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Epic Games founder Tim Sweeney has been a vocal opponent of Windows 10 and its Windows Marketplace, which he sees as Microsoft's attempt to lock down the entire ecosystem. Although his comments are often factually debatable, he's still not a fan of either and thinks Microsoft could drop W32 to try and kill off Steam.
As it stands, everyone uses W32 as a programming interface for Windows gaming he says, but Microosft wants to drive its Universal Windows Platform (UWP) technology instead.
“The risk here is that, if Microsoft convinces everybody to use UWP, then they phase out Win32 apps,” he said to Edge magazine. “If they can succeed in doing that then it's a small leap to forcing all apps and games to be distributed through the Windows Store.”
The concern there, is that once all new games use UWP, what is the incentive to support much older W32 titles? Especially since they would weaken the security of a sandboxed Windows store ecosystem.
Source: Official GDC/Flickr
Fortunately it sounds like his fears might be misplaced. Ars has a solid breakdown debunking his concerns, pointing out that W32 is required for UWP and much of Windows' other important functions, like the Explorer shell. Other major applications like Photoshop heavily utilise W32, so why would they get on board with Microsoft halting its support for the platform?
It argues that the very reason Windows has remained popular for so long is its backwards compatibility. If that went away, many, many users would refuse to upgrade. Microsoft has had enough trouble getting people to move over to an entirely free version of Windows 10. If that platform no longer supported most of the world's mainstream software, future upgrade attempts would be basically impossible.
Playing chicken like that with gamers would also be a dangerous move. With the rise of Linux gaming through SteamOS and other alternatives, no matter its slow progression, any big changes like this would quickly see people jump ship to maintain playing their favourite games.
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KitGuru Says: Do you think Sweeney is right and that Microsoft will try and shut down future Windows so they can only play approved games? Or is it just being paranoid for some reason?
I think all he is trying to do is raise awareness about where MS might be heading before its too late. We as consumers drive the market and market decisions and its up to us to say “no, that’s not what I want.”
There is more chance of convincing everyone to put their focus into Vulcan over DirectX than there is convincing them to move from W32 to UWP
My guess is that the EU would step in, as they have in the past. This would be a prototypical case of MS abusing its monopoly to force its own product and kill competitors. A few billion euros in fines would stop them from doing it.
But beyond that, MS would be crazy, as this would get virtually all PC gamers to massively hate MS (beyond the predictable complaining; W7, 8.1 and 10 are very decent OSs). Everybody loves Steam, you must be suicidal as a company (or powerful beyond the dreams of even Apple and Google) to try and kill it.
Props to Tim for speaking out
Ignoring any legal issues that would ensue that monopoly is exactly what allows them to be able to do that kind of thing.
In an ideal world it would spark worldwide outrage among gamers, a lot of people would switch to linux based operating systems such as SteamOS in protest, developers would see that that is where the largest source of income is and promote the use of cross-platform tools and API’s and everyone is happy.
In the real world no one’s going to switch because all their favourite games aren’t Linux compatible, and Microsoft have exclusivity and technology deals with some developers
It’s not about switching, but about millions of outraged gamers who now have hundreds of pounds/euros/dollars worth of unplayable games, because one company wants to abuse it’s monopoly(for which they have been fined in the past, and for which Google and Apple are also in trouble. You can have a monopoly in one sector, as long as you don’t abuse it to make competition impossible. And that is precisely what MS would be doing, which would mean that they have to pay billions in fined again.)
Yeah, props for speaking utterly delusional FUD.
Awareness about what? His delusions? MS’s actions in making UWP increasingly open (including the last feature update turning side loading on by default and them allowing UWP apps in other stores) proves him wrong. Furthermore, MS are not stupid enough to plan to put their games on Steam in the future and then kill Steam.
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“Awareness about where MS might be heading before its too late” is what I said.
And, although I can’t be sure but I don’t think you have inside knowledge of what MS long term financial/ Market plans are. You will have to forgive me if I lean towards listening to Tim Sweeny:Game developer 25+ years, Epic games co-founder over Kane Bunce: From the internet.
It is not my word, but Phil Specer’s. He made their plans public. He said they will release their own games on Steam. And I know that MS is not stupid enough to release their games on a platform and then try kill it. That
So, my laptop just updated to the latest “Anniversary update” because I forgot to set on metered connection at a friend and now the steam store page won’t load anymore. So… he might have a point.
The dudes a software genius. His views aren’t “delusional”. Gabe said the same shit about Windows. (When he was ranting about the PS3) Just wasn’t as vocal.
He knows software well, but he does not know Microsoft’s strategy. In fact their actions have been hinting at the exact opposite direction of what he is saying.