GameSpot's Microsoft's big PC plans article is online, offering a recap of a conversation they had with Microsoft's Dean Lester at GDC. According to the article, the next Windows release (currently codenamed Longhorn) will, among other things, focus on making PC gaming better. Longhorn will offer centralized options for things like matchmaking, game settings, and patching, and running games straight from the CD without installation is being looked at as well. Microsoft is also working on a standard PC controller, "which would allow a more seamless conversion of cross-platform titles and generally simplify the use of PC gamepads". The next Windows OS is expected to be released in 2005.

There are a couple of parts of the initiative that will require wide industry support: new system requirements for retail packages and a standard for PC controllers. The current methods for listing system requirements are confusing and don't necessarily represent what's actually needed for a game to perform well. The plan is to set up a numerical system that categorizes and groups system levels, and when this goes into effect in 2005 or so, a level-1 system might represent the current or year-old value-priced PC configurations, while level 2 and level 3 group systems that define the mainstream and high-end performance of the time. As PCs progress, new levels will be added. Lester admitted that there were some challenges ahead to get the necessarily industry support, but he also noted that Longhorn would generally require the sort of general rethinking of PC standards that's accompanied previous Windows generations.