Depends how you define credible at this point. It's too early for official announcements. I do have rumors from connected people with a track record of getting these things right, and they fit with the noise coming out of Microsoft. Business software on Windows is also my day job, so paying attention to this stuff matters to me.  See this for one source - http://m.winsupersite.com/windows-8/threshold-be-called-windows-9-ship-april-2015

Theyre re not going to re-emphasize the desktop, but they are going to make it and Metro play more nicely together so there are fewer barriers to getting adoption past Windows 7. 

They already brought back the button in 8.1, along with boot to desktop. It's just that the 8.1 button brings up the metro start screen instead of the start menu. That is the part likely changing back, along with metro apps being able to coexist in desktop mode (without needing Modernmix from Stsrdock). 

There is also a goal to unify Windows into fewer versions, though I'm not sure when that will actually happen. Mobile is key to Microsofts strategy as they need to grow there, but there is zero chance of desktop mode going away this decade. It would be suicidal in the enterprise, when the whole idea was to get people used to the new interface at work and home so they want a similar one n their phone/tablet. 

Is the start screen that annoying screen that keeps popping up at the right of the screen everytime I do anything. Just to begin with there is no where near the flexibility of the start screen I talking about everything that is included. This sounds like dos all over again they did the same thing with Dos. I don't mind them unifying most of the versions of windows as long as they left alone the computer. The reason I don't have a smart prone or a tablet is because I can do more on a computer. Dido for the ultrabook.

I think that the only real deal is the power button on the user interface. Bringing back the start menu.

To be honest microsoft has been telling us what we want, and usually it is only for minority of computer users. It's cool that only 25 million of the needed 1 billion computer users. If I ever go to those technologies other than the computer I will probably use a smart phone or a tablet over the widows tablet or phone. This is why because these technologies are more specialized with those operating systems.

Oh yeah the trick is not to suck less, but to give us more versatility with the computer. Let us do more complicated things.

Not scorn but bafflement.  Did somebody seriously convince you to buy another program so that you could play a particular game?  If so then I can safely say that you were taken for a ride, and PC gamers haven't had to do custom installs since the days of DOS, so I'm really not sure what you're talking about.

When I originally made that comment I didn't know what the Steambox was as I've been searching I noticed that steam has an operating system can I download that into my computer instead.

+1 for Linux as well 

Just a port some time after a release would be okay. I've just recently switched over to Linux (few months ago) and.. dont really plan going back.

For whatever my opinion is worth, if there is a Linux version I will buy it immediately. I am currently playing MOO2 in linux hahaha, oldie but a goodie!

Quoting Gascogne,

reply 115

No word yet for support on other platform than windows? 

You're likely not going to see anything until post release

Great business sense even if MAC does suck.

One thing that people truly need to remember is that the fact that "steambox" is just a fork of Ubuntu. If anything it worries me that they are so intent on saying "steambox" vs. a more generalized Debian or Ubuntu because it indicates a preference for proprietary software and OS's which many mainstream Linux users are vehemently against.

I want to know that this will be LINUX compatible and not just compatible with one small fork of one distro.

Remember guys. Be twice as leery of how a corporation tells you something as what they actually say.

For me though, Windows is a operating system I no longer use at home. I have to provide support for it in a corporate environment, and it's broken before it boots! I want hardware & software that works, seamlessly integrates, and doesn't require me spending weeks just getting it work perform as it should.

I too would like to see an OS X version of this game. Many developers are providing OS X clients now, some cider & wine ports, but also a lot of native clients. Sadly Stardock hasn't indicated any commitment is this direction. I've supported Stardock Products for may years now, and I remember when Stardock basically ONLY provided OS/2 software, so it's not as if they've "...only ever supported windows".

Unfortunately I don't think Wine 64bit support is there yet, and neither does Crossover currently support 64bit windows. So clearly neither of these are options for me. It might be feasible for me to play the game in a Virtual Windows environment, the specifications as stated COULD allow for such a possibility. However unfortunately over the last few years, I've moved as much of my computing away from Windows OS as I can to the point that I don't run a PHYSICAL windows box anymore, I have one, including SLI GPU's, but really can't bring myself to use it for anything anymore.

I have managed to play SoSE & Skyrim on my iMac with Crossover, and that's thats as much effort as I put into windows OS based games now. I have 1/3 of my STEAM games with OS X clients, and that's my choice now. If a game doesn't provide me an OS X client, I don't buy it anymore. I've supported the previous two versions of this game, and loved every minute of playing it, both I & II.

Unfortunately I'm tired of a games industry that's not interested in either providing quality or variety. This is not a gibe at Stardock, I've been more than happy with the quality of all of the products that I've purchased from them, and that's almost ALL. I've bought every Stardock game to date (except this one). I supported them on OS/2, and have purchased quite a bit of their non game related windows software in the past.

Unfortunately as much as I want to play this game I won't because I don't want to run a windows box at home.

Normally i ignore discussions like this, but this irked me.

1) Galactic Civilizations III is 64bit. How many Linux/Mac home users are already on 64bit.

2) Galactic Civilizations III uses - as far as i can see - the Granny, Miles, and Bink libraries van RADTOOLS and possible other libraries. For the Mac and (a limited number of distributions of) Linux 64 bit was only recently introduced (Miles) 07/04/2014, Granny (12/01/2012), Bink (Pre release: 11/15/2013, first stable: 01/31/2014). And quite a few of the recent bugs squashed are for these versions. So there are hardly any game developer who can have experience with these 64 bit versions. And blindly thinking it works on the windows version, so it should work on any of the other variants is not the reality of the this world.

3) Various libraries have demands for the supported compiler (IDE) and other things. On windows for example the Bink library now works under VS2012, on Linux it compiles with GCC 4.8, this means that you will need to make your sources and resources compiler/platform agnostic. This will take lots of time. VS solutions are not Linux makefiles. So double your software-project overhead because it needs to be kept in sync.

4) Debugging various platforms will required different skill sets: experience with different debuggers, memory dump inspection/interrogation, log file analysis. This will probably mean additional programmers, support staff.

5) Execution security on Linux is not standardized between the various linux distributions, which means SELinux will be probably need to be disabled. Are you happy about this? A lot of people have it by default on and don't even know how to switch it off.

6) Not all Linuxes are equal. For example Kubuntu is the 36th most used variant. Maybe you are lucky and will it work for you because it is derived from Ubuntu - the number 2. Because i do not believe SD is going to distribute the game in compilable source form.

7) Doubling/Tripling your license fees while still in the development phase is not the wised business strategy.

So i see several reasons why there are legitimate reasons for currently not supporting multiple platforms.

Even other A-class games that do support multiple platforms, there is always one primary platform and once that is up and running, the other supported platforms follow thereafter. And this is not just the initial release, but also any patches and other things like DLC, expansions and so on.

If a Linux version would arrive in the future and i wouldn't have to buy a second license (on top of the windows version) just to run it, then i would happily play on one of my Linux systems.