. Smaller companies simply can't do that.

As SkyOS grows to the market share of Linux or Mac, expect to see the larger games ported over. Its a direct relationship. As more users come to SkyOS, more games will be made cross-platform or SkyOS exclusive.

this is the chicken or the egg situation...do OSen have large user bases because of the availability of games, or do large user bases cause developers to create games for that OS? I choose the latter. Stick with developing SkyOS and making it as stable and kick @$$ as possible and then worry about games...game platforms (such as the PS2) were made for gaming, use that if ur so eager for games.

This is wrong. I've worked in the game industry, and with people in the game industry. I've ported games from Windows to Mac. Most companies doing ports are really just one guy working in his den for less than a month for a couple thousand bucks. Any programmer capable of putting out a Windows game is more than capable of doing a port in less than a month in spare hours. If you check the source for older games released to the public, many of them have Linux versions done by the original programmers, even though the game was never sold to Linux people.

What REALLY keeps the games off the Mac and Linux are exclusivity contracts. Just as many companies are contractually bound to hold off releasing a PS2 version of a GameCube game for six months to a year (or vice versa), so are PC game companies contractually bound to not release a Linux or Mac version for a set period. Welcome to the real world where money talks. After the set period is up, the game is finally "ported" to the Mac. Much of the time, this has already been done months earlier. If not, they hire someone like me to spend 2 to 3 weeks on the conversion.

Its not wrong. You are right about one thing. Money does talk. Making a game for Linux or Mac will generally make very little money for the game companies and the distribution companies. On top of that, in order to not have to do a complete graphical re-write of the game, it must be done in OpenGL (for modern games). A lot of companies do not develop in OpenGL, they develop for DirectX, something that is not available for Linux or Mac.

Do you think that if Linux had 95% of the market that game companies would develop for Windows because of some clandestine exclusivity contract? That does happen for console-based games, you're right, but for PC? Not nearly as often. But anyway, if Linux had 95% of the market, the games would get made for Linux, with little regard for Windows, because game companies and distribution companies could get the most money that way. It works the same way when Windows has that 95% share and Linux doesn't.

Bottom line: As an operating system gains a larger market share, more companies will develop their game with the mindset that they have more than just Windows as an option. The reason Linux doesn't have more games is because Linux on the desktop only has a 1-3% share of the market, hardly something worth catering towards. When SkyOS has 3% of the market, I would imagine it will be much the same way. But what about when we have 5% of the market? 10%? 25%? As that number increases, more companies will be interested in developing a game (and thus, making a profit) for SkyOS.

Like you said, follow the money. The money is in Windows right now. When it isn't, then you can follow the money where it may lie.

The only other option i could see that skyos would become a primarily big game system is if it became embedded and microsoft or sony or someone picked it up for its subsystem. But hey, that could even happen if a branch of skyos ever comes to realization.

Oooooh theres an idea.. Robert could reverse engineer DirectX and we could own the world!!!1!!11%4!

lol, theres a DX8 to OpenGL wrapper which is opensource available for linux, MacOs and windows a whiel ago i contacted the project co-ordinator and he said all it wouldn't be hard to port it over once SkyOs had some form of Hardware 3D acceleration. so its only a matter of time lol

it was games that pushed computers into the home market in the first place.

if there were no games a computer in the (average) home would be an impossible dream. my grandma definately wouldnt have one.

atari, commodre, etc.

the first pcs were bought so people could by games.

games push harware limits, so the hardware industry uses its profits from lots of users to make new hardware, which again (and looping forever) is made redundant.

look at video cards. office and destop stuff does not need such gpu power. games do. that is why there is such rapid development in the video card industry. not too long ago my 9600XT was a pretty cool mid range card. but it will be absolutely blow away by the gforce 6.

if it wasnt for games the big iron servers might only now be getting into the MHz, let alone GHz computers at home....





but just because you have the best platform for games doesnt mean you will survive... my trusty amiga didnt.

going from real sound to pc speaker was a horrible experience

so if you could influence the games companies to port games to your system (think playstation) and then out market your competition (think playstation) you have a successful product (think playstation).

N64 was 64 bit compared to PS 32, dreamcast was a much better machine.
the only thing that saved nintendo (they should have died after the game cube) was/is the gameboy, but now nokia and sony are trying to cut that grass.

sega are still alive because they make cool games.

its that G word again...

the driving force behind the computer industry.

Youlle and JLF65 have right in what sells PC...

Programs and games... If you want a big OS, I think you need many good and big programs.

Windows have that... (LOL! my windows doesn't work! HAHA!!!) but are expensive... ($)
begining to be unstable...

Linux have to many small programs, and that makes it hard to find...

BeOS don't have that much programs and theire not too big either... Not as much media as they say.. I think.. dunno..

MenuetOS? don't remember what it is... only that it needed a diskette that I didn't have..

SkyOS is still evolving and getting more programs. Going from a hobby-OS to a comercial OS...
I think this OS is getting good!

Lindows is the same as Linux, only more userfriendly(?) and costs $$$....
As linux, the previously free OS with many re-tails, is getting expensive there will be not too much good with that...

+more

lindows has been renamed, but it is/was just a noobified debian.

(debian being the most hardcore distro IMO)

Really, I dont think it's possible to get any game companies to port/create any types of games right now. While games are fun, they do not sell the platform. Stable, mature programs and an easy usable interface are what 90% of the market needs and wants. Games on the other hand, are really only "a must" for the small percentage of desktop users that play them a lot. I like how Robert ported the SNES emulator, and maybe some other emulators would be nice too, but I would rather have him putting efforts into porting, say, GAIM than porting a video game.[/i]