Microsoft knows not of shame

Microsoft has announced that Halo 2 will be released for the PC. If this a normal Halo product announcement, I'd be saying "who gives a fuck" right about now. But this isn't a normal Halo product announcement. Microsoft, in all of its glory and wisdom, has announced that Halo 2 will be only for PCs with the Windows Vista operating system. Now, PCs aren't video game consoles. But hell, I think this is just a low brow attempt on Microsoft's part to make people upgrade to their new resource hog of an OS. So not only do the PC gamers that want to play Halo 2 on their PC (all 3 of them) have to buy the new OS, but they have to buy hardware that is compatible and powerful enough to run it. That's a huge kick in the already drained wallet of a gamer.

What next I wonder? Every 5 years will Microsoft release a new version of Microsoft Office that only runs on the latest OS? Are we going to be forced to buy booster packs for Vista just to get the latest security upgrades? I'm sure there will be tons of upgrades and hotfixes. Shits and giggles abound.

If there's one thing I hate Microsoft for, it's for allowing developers to patch their Xbox games after their released. I expect that for the PC just because there is so much variation it's almost impossible to get everything working 100% on every system configuration. Patching doesn't belong in consoles. It makes developers lazy. Instead of making the game the best it can be when it launches, developers will just "half-ass it and fix it later if anyone notices" as seen in many of Team Ninja's games.

I'm sure there are benefits to being able to add content to a console game. New maps are always nice I guess. How many people actually use the downloaded maps for those game though? I'd say only the fanatics do. I'd like to see more effort on developers' parts on getting the game right the first time. Isn't that more important than having your game look like a hack job?