Microsoft plans to support PC gaming more, but so must other publishers

Microsoft has reiterated its stance on supporting PC gamers, and has hit back at those who say it's not doing enough by stating it's also first-publisher's responsibility as well.

Speaking with MCV, Microsoft Games Studios’ general manager Dave Luehmann said it's MS's job to "lead the way" on PC, and it plans to step-up its efforts with support for Fable III, Age of Empires Online and Microsoft Flight.

“There’s been a fair bit of criticism aimed at Microsoft that we were spending a lot of our focus on console, and we need to be putting resources behind PC as well,” said Luehmann.

'Other companies should look to Microsoft for leadership, but I’m not sure they do. It is our job to lead the way on PC. And in some ways we are doing that and in other ways we are not. So we need to step up.

"We are putting some real investment and big IPs behind the Windows platform. We’ve spoken of the first three, Fable III, Age of Empires Online and Microsoft Flight. However we are not going to stop there.

"I think it is the responsibility of first parties to push the business models in to new directions. We will test some ideas – some will work and some won’t."

An internal document from Microsoft hit the net back in July, and in it, the firm was asking itself whether or not it has fulfilled its promise of releasing first-party PC titles to the consumer.