Windows Vista is Microsoft's first real attempt to polish the gaming experience for PC users. In 1995, Microsoft introduced DirectX to help make developing games easier, but for users, it remained a a hassle often times to get PC games running at times.
With Windows Vista, the game manager can be used to simplify and clean up the gaming experience. Here are a few of the things you can expect:
- Microsoft Live Anywhere. Users of Xbox 360 are already familiar with Microsoft Live. Microsoft Live Anywhere will start to bring that experience to PC users.
- eCommerce, users will be able to purchase "points" to apply to getting games, expansion packs, etc.
- A unified PlayerID that will allow players to have their records at multiple games tied to it (and a bane to griefers)
- Parental controls where the game's ESRB rating can be used to block kids from playing inappropriate games.
- The ability to play Xbox 360 players at common titles (like Halo).
- DirectX 10 which will allow GPUs to handle more of the physics. This will allow for much MUCH better looking games (we saw some videos and they were incredible).
A lot of the nitty gritty details are covered under NDA but suffice to say that there are some really cool things for gamers with Windows Vista.
