GhostTrick
Banned
With the recent commitment from Microsoft to be meaningful on PC Gaming, there's been a lot of reactions. Some positives, some negatives, the reality is that Microsoft seems to be eager to bring their IPs to Windows... but with a catch: The Windows Store, their new ecosystem. Which raise the question, since this is Microsoft third attempt after two unsuccessful one with GFWL: Should Microsoft be trusted again and given a third chance ?
First of all, I'd like to say what I mean by 3rd chance or two first attempts. GFWL first released with games being exclusives to the Live Marketplace. And online play was under a paywall with Xbox Live Gold. The reception was really negative on that one. After that, Microsoft commited to more PC support again, and brought GFWL games to Steam and other storefronts, and made online play free.
But despite major 3rd parties using this service, most of the people would get these games elsewhere than the marketplace, which led to Microsoft purely and simply shutting GFWL down.
As of today, any GFWL game that hasn't been patched won't have working online component. Worse than that, any of your games bought on the Marketplace are lost if you didn't downloaded them. Ironically, if you bought these games on Steam, you can still download them and some of them also have been patched to use Steamworks service. Microsoft didn't thought of bringing any solution to that....
Which bring us to the 3rd attempt: The Windows Store. Microsoft is basically announcing a new service which this time, isn't only about gaming, but everything. Of course, the chance of this being shutdown are really low... but many issues are already raising:
-UWA or Universal Windows Apps. Basically, Microsoft new apps standard, which makes your programs more akin to smartphone app, with no access to files and limited gaming options (forcing borderless fullscreen, vsync, no support for dual GPU or 3rd party overlays like FRAPS/Rivatuner/NVidia Inspector). The service is just lackluster and is basically late on fonctions we have in every other clients.
-Windows Store only: Every content, especially games, are sold exclusively on the Windows Store. No Amazon, no Greenmangaming, no Steam, nothing. Basically, there's only one place to get your games, at one price. It's especially infuriating since GFWL issues has yet to be fixed (which may never be fixed in fact) when the Marketplace and GFWL have been shut down. It's even more of an issue when the only reason some GFWL games are still playable is because of more reliable services
As for me, after making such a disaster, Microsoft should comply to the standards already in place. I know some people would just say "it's part of their ecosystem" "there's no gain for them" but I disagree. I think the best thing for Microsoft is to keep making Windows a good place to use, especially when the solutions in place are contributing to make Windows such an amazing OS for gaming.
First of all, I'd like to say what I mean by 3rd chance or two first attempts. GFWL first released with games being exclusives to the Live Marketplace. And online play was under a paywall with Xbox Live Gold. The reception was really negative on that one. After that, Microsoft commited to more PC support again, and brought GFWL games to Steam and other storefronts, and made online play free.
But despite major 3rd parties using this service, most of the people would get these games elsewhere than the marketplace, which led to Microsoft purely and simply shutting GFWL down.
As of today, any GFWL game that hasn't been patched won't have working online component. Worse than that, any of your games bought on the Marketplace are lost if you didn't downloaded them. Ironically, if you bought these games on Steam, you can still download them and some of them also have been patched to use Steamworks service. Microsoft didn't thought of bringing any solution to that....
Which bring us to the 3rd attempt: The Windows Store. Microsoft is basically announcing a new service which this time, isn't only about gaming, but everything. Of course, the chance of this being shutdown are really low... but many issues are already raising:
-UWA or Universal Windows Apps. Basically, Microsoft new apps standard, which makes your programs more akin to smartphone app, with no access to files and limited gaming options (forcing borderless fullscreen, vsync, no support for dual GPU or 3rd party overlays like FRAPS/Rivatuner/NVidia Inspector). The service is just lackluster and is basically late on fonctions we have in every other clients.
-Windows Store only: Every content, especially games, are sold exclusively on the Windows Store. No Amazon, no Greenmangaming, no Steam, nothing. Basically, there's only one place to get your games, at one price. It's especially infuriating since GFWL issues has yet to be fixed (which may never be fixed in fact) when the Marketplace and GFWL have been shut down. It's even more of an issue when the only reason some GFWL games are still playable is because of more reliable services
As for me, after making such a disaster, Microsoft should comply to the standards already in place. I know some people would just say "it's part of their ecosystem" "there's no gain for them" but I disagree. I think the best thing for Microsoft is to keep making Windows a good place to use, especially when the solutions in place are contributing to make Windows such an amazing OS for gaming.
