Previously announced for XBLA, it’s been revealed that indie strategy effort Skulls of the Shogun is getting a PC release, but there’s a catch — one that may be a deal-breaker: it’s exclusive to Windows 8. Game designer Borut Pfeifer of 17-Bit Studios confirmed to Rock Paper Shotgun that the title will not be compatible with previous versions of Windows, such as 7 and Vista. Apparently, in accordance with the publishing deal it made with Microsoft, the developer was given a choice to either support Windows 8 or GFWL on Windows 7.

So why choose an OS only a tiny fraction of PC gamers will own in the near future?  Pfeifer pointed to the negative rep that Games for Windows Live has received among PC gamers. With Windows 8, Microsoft has thrown out GFWL in favor of seamless Xbox Live integration.

“As PC gamers we’re aware of the issues GFWL has had. Windows 8 & Xbox Live on Windows 8 are a great step forward. Some of that is just improvements in Windows 8 itself – you can associate your PC login with your windows live/xbox account, and then logging into Xbox Live games is seamless, just like on an Xbox,” said Pfeifer.

Based on what I’ve seen in the consumer preview, I can’t imagine many folks will be itching to jump ship to Windows 8, at least not right off the bat. Preventing a game from running on earlier versions of Windows that are hardly outdated seems ridiculous. It’s understandable that Microsoft needs incentives to drive upgrades, but that should come from the core functionality. This all brings dark reminders of when Microsoft forced Vista on gamers, simply for DX10 support. Here’s hoping this is all just an isolated case and not a sign of things to come.

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