As you’ve probably heard, a lot of Microsoft game franchises are hoping over to PC’s. Quantum break, Cup Head, Recore, Sea of Thieves, Fable, Gears of War 4, GoW1 ultimate is actually out now, Forza, and it looks like a lot more are coming possibly including games like Halo and Scale bound. According to top people at Microsoft they are restructuring and trying to connect gaming across windows 10 platforms. Quantum break, for example will be free on PC is you buy the Xbone version.
Now, some of these games are coming to Steam/GOG, etc, but it looks like the main core Microsoft franchises will be limited to the windows 10 Store and UWA/UWP (unified windows app/platform). These apps are different in a lot of ways from your standard desktop app - they are sandboxed for one, and will make certain things - like modding, and UI overlays possibly unworkable.
Microsoft says they’ll be working to improve on that…
So I’m wondering, are you guys interested on playing these games on PC? Does Windows 10 Store exclusivity change things for you?
None of those games interest me, and I’ve got a backlog of about 100 games on Steam to work through. That being said, if there was a game I really wanted, I don’t think the exclusivity would stop me.
This all smacks of attempting to drive people away from Win 7 & 8 to the notoriously wonky 10. If they really wanted their own store, they’d have left GFWL open.
I don’t have Windows 10, and I wouldn’t buy them even if I did. If Microsoft wants people to switch to Windows 10 and buy things from their store, they should try earning people’s trust by quitting being shitbags instead of using transparent and obnoxious ploys like this.
There are too many drawbacks right now, even if I were interested in some of those games (I’m not). Mods are now non-existent and will likely be slow to come. The games cannot currently take advantage of SLI/Crossfie. They cannot disable vsync. They cannot run in true windowed mode. (This last one is really a mixed blessing, because that’s borderless windowed is generally how I prefer to run, games but not having the option is bad because there are some games where I really want them windowed.)
I wasn’t particularly interested in any of those series when they were XBox exclusives, and moving to PC won’t change that (even if it does make them relatively more accessible). If they started coming out with deep strategy games and RPG games or roguelikes with cool systems, sure, I’m in, the Microsoft thing isn’t a turnoff on its own. But those games have been coming to Steam and/or Playstation for the last decade, and I wouldn’t expect that to change now.
I am combating delivery platform fragmentation by only using platforms named Steam. I will not be partaking unless MS sees it fit to make their games available on there as well. Though of the games you listed nothing really grabs my interest too much, so hopefully skipping the MS games will be less unpleasant than my ongoing Origin boycott.
I’m not going to avoid it on principal - one person’s “delivery platform fragmentation” is the rest of the world’s healthy competition. That’s fine. None of those games are particularly appealing, though.
I have no great loyalty to Steam. But, it’s been around for awhile, and despite the rather crappy customer service, I’m pretty confident it’s still going to be around 10~20 years from now.
I have no idea how long the Windows Store is going to support my current purchases. Games For Windows Live was shut down rather unceremoniously rather than being folded into this new delivery platform, after all. I have no confidence that a few years down the line MS isn’t going to replace the Windows Store with something else and everything I’ve bought there will disappear.
It’s not just Microsoft, either. Sony shuts down their services regularly and I’d be hesitant to buy content from their online storefronts as well.
GOG is pretty much the only Steam alternative I have a lot of confidence in. Their commitment to non-DRM content with nicely bundled installers means that even if they do end up going under, I can download and keep all my stuff.
Yeah, GoG is the only delivery platform that I actually want to expand. Unfortunately the two franchises that I’m most interested in are Steam exclusive.
I’m not really interested in any of those games. If there was a game I was mildly interested in, I’d probably be slightly less likely to buy it than if it were on steam, just because I like the convinece of steam, and there are more games that I’m mildly interested in then I have time to play anyways.
If there was something I particularly wanted, I guess I’d learn to deal with the windows store thing. I dealt with the Ubisoft game thingy once or twice, and was annoyed, but not enough to keep me from using it if necessary.
Oh please. Steam isn’t a monopoly. They have no regulatory or infrastructure advantage. There’s no huge barrier to entry. Steam is huge because they’re both the best and the cheapest.
If one of the car companies started building cars that drove better, were more reliable, used less fuel, and lasted longer than the other manufacturers, and charged less for it, everyone would flock to that company. Would that company then have a monopoly? Of course not - they’re just the best choice for most consumers.
Comcast is a monopoly, because laying out internet infrastructure to homes is a huge undertaking, consisting of regulatory issues, easement rights, massive infrastructure undertaking, etc. Steam is a company that everyone loves because they’re good and cheap. Not remotely the same thing.
As for this new initiative - I’m holding out again Windows 10 as long as practical. If, one day, certain games actually require it due to DX12, I’ll probably have a dual boot copy of Windows 10 that I use only for a few games.
I don’t like the universal app nonsense, nor Microsoft exclusivity. Exclusivity leads to high prices, so I would have to really want one of these games to pay $60 for them, since I couldn’t count on getting steam-like discounts at any point. I would possibly consider paying $60 for Forza 6, but they’re bizarrely not actually just releasing Forza 6 and letting you by it. Instead they’re releasing a limited “curated” version of Forza 6 for free, which is pretty weird.
Sea of Thieves looks really interesting, actually. I will be thoroughly annoyed if it’s great, and the gimped windows 10 store is the only way to play it.
Incidentally I can never figure out the appeal of Gears of War. Whenever I look at gameplay from those games, it looks like the most boring games in the world.
So, overall, it’s probably a positive sign that Microsoft is stopping their effort to ignore the fact that PC/Windows gaming exists, and to actually try to provide something for that market. But the specifics about how they’re going about it are about as bad and annoying as can be.
I don’t begrudge them what they have achieved by being the best and the cheapest, but the only reason I started using their service is because they made it impossible to get the games I wanted any other way. If you want to buy The Witcher 3, sure, you can choose whether GoG or Steam offers the preferable method of buying it. But if you want Fallout 4 you’re stuck with Steam.
That’s not Steam though, that’s Bethesda choosing to go Steam only, probably because they wanted their game tightly integrated into the Steam workshop (another great feature of Steam! ).
I might be interested in Forza 6, but only because I have about $700 worth of useless racing hardware because Microsoft decided to screw over their user base and break compatibility with previous xbox peripherals.
But then I would be rewarding Microsoft for screwing me over, so maybe not.
).