It looks like Europe may have to prepare itself for another technological sucker punch. According to Reuters, Microsoft is making hints that Vista may be delayed in Europe depending on the European Commission's antitrust requirements. The Seattle mega-corp found itself saddled with a EURO 500m anti-trust fine back in 2004 and has been scrapping with the Commission ever since. The EC has allegedly labelled Microsoft's assertion, 'misleading'.
What's this got to do with games, you may ask? Well, several forthcoming titles including PC versions of Alan Wake (pictured - well, it's more interesting than a Vista logo) and Halo 2 as well as much-vaunted FPS, Crysis, are all Vista exclusives. The latest version of Microsoft's gaming API, DirectX 10, is also Vista-only. Chris Donahue, Group Manager of Windows Gaming and Graphics, has promised a 6x performance increase with DirectX 10 games - due, in no small part, to the 'backwards compatibility break' (see an interview tih Donahue here).
So, is the European Commission really to blame or is this a 'look over there, a monster!' tactic from Bill Gates and Co, allowing them to fiddle with the code a bit more, or perhaps to duck out of that whole global launch thing altogether as it doesn't seem to be panning out too well for companies at the moment.
