To support all of these features, Microsoft unveiled Direct3D 8, which promises to not only beat the speed of OpenGL, but totally blow it out of the water in terms of features. Thanks to Microsoft's aggressive efforts to bring hardware and software vendors together, DirectX 8 natively supports all of these features. Because of this, everyone benefits. You see, OpenGL will not support all of these features natively. In this model, everyone loses.
Developers have to worry about which extensions to use.
Hardware manufacturers lose because they cannot be sure that developers are writing code for their particular card. Consumers lose they end up with programs that don't take full advantage of their hardware. Ultimately, OpenGL loses because it cannot compete with Direct3D anymore. In the process, alternative OSs loose as well, because Direct3D is a Windows-only technology. If you think that the gaming market is inconsequential to OpenGL, think again.