Epic CEO calls for death of Universal Windows Platform

Oh boy, it’s been a fun week for Microsoft gaming news. None of it particularly good. Today, we have Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney speaking out against Redmond’s Universal Windows Platform (UWP) monopolizing and closing off the PC gaming eco-system.

“With its new Universal Windows Platform initiative, Microsoft has built a closed platform-within-a-platform into Windows 10, as the first apparent step towards locking down the consumer PC ecosystem,” Sweeney told The Guardian.

Microsoft had recently announced that reality bending game Quantum Break would be exclusive to the Windows Store and Windows 10. Something that’s rustled the jimmies of the freedom loving PC Master Race.

Gamers had already expressed concerns about this being the first step towards Windows as “walled garden”. A single monopolized app store run by the platform developer, which locks out all competing stores as well as any software that doesn’t meet their guidelines. The very same strategy used by the iPhone and game consoles.

“The specific problem here is that Microsoft’s shiny new ‘Universal Windows Platform’ is locked down, and by default 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,” Sweeney said.

Epic Games is not the first publisher to speak out against UWP. Valve’s Gabe Newell made a similar argument when the store was introduced with Windows 8 back in 2012. Steam OS followed a year later.

Microsoft certainly has a vested interest in trying to capture the growing PC gaming market. With the Xbox One under performing, PC is now being seen as a new potential market to tap. Microsoft currently makes no money from game sales on rival store fronts. Pushing exclusive major releases to the Store can be seen as a way to bolster weak console software sales.

However, gamers argue that the Windows Store is offering an inferior user experience compared to competing digital retailers. It lacks many basic online and social functions, and does not support things like mods, multiple graphics graphics processors, or even unlocked frame rates. Reddit posters on /r/pcmasterrace have taken to calling it GFWL 2.0, after Microsoft’s poorly received Games for Windows Live service from the mid-2000’s.

This latest news comes on the heels of Xbox Head Phil Spencer claiming it is considerably more expensive to game on PC than on Xbox. A statement which he has since corrected.

Photo by Sylvain Raybaud via Flickr. Used under Creative Commons License.