At the recent Siggraph 2007, Microsoft made an announcement that floored gamers. The company said that the current crop of DirectX 10 hardware (meaning graphics cards) will not be able to support the upcoming DirectX10.1 that will be bundled with Windows Vista Service Pack 1. What they probably wanted to say, but were just too chicken to actually say out loud is that those who sprang for those nifty video cards in the pricey $200 – $600 range in the hope that they will be ahead of the pack when DirectX10 capable games arrive and also as a way of futureproofing their systems are now effectively left with obsolete cards.
Microsoft, the reigning kings of euphemisms, tried to spin it a different way. They said that DirectX 10.1 merely makes some optional features compulsory. It may somewhat lessen the whole impact of the announcement, but the company still cannot deny that they are effectively leaving gamers who have invested in DirectX10 capable cards with expensive hardware that went from Ahead of the curve to middle of the pack, faster than they can say “Service Pack 1”.
[tags]Microsoft, DirectX 10, Siggraph 2007[/tags]