Windows 8 is just a few months away from release, but Microsoft’s new baby is already taking hits from industry experts. Gabe Newell, Valve boss says Windows 8 is “a catastrophe for everyone in the PC space”.
Microsoft’s Windows 8 has been put under fire ever since the company made the first announcements. Analysts, developers and the media have all taking turns at blasting Microsoft’s new operating system. Gabe Newell, Valve’s CEO believes Windows 8 will be a hands-on catastrophe for the gaming industry and anybody else in the PC market.
Earlier this week, Valve’s boss took pat at a dinner sponsored by Google Ventures and Perkins Coie among others. In an onstage interview with Microsoft’s former VP of game publishing, Ed Fries, Gabe Newell uttered a take on Windows 8 most of the gaming industry has been thinking off.
“I think that Windows 8 is kind of a catastrophe for everybody in the PC space. I think that we’re going to lose some of the top-tier PC” explained Gabe Newell. The CEO of the game developer said Windows 8 is going to retire most of today’s original equipment manufacturers.
“I think margins are going to be destroyed for a bunch of people” Valve boss added. And if Windows 8 will prove to be such a catastrophe for the PC industry then “it’s going to be a good idea to have alternatives to hedge against that eventuality”.
The worry most companies in the PC business have today is that big time companies such as Microsoft and Apple are building a somewhat closed ecosystem. This means that free riders like Valve will have a hard time adapting to a brand new platform focused on revenue rather than value for users.
“In order for innovation to happen, a bunch of things that aren’t happening on closed platforms need to occur” said Valve CEO. “Valve wouldn’t exist today without the PC, or Epic, or Zynga or Google. They all wouldn’t have existed without the openness of the platform” explained Gabe Newell.
So that’s why Windows 8 is going to be a kind of a catastrophe for the PC business. It creates a closed platform, which works great for Microsoft as it limits the competitors’ access to the platform but at the same time it limits innovation.
