Microsoft used to publish lots of PC games. Now, though, they mostly don’t. Sure, there’s Gears of War, and a three years late port of Halo 2, but aside from that? Not much.
And it doesn’t look like there’ll be much in the foreseeable future, either. The company’s internal Flight Simulator team has been canned. Ensemble Studios, the team behind the Age of Empires series, were broken up and shut down. And porting a Halo game to the PC three years after it appeared on the original Xbox is some kind of sick joke.
https://kotaku.com/flight-simulator-devs-grounded-by-microsoft-job-cuts-5137519
But, cross their hearts and hope to die, Microsoft aren’t done in the PC publishing space. Games for Windows‘ Dave Luehmann tells Gamasutra:
We’ve got several titles in development right now, both internally developed and rummy mars with external partners. We’re here at GDC negotiating another deals, and we’re here at GDC looking for other content partners. I’d say our position in Windows over the last six months has gone from a steady state, to a dip from a point of view of the press, but realistically we’re putting more money into Windows games than we have in quite a while.
Hopefully he means more than just Gears of War 2. Oh, and a Halo rummy master 3 port that turns up in 2010.
GDC: Microsoft’s rummy modern Luehmann And Johnston On Future Of Games For Windows Live [Gamasutra]