Windows promised to be a niche product on the desktop?

Lol... Nice one...

@epobirs:
Funny thing is, you hit the nail right on the head with that comment: Windows IS a niche product on the desktop. Meaning: The only niche where Windows has any cloud at all is the desktop.

Linux on the other hand is everywhere. Linux rules the web. Linux rules the embedded space. Linux is going strong in the cell phone market and will only get stronger.

Linux runs on just about every processor architecture in existence. Windows dug its own grave by focusing solely on x86. Yeah, x86 and Windows will probably continue to rule the desktop for a while, but the desktop is becoming less and less significant. Linux will rule the web, the cell phone and the MID markets, and this is where the action is going to be.

You have to give Linux credit for becoming as powerful as it is in such a short time, and without any substantial marketing at all. Compare that with Apple and Windows and their huge marketing budgets. Linux got to where it is solely by its own merits. Most people don't know about its existence, and that is the only reason it hasn't obliterated Windows on the desktop. Not a single one of the 5 people I have set up with Linux has had any desire at all to return to Windows, and several of them were skeptics at first. Windows just has no compelling advantage to justify its over-inflated price anymore.

I think until game manufacturers shed themselves from the microfluff hold and control move over gaming and entertainment Linux wont take off like it could.

direct x began as a sincere effort to help the gaming community to move from a DOS requirement to being able to run on top of the OS. The same way the amiga OS did from day one...

They then switched direct x from being a free product to all capable windows OS's to a manipulation master piece when they forced it as a 'must buy vista' fiasco.

Direct x offered many sincere shortcut to programming and assisted in making some type of standard where no one existed before.

But now it has become a crutch that some manufacturers refuse to program around.

In my eyes it is similar to what the internet started to be, and what it is now. Telecoms have injected their control into our lives. And now we can't get "reasonable pricing" for faster connections.

Does anyone know of any game manufacturer in the "Games For Windows" alliance producing their game for non direct x execution?