Microsoft recently made a surprise announcement. Quantum Break’s PC version, which was so far being sold only on Windows Store, will also appear on the Steam store. Not only that, but the game will also no longer be exclusive to Microsoft’s premier operating system Windows 10—it will also be playable on Windows 7. This leads to two interesting conclusions.
The first is that Microsoft is no longer interested in keeping its games exclusive to Windows 10 (and Windows Store), and the second is that more Microsoft-published games may be coming to Steam in the future.
What could have caused this surprising change of heart on the part of Microsoft, who has so far made sure its game releases promote their latest and (arguably) greatest operating systems, be it Windows Vista back in the day, or Windows 10Â today. Could the release outside of Windows Store be influenced in part by concerns about Microsoft locking down the Windows ecosystem? Or perhaps the gaming-related concerns levelled at Windows Store-exclusive games have convinced Microsoft to change its mind?
Walled Gardens and Boiling Frogs
Microsoft is not the only game publisher to have their own digital distribution system on PC. EA has Origin, Ubisoft has Uplay, CD Projekt has GOG, and Blizzard has Battle.net. Of these, EA and Blizzard keep their games exclusive to their own stores, while Ubisoft and CD Projekt are open to releasing games on Steam, apart from their own stores. Microsoft, which was formerly in the former camp, now appears to have slipped into the latter.
Microsoft, however, stands apart from its peers in the respect that it not only has its own online store, but also the operating system that commands the largest market share on the PC. Although game ports for Mac and Linux have increased and improved over the past decade (thanks partly to Steam), Windows continues to be the leading OS for playing games on. This puts Microsoft in an interesting – and possibly monopolistic – position.
The fear of Microsoft trying to create a monopolistic “walled garden” using the Windows Store has been voiced most loudly by the CEO of Epic Games, Tim Sweeney. Microsoft’s Universal Windows Platform (UWP), the major point of concern for Sweeney, is an application architecture introduced with Windows 10. Long story short, apps made with UWP can run on a Windows 10 desktop, Windows 10 Mobile devices ,and even Xbox One consoles.
Sweeney’s concern is expressed in this quote: “…it’s impossible to download UWP apps from the websites of publishers and developers, to install them, update them, and conduct commerce in them outside of the Windows Store.” His editorial was responded to by both Vice President of Windows Kevin Gallo and by the Head of the Xbox Division, Phil Spencer. Both Gallo and Spencer stated that UWP is an “open ecosystem” and “can be supported by any store”.
Sweeney spoke out against UWP once more in May, and brought boiling frogs into the picture, using the metaphor to describe how he thinks Microsoft will get people to adopt UWP. Later, in July, he pointed out how Microsoft began selling computers and tablets running Windows, but unable to run Win32 applications. Arguing that Microsoft intends to phase out Win32 applications altogether, he suggested a somewhat controversial theory: “Slowly, over the next five years, they will force-patch Windows 10 to make Steam progressively worse and more broken.”
Quantum Broken
The “walled garden” problem is not the only one UWP has faced. When Quantum Break originally released on Windows Store, Digital Foundry noted that many of the game’s issues could be traced back to UWP. Writing about the game, they noted, “In the case of Quantum Break, this means that we’re basically held hostage waiting for improvements from the developer or from Microsoft itself, as if this were a console game.”
Later, while analysing Gears of War: Ultimate Edition, another UWP exclusive, Digital Foundry found even more issues. Adding more fuel to the universal Windows fire, Microsoft admitted that games running on UWP will only support modding through developer-sanctioned platforms, similar to Steam Workshop. Mods that modify the executable, on the other hand, will not be possible.
This isn’t to say that Microsoft has been entirely blind to these issues. In May, Microsoft announced upgrades to UWP that included V-Sync control, support for exclusive fullscreen mode (allowing G-Sync and Freesync support), and unlocked framerates. Undeterred by criticism, Microsoft has clearly been trying to make UWP a viable solution for developers.
Gathering Steam
It comes as a surprise, then, that when Quantum Break releases on Steam this September, it will also run on Windows 7 systems. The game’s original Windows 10 release was restricted to players with DirectX 12 graphics cards, but the Windows 7 release will support DirectX 11. Developer Remedy Entertainment is quite confident about this:
We have worked on this release for a while. We got a lot more experience in shipping DX11 titles.
— Thomas Puha (@RiotRMD) August 10, 2016
The DirectX 11 version of the game will not run on the Universal Windows Platform. So this sparks the question: is Microsoft giving up on UWP for its video games? And if this is so, what exactly has caused this about-face?
The most important factor here could be the simplest one: sales. Regardless of how well Quantum Break sold as a Windows Store exclusive, it will undoubtedly reach a much, much larger number of players as a Windows 7-compatible game released on Steam. Microsoft may have finally decided that those sales are more important to them than promoting Windows Store (and by extension, Windows 10).
Or perhaps, it is a strategy Phil Spencer has had in mind for a long time now. Spencer, who has a Steam account himself, said in a 2015 interview that “Five years from now you’ll be able to buy Steam games and be able to buy games on the Windows store.” Last month, he broke the news that Microsoft will be selling games on Steam. That’s games with an “s,” plural.
And Microsoft isn’t short on games right now. Thanks to the Xbox Play Anywhere initiative, every Xbox One-exclusive Microsoft has planned will also run on PC. This list includes the likes of AAA titles such as Gears of War 4, Forza Horizon 3, Scalebound, ReCore, and Crackdown 3. If Phil Spencer’s words and the recent Quantum Break announcement are any indication, these games will also be making their way to Steam. And this also opens the door to the possibility of the next mainline Halo game releasing on PC—and on Steam.
Whether Sweeney’s theory about Microsoft forcibly breaking Steam in the future turns out real or not, it does sound like the days are getting brighter for PC fans of Microsoft’s games. After a generation of games mostly exclusive to an Xbox console, we are finally seeing Microsoft properties return to Windows. If Microsoft encourages allowing games to run on Windows 7 or Windows 8 computers, they also stand to gain a wider playerbase.
Phil Spencer’s strategy might actually pay off, and if it does, everyone stands to win.
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Published: Aug 18, 2016 02:51 pm