Microsoft Losing Ground On Windows Store and UWP For Gaming

Vigile writes: Microsoft has big plans to try and merge the experiences of the Xbox One and Windows for gaming but the push back from the community and from major developers and personalities is mounting. Earlier this week PC Perspective posted a story that detailed the controversy around DX12 performance analysis without an exclusive full screen mode, changes to multi-GPU configurations and even compatibility issues with variable refresh that crop up from games from the Windows Store. Microsoft's only official response so far as been that it is listening to feedback and plans to address it with upcoming changes. Now today, Epic's Tim Sweeney has posted an editorial at The Guardian with an even more dramatic tone, saying that UWP (Unified Windows Platform) "can, should, must and will, die..." Clearly the stakes are being placed in the ground and even damage control from Phil Spencer on Twitter isn't likely to hold back angry PC users.

Comments

As usual, the Herd fights a good idea

[bretts]

UWP (Universal Windows Platform) allows developers to create experiences that are easily deployed across all Windows 10 devices, from PCs to tablets to phones to Xbox One.

No one likes MSFT's anti-piracy behavior, nor its stodgy and standards-resistant approach to, well, anything, but -- looking at this objectively -- the idea of allowing one development platform across these different devices is an advancement for us all. Yes, let's stop developing for the idiosyncrasies of devices and start using standards like DirectX for what they were designed for: to free us from hardware, and make code that will run in the future without being trapped in the peculiarities of one chip or another.

$0.02