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Microsoft Lays Out Money-Making Options For Windows Store Developers

Posted by samzenpus on from the price-guide dept.

tsamsoniw writes "With the release of Windows 8 just around the corner, Microsoft is eager to see its Windows Store well stocked with third-party, Metro-friendly apps. Hoping to get developers on board, the company has announced pricing structure, along with guidance and tools to help developers create trial versions of apps and set up lucrative in-app purchases."

8 of 85 comments (clear)

  1. Once the market matures by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Aspiring developers could hope to get the total sales from both potential metro users.

    1. Re:Once the market matures by hairyfeet · · Score: 4, Insightful

      But the elephant in the room that nobody seems to be willing to accept is this....how many PCs do you honestly believe are gonna be sold with touchscreens?

      As we saw recently both AMD and Intel are reporting worse projections for sales this year and yet we are supposed to believe that the answer is RAISING prices, in a dead economy, to throw on touchscreens? Really? Look at the prices for touchscreens folks they ain't cheap. Sure you can get a buggy PITA resistive but its still gonna cost a good $75-$100 more than the same screen without and as we all know resistive sucks ass. Even with economies of scale and the OEMs shaving to the bone for decent capacitive touchscreens in laptops and desktops you are talking a good $150+ more than current units cost.

      Let me tell ya that as a PC retailer in the trenches, and talking to other retailers that frankly the "sweet spot" for a good 75%+ of your PC sales out there are between $350-$500, with the biggest sellers being the $400-$450 laptops. Go into any B&M that sells PCs and count how many AMD laptops you see, the stores will be full of them because that's the only way to hit the crucial price point with Intel pushing chips that are frankly too expensive as it is.

      Mark my words....windows 8? The new MS Bob. The market simply won't support the price point required to move to touchscreens, not when so many are already afraid and living check to check. The OEMs certainly aren't gonna close their doors just because MSFT wants to be Apple, so they will either tell MSFT to do the same move they did when Vista flopped, that is to allow them to just keep selling Win 7 with a Win 8 DVD dropped in the box, or frankly they'll start talking to Google and Canonical. I have to wonder if it was a coincidence that Dell suddenly started talking Ubuntu again as it gives them leverage.

      Its just not gonna work folks, windows 8 SUCKS without a touchscreen and we all know this. I wish i had bookmarked the article I saw praising win 8, it may have been WinSupersite, where they said "See how easy win 8 is? Now to show how well it runs on old hardware we'll use this touchscreen Athlon 64 laptop to run it" and I about died because that said it all right there. Without touch win 8 sucks and with a worldwide recession people simply aren't gonna shell out an extra 30%-40%+ they don't have for units with touchscreens.

      --
      ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
  2. And then there's this BS by GameboyRMH · · Score: 5, Interesting

    http://thetechblock.com/why-publishing-on-the-windows-phone-marketplace-is-like-walking-barefoot-on-broken-glass

    Have fun with curated computing, developers. Work real hard and your app might be the next big hit! *snicker*

    --
    "When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
  3. Re:Fags and spics by thetoadwarrior · · Score: 5, Insightful

    A smaller tablet with a lower resolution and all the ipad benefits (ie no SD card) and it's all controlled by an advertiser that wants me to hand over all my personal data. Where do I sign up?

  4. I'm Sick Of Apps and Ecosystems. by Tackhead · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Remember the good old days, when shareware developers built stuff that ran natively and didn't phone home?

    When open source developers built stuff that compiled natively and couldn't phone home?

    Yeah, Pepperidge farm and I remember.

    But then came "downloaders" (Look, Adobe Acrobat XYZ is only 1MB, never you mind the 90MB the 1MB "installer" is downloading in the background.)

    And finally came "apps" and "ecosystems", a world in which instead of having a locally-hosted .src.tar.gz/installer/executable that the user can install for him or herself, it all goes away to "the cloud", because it's just a bunch of HTML5 running in a stripped-down web browser that dignifies itself by calling itself a "container".

    I'm either getting old and becoming a luddite, or this industry has really taken a turn for the worse. Probably a little of both.

  5. Will Windows 7 still be available in 2013? by cpu6502 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Will we still be able to get it, or should we buy our copies now?

    --
    My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
  6. Re:Whereas you kept 100% revenues before... by westlake · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Whereas you kept 100% revenues before, now you get to pay us 30% off the top....

    You can be a very good programmer and a very bad salesman.

    To move your Windows product you had to place it where people would see it. Where it would stand out from the crowd. Places like Download,com

    You wanted entry into big box retail? Think 60 percent off the top and you'll be closer to the truth, .

  7. Re:Fags and spics by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    Actually, I just got a Nexus 7 tablet. M$ is done for. Apple should be scared.

    I don't think they have any reason to be worried just yet given the shoddy build quality, screen washout/ghosting, stuck pixels and poor support. Maybe one day, but certainly not now.