Tales of the Rampant Coyote

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Is Microsoft Making Moves To Close the Windows Marketplace?

Posted by Rampant Coyote on March 4, 2016

Is Microsoft setting the stage so that no games taking advantage of the evolution of hardware and the operating system can be sold outside of Microsoft’s own marketplace? This article in the Guardian makes it sound that way. And Microsoft has been making moves in that direction for a long, long time:

Microsoft wants to monopolize games development on the PC. We need to fight it.

Tim Sweeney is worried about this. Gabe Newell is so worried about this he’s put some serious money where his mouth is. It’s definitely a concern to both consumers and developers.

The thing is, we have been fighting this. We have been setting off alarms as Microsoft has made moves in this direction repeatedly over the last decade. And each time, they’ve backed off. Somewhat. So I don’t think it’s been a “boy who cried wolf” deal.

I don’t know how big of a threat this is – I’ll listen to the people more in tune with the situation. As much as Steam’s dominance in the PC game marketplace worries me, it’s not an enforced dominance. This potentially could be.


Filed Under: Biz - Comments: 4 Comments to Read



  • Xian said,

    I don’t see it being much of a threat yet, if ever. I don’t see many gamers flocking to their platform, so it will end up like Origin – if you want to play EA titles then you have to use Origin, but you only use the platform for it’s exclusives. Microsoft will try to leverage their exclusives of course as they always do, but how many people upgraded to Vista just so they could play Halo 2 on the PC? Vulcan may also do a lot to level the playing field with DirectX 12 titles.

    So far I haven’t seen Gabe Newell’s investment in Linux gaming paying off yet. The latest Steam Hardware Survey had people gaming on Linux at around 1% (which actually was down a little from previous surveys), still not even getting to the 3% mark of Mac users, heck even XP users were over 2%.

  • MalcolmM said,

    I’ve been a PC gamer since the 80’s. If you had asked me ten years ago if I would consider moving to another gaming platform I would have said there was no chance.

    However, if Microsoft succeeds in making Windows a closed marketplace I would look at other alternatives. I’ve stuck with PCs not because I think Windows is the best OS but rather because it is an open system. Take that away and it is just another OS put out by a company I have little respect for.

  • Anon said,

    The one thing Microsoft did certainly close today was Lionhead Studios – and Fable Legends with it…

    https://www.fablelegends.com/news/important-information-on-fable-legends

  • lakerz said,

    MalcolmM – I agree with you. Microsoft keeps doing their best to mess up what makes PC gaming the best way to go! Remember ‘Games for Windows’ push? Having to register accounts and all that stupidity. They better not push this again.

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