I thought I’d be done talking about the latest Microsoft hooplah that’s been taking place, but the other day not long after talking about Microsoft’s attempt to get everyone to go over to their UWP platform I read an article that forced my head to hit my solid oak desk. Microsoft wants to make the XBox One an upgradable device.
“We see on other platforms whether it be mobile or PC that you get a continuous innovation that you rarely see on console,” he said. “Consoles lock the hardware and the software platforms together at the beginning of the generation. Then you ride the generation out for seven or so years, while other ecosystems are getting better, faster, stronger. And then you wait for the next big step function.”
I can only speculate at this point, but knowing Microsoft the XBox One’s upgrade path would probably consist of starting out the consumer with what one would consider bottom tier hardware, and give them the option of upgrading using Microsoft’s proprietary hardware. Basically the Mac of PC Gaming, only with a Mac at least you can still mod games far more openly than you can with Microsoft’s proposed walled gardened ecosystem.
Even other people, such as the CEO of Epic (makers of the Unreal Engine) has spoken out about how foolish this is.
“Unless Microsoft changes course,” Sweeney says, “all of the independent companies comprising the PC ecosystem have a decision to make: to oppose this, or cede control of their existing customer relationships and commerce to Microsoft’s exclusive control.”
Meanwhile on the Microsoft side:
“The Universal Windows Platform is a fully open ecosystem, available to every developer, that can be supported by any store. We continue to make improvements for developers; for example, in the Windows 10 November Update, we enabled people to easily side-load apps by default, with no UX (user experience) required.”
Really? Then how come there are two different versions of the new Tomb Raider floating around with Microsoft’s being the one with issues such as missing features from the Steam release? If you buy The Witcher 3 from GOG or Steam for example, you won’t notice a difference. Same with most Steam and Nonsteam games as they both use the same executable and get the same updates. Microsoft’s method fragments the PC Gaming ecosystem by making dev’s choose between UWP and the more traditional means of developing a game, and consumers go over to yet another application (and OS if they haven’t moved to 10 yet) to grab these titles.
This move isn’t Boneheaded, it’s XBoneheaded.
Oh, and on a funnier note I had to change the brackets around user experience. In the original article they used [] instead of (). If I left the quote in it’s original state it would have read as:
“The Universal Windows Platform is a fully open ecosystem, available to every developer, that can be supported by any store. We continue to make improvements for developers; for example, in the Windows 10 November Update, we enabled people to easily side-load apps by default, with no UX [user experience] required.”
Yeah, I’m happy with my current gaming experience thanks. 😛