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[memoryman3]

Valve isn't doing anything that other storefronts couldn't do, if they wanted.

I'd argue that the 20+ year head start probably has more to do with their success than anything else.

It's hard for a company starting now to make up that kind of ground, and the companies with the capital to do it, like Amazon, have completely failed at making a customer-friendly portal to use to purchase and play games. It's like they took a look at what Valve was doing to be successful and decided to do the exact opposite.

Epic could probably be a real contender, but they would need to sink a lot of time, effort, and money into improving their storefront and launcher.

Epic have recently announced a partnership with Xbox





Something is definitely cooking, especially with Xbox's full screen experience.

 

[grvg]

It is truly gabens fault that the console warriors are now marching towards the once peaceful realms of pclandia now. Was the GabeCube really worth it?

 

[Laptop1991]

What a post lol, Microsoft bought a lot of ip and franchises that were on Steam for 15 years and rarely on just MS, apart from Games for Windows Live and that was awful and sales dropped, and thats the bottom line, why would MS do this, they would lose a lot of revenue from lost sales, i dont think the OP likes PC gaming either lol

 

[Topher]

Epic have recently announced a partnership with Xbox





Something is definitely cooking, especially with Xbox's full screen experience.

That isn't going to make Epic Game Store any better.

 

[DeepEnigma]

It is truly gabens fault that the console warriors are now marching towards the once peaceful realms of pclandia now. Was the GabeCube really worth it?

Welcome them with open arms on their pilgrimage to the promise land.

That isn't going to make Epic Game Store any better.

Couldn't "spend them out of business," so they will go scorched earth on their own ecosystem in attempts to tear down their walled garden.

That race to the bottom.

 

[memoryman3]

why would MS do this, they would lose a lot of revenue from lost sales

To strengthen the Microsoft Store as a place for users to actually buy games from. You think people who already have a PC would resist buying Elder Scrolls 6 on the MS Store (100% cut to MS)? Again, I point to Nintendo.

 

[vodka-bull]

 

[memoryman3]

Screw it. CDPR should look into doing the same.
The Witcher 4 - GOG exclusive on PC.

 

[Paulistano]

No, but I think they should release their games on all stores too.

 

[ResilientBanana]

Your thought should have been kept on the inside OP.

 

[Laptop1991]

To strengthen the Microsoft Store as a place for users to actually buy games from. You think people who already have a PC would resist buying Elder Scrolls 6 on the MS Store (100% cut to MS)? Again, I point to Nintendo.

Absolutely they would resist buying off MS only, you have heard of mods right! well Microsoft wont allow the Script Extender because their PC gaming is not open source it's closed and most Steam users of TES will not switch to a limited experience and just paid mods instead of using the Nexus etc.

 

[The Mad Draklor]

Doing drugs is bad, m'kay?

 

[Topher]

EGS tried the whole exclusivity trick with their store and failed miserably. People seem hellbent on repeating the same mistakes that have been made with PC gaming time and time again.

 

[SScorpio]

To strengthen the Microsoft Store as a place for users to actually buy games from. You think people who already have a PC would resist buying Elder Scrolls 6 on the MS Store (100% cut to MS)? Again, I point to Nintendo.

You've never tried playing games from the Microsoft Store... have you?

 

[The_Mike]

You should stop thinking about console warring instead

 

[memoryman3]

You've never tried playing games from the Microsoft Store... have you?

Yes I have. Minecraft, Slime Rancher 2, Forza Horizon 4 all work great.

 

[yogaflame]

If HL3 will be exclusive to Steam machine and steam service only and no console version happens, that means war.

 

[DeepEnigma]

EGS tried the whole exclusivity trick with their store and failed miserably. People seem hellbent on repeating the same mistakes that have been made with PC gaming time and time again.

Yep, and now MSFT is "oh so noble" teaming up and "anti-walled garden."

Cut the bullshit. You are not selling any games on your platform to give a damn so no longer being a "walled garden" box doesn't impact your Game Pass model since that will still be it's own wall through you.

Thus this will be their new Trojan Horse. I do look forward to Sony and Nintendo teaming up in the inevitable court battles. While Epic and MS blow smoke up gamers asses with false "pro-consumer" virtue PR, when in the end it's really about wanting to destroy the non trillion dollar competition and enriching themselves more so in the fallout.

 

[N30RYU]

Like Phil would say... steam won the engagement and backlog fight by starting it first.

 

[ZehDon]

Microsoft: *Spends billions on making the perfectly calculated worst store user experience science and/or magic can conjurer*
Sony: *Releases their PC ports years late and still at full price*
Nintendo: *Sues you for synthesising protein because its violates their latest patent*
Steam: *Makes a useable store front*

"Why is Steam so successful!?!"

Microsoft: *Refuses to do anything better. Instead, buys half the video game industry, fires half of the video game industry, invests half a trillion dollars into AI non-sense, continues to forget to make video games, raises their prices*
Sony: *Refuses to do anything better. Instead, releases new games at higher prices that are visually indistinguishable from their previous games, committing to releasing the most unambitious line up of games in their history*
Nintendo: *Refuses to do anything better. Instead, sues you for not synthesising protein because that also violates a patent, somehow*
Epic: *Makes the single laziest React front-end Store boiler plate POS that their last intern could do in a weekend*
EA: *Does nothing*
Ubisoft: *Soils itself*
Steam: *Continues to make a useable store front*

"OMG! Steam has a monopoly!!!!"

 

[DeepEnigma]

Like Phil would say... steam won the engagement and backlog fight by starting it first.

And most importantly, doing it better.

MSFT's PC gaming and storefront endeavors have been laughable for the OS maker.

 

[Durin]

The Microsoft Store really isn't a bad option to buy games from in 2025, unless you have a exFAT formatted drive. You have no launcher requirement, you get the full Xbox Live feature-set, and low latency cloud gaming is included for a very low price, so you can continue where you left off on your phone or TV. Launching the games using Xbox FSE also saves a lot of VRAM - useful for 8GB cards. I would say they are the closest to Steam out of all the alternative storefronts.

Nah, I would literally place the Microsoft Store and Xbox app below EGS and GoG, barely above Origin/Uplay. The feature-set of their game storefront on PC still hasn't caught up to Xbox as a console itself, and is one of the buggiest storefronts I've used on PC (to today even).

I still regularly get games through GamePass that will randomly on update push to download the entire game all over again. Or sometimes when I move games from one drive to another, they'll do the move, delete the game, and re-download the entire game again...installing back on the original drive I tried to move it from. Or the app will fail its authentication to play games, requiring I clear cache on the Xbox App so it pulls credentials again. Or customizing controls being a separate app, instead of like Steam Input where it's baked into each game to make custom control binds.

It's at least getting better with the FSE features saving memory...but as a store it's among the worst to find/discover games, because of their limited sorting options, and weaker recommendation features.

Microsoft only charges a 12% commission fee vs. Valve's 30%, and Valve are preparing to launch a $800 PC-console with less power than Microsoft's 5 year old console.

That commission is only smaller to get devs to bother porting to their PC store. On the Xbox console, they're more than happy to still keep charging the 30% standard rate, and charge consumers there for online multiplayer.

If their position improves, they'll undoubtedly enshittify the cut for their benefit, just like they were willing to raise game pass by up to 50% in one go.

 

[vodka-bull]

If HL3 will be exclusive to Steam machine and steam service only and no console version happens, that means war.

That would mean Gabe has to attend school again to learn to count to 3, ain't gonna happen mate.

 

[bad guy]

As a PC gamer I dont care about console games.

 

[FoxMcChief]

That had to be the fastest week I've ever experienced. I can't believe we are already at the weekend threads.

 

[FoxMcChief]

We need to update this classic with Gabe as the face.

 

[keefged4]

You have that on Epic. Plus, Epic actually provide online services that allow for seamless cross play across different consoles.

 

[j0hnnix]

They shouldn't, but release that shit 2 years later. Make them kids suffer.

 

[Exede]

And its not even friday yet...

 

[asdasdasdbb]

Anyway, to answer OP's question... for Sony 100% yes. (That is, if they are really going to continue to put their games on PC, which it does look like)

Frame it not as trying to compete with Steam but to sell their games on their store.

You could even make it easy to use the PS streaming.

 

[alabtrosMyster]

Why do we have to act like MS is a major player in the gaming industry by bringing them in the conversation with Sony and Steam?

 

[Memati187]

As if xbox had any choice lmao

 

[RafterXL]

...and instead allow releases on each other's platforms, Epic Games and Nintendo? I feel like Steam is going to become a full monopoly as consoles become more expensive and people head towards PC for high end gaming. If that's inevitable, then perhaps it wouldn't hurt for Sony to start focusing on Xbox/Nintendo ports over Steam ports?

Microsoft no longer really need Steam if they are doing PS5/Switch 2 releases now - their own store has massively improved since 2017. And perhaps Nintendo could open their own storefront if they decide to release games on PC.

Their store is still terrible. I completely stopped using Gamepass on PC because it will literally eat your drive space. Also, the second you install games on it it also installs folders that you can't remove, changes permissions and makes it a pain in the ass to deal with other than a straight up format. Literally every change with their store is cosmetic, all the faults are still there and just as bad as they were 5 years ago.

Microsoft absolutely needs Steam because if the only place I can buy one of their games is through their store, I just won't be buying their games, just like I did with EA because of their shit launcher.

As for Sony, as long as their launcher isn't any worse than Ubisoft or GOG or Epic, I won't care. I'd rather have them through Steam but as long as it's not the dogshit that is Xbox on PC I'll be fine using a Sony launcher.

Why do we have to act like MS is a major player in the gaming industry by bringing them in the conversation with Sony and Steam?

Have we gone full retard now? They are a major player. Their consoles are getting killed but in the overall gaming industry they're still one of the big boys. They were literally the biggest publisher on BOTH consoles in 2025. They made 25% more revenue than Steam in 2025.

 

[Disciple of MSSP]

Me clicking the link knowing how they'd roast you

Also me roasting you

 

[proandrad]

Valve should release Half-Life 2 for free on Epic game store, just to fuck with them.

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

The Microsoft Store really isn't a bad option to buy games from in 2025, unless you have a exFAT formatted drive.

If you don't want AppX-compiled games, it's trash. If you want some sense of organization, it's trash.

You have no launcher requirement, you get the full Xbox Live feature-set, and low latency cloud gaming is included for a very low price, so you can continue where you left off on your phone or TV.

You don't get Quick Resume, and last I checked xCloud had higher latency and worst image quality than PlayStation's cloud. Even if it's gotten better over time, it still doesn't compare to GeForce Now and that gets all the same big games you can get through xCloud, so why choose the inferior option when they're both on PC?

Launching the games using Xbox FSE also saves a lot of VRAM - useful for 8GB cards. I would say they are the closest to Steam out of all the alternative storefronts.

Too bad for MS they have the complete opposite of optics and reputation vs Steam, and no amount of shilling or astroturfing from media is going to change that sentiment anytime soon. If ever.

Microsoft only charges a 12% commission fee vs. Valve's 30%, and Valve are preparing to launch a $800 PC-console with less power than Microsoft's 5 year old console.

1: Valve charge less than 30% depending on profile of the dev/pub who is on Steam, which takes into account their sales track record. Microsoft's also a $4 trillion company; they could drop their commission fee to 1% and it'd make no difference to their bottom line since gaming is not their main difference. Not the case with companies like Valve.

A bit of a bad move to use that against a way smaller company that has been consistently providing better quality in the user experience for decades to justify their flat higher commission rate (which again, is lower depending on various factors with certain publishers).

2: We have no idea how much Steam Machine will cost.

3: Power doesn't mean much anymore. Good luck getting a Magnus-like device with 48 GB of RAM for anything less than $1800 with the way things are going. Steam Machine is also still more capable than 70% of setups among Steam users, so for the majority likely to buy it, it'll be a good enough upgrade.

How much has more power helped Microsoft over the past 25 years in gaming? Maybe OG Xbox it helped, and the early 360 years when its better GPU & straightforward programming model was preferable to the hellscape of early PS3. But it's been a marketing point at best ever since that has done nothing to help them and in fact it's hurt them this gen because the difference between the "more powerful" Series X and PS5 was barely noticeable. PS5 would even outperform the "stronger console" multiple times among big titles.

I'd say, maybe One X was the last time having more power was some sort of substantive benefit for Microsoft, but that didn't last at all, and it never had enough time to cement into something longer-lasting for the brand.

 

[Beechos]

Do companies not like to make money will be your answer.

 

[EverydayBeast]

Stop trying to push exclusives to other platforms, you made a living off exclusives. Zelda isn't escaping Nintendo for steam or anyone! Not that I know anything about games...

 

[Ozzie666]

Too late, Steam is already a monopoloy. It's going to continue to fall forward and reap the rewards of RAM and console prices. Any developer who want's their game to succeed (that doesn't own its own succesful hardware) needs Steam to make a profit. They call come back, the user base is just to large to ignore.

Nintendo and Sony are probably the two companies who can avoid steam entirely or delay releases. Nintendo doesnt do PC yet, if ever in our lfie time.