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Windows Phone 8.1 |OT| Update 1

P

Pooya

Member
brotkasten said:
I'm not even sure what I'm supposed to say exactly. lol?

Back in July of last year, Microsoft announced plans to release Zoo Tycoon Friends for Windows 8.1 and Windows Phone. In addition to being an Xbox title, the game looked to fit into the growing trend of simulation and management games for mobile. Later in October, the game finally launched after some limited testing and things were looking good for the game.

Jump ahead to early 2015, and it does not take much to find complaints in the Store about the title. Reviews are littered with the same grievance, which includes the backend servers essentially not working, rendering the game (and any purchases) useless.

Today, Microsoft is throwing in the towel. In an email sent to those who are playing the game, Microsoft Studios have announced that Zoo Tycoon Friends is shutting down on April 28, 2015. Microsoft says that the closure is part of their "ebb and flow" of portfolio management, but there is little doubt that the game's constant problems likely forced their hand.

http://www.windowscentral.com/microsoft-will-euthanize-zoo-tycoon-friends-april-28

If it's not even worth trying to fix your own F2P game on your platform, why should any other developer or studio bother in the first place?
Click to expand...


MS' dedicated support for their platforms is exemplary... they should go and beg developers for support if it takes that this time around. want f2p success? you need big names over there. they should be begging blizzard to bring hearthstone as a universal app. Right now I play it on android. ipad and PC everyday. It's really so good to have the same game everywhere and play whenever I want, this is what MS has been promising forever and before but others are actually delivering on other platforms.

It's astonishing how sony could gather far better indie support for the effing vita than MS has done for their windows ecosystem. it can't be anything other than incompetency and/or apathy.
 
juliushandle

juliushandle

Member
Heretic said:
Save us, Universal Apps! You're our only hope!
Click to expand...
Indeed. Hopefully Microsoft understands this as well.

I've always said the smartphone is the new "PC." There's a younger generation that banks through mobile. There's another generation that still have laptops/desktops specifically for banking but they're already on tablets and phones for social apps, surfing, etc. So yes, mobile banking is of the utter importance.
 
C

clav

Member
Klocker said:
Its so weird to see this happening just after this announcement of how windows 10 will work across the devices..if anything I would think that it's a good thing. Not a sign to abandon ship.
hope they can pull this together.
Click to expand...

Just develop everything on Xbox!

STREAM EVERYTHING
 
M

MCD

Junior Member
miladesn said:
MS' dedicated support for their platforms is exemplary... they should go and beg developers for support if it takes that this time around. want f2p success? you need big names over there. they should be begging blizzard to bring hearthstone as a universal app. Right now I play it on android. ipad and PC everyday. It's really so good to have the same game everywhere and play whenever I want, this is what MS has been promising forever and before but others are actually delivering on other platforms.

It's astonishing how sony could gather far better indie support for the effing vita than MS has done for their windows ecosystem. it can't be anything other than incompetency and/or apathy.
Click to expand...

Someone up there in the Xbox dept has a stick up their ass. Policies everywhere.

Only explanation I could think of.
 
K

KageMaru

Member
camajise said:
MS cant do anything about keeping a product on the shelves unless it's their own Microsoft Stores. If a product isn't selling then it's time to use that shelf space for something new and exciting.

I worked in merchandising for Macy's. We had 5 seasons and we'd always move older product behind the newer product. However if something sold like hotcakes you can surely bet that the item wasn't going to lose it's shelf space.

The Icon had its time. Blame Microsoft for not releasing flagship phones after the Icon's release.
Click to expand...

For a flagship, doesn't it seem like it was killed off rather quickly? It had less than 8 months on the shelf before Verizon killed it off. When I see 5 blackberries on their site but only 2 WP, it makes me think there's something that could have been done.

MCD said:
Someone up there in the Xbox dept has a stick up their ass. Policies everywhere.

Only explanation I could think of.
Click to expand...

Wouldn't that be Phil Spencer?
 
S

Steelyuhas

Member
KageMaru said:
Wouldn't that be Phil Spencer?
Click to expand...

Lots of people making decisions for Xbox, not all successes or failures are Phil's.

But yeah, there certainly are some puzzling policies they have, particularly with their indie game program.

-----------

I'm pretty invested in the Windows ecosystem, so obviously I'd like to see it succeed, but I don't see how Universal Apps solves the problem anytime soon. As long as Windows Phones remain unpopular (especially in the West), universal apps for the sake of extending a developers app to the phone doesn't seem like a huge draw. If the APIs are great, I assume it makes sense for developers to replace their Win32 apps at some point just for some of the newer standards that are built into WinRT apps (smart resizing, resume states, etc), but I still don't see devs jumping on that train day one to duplicate a Win32 app that people are currently happy with.
 
n64coder

n64coder

Member
JaggedSac said:
I can't even log in to BoA website. I enter my id and then it takes me to a page that says mobile device and safe pass card or something and I have nothing to tap. Only a cancel button lol. This will be terrible.
Click to expand...

Has anyone reported this problem yet? Does the BofA mobile banking work on android/ios?

Off to file a report myself.
 
N

Nero3000

Member
HTTP Live Streaming in "Spartan"

http://arstechnica.com/information-...-extensions-and-performance-yes-windows-7-no/
As well as stripping out the legacy code, Microsoft has added a bunch of new capabilities, including support for HTTP Strict Transport Security, that tells the browser that some domains should always be visited using SSL, HTTP Live Streaming and Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP, for better plugin-free video playback, the Gamepad API, and various features that are set to be standardized in ECMAScript 6.
Click to expand...
 
H

hadareud

The Translator
He noted: “For us, Window’s biggest problem is that it is not very easy to have the DIY [experience] on the Windows system.”

“If you look at all the Windows phones, they are all very similar. It is very hard for us to differentiate a Huawei Windows Phone to other Windows phones.

“That’s why we think Android is a better choice for us.”
Click to expand...

No crapware and awful UI's, in summary.
 
H

hadareud

The Translator
A football forum I frequent is talking about Hololens.

Since hardly any MS related stuff is discussed there, that's pretty good news, looks like they're somewhat penetrating the mainstream.

The only bad part is that the word "lol" is being filtered. To "I smell of spunk".

So Hololens is "HoI smell of spunkens".
 
M

maeh2k

Member
Heretic said:
Save us, Universal Apps! You're our only hope!
Click to expand...

Hope for what? People won't suddenly start developing apps for the desktop -- everyone's happy with websites. And people won't start writing apps for the sinking ship that is Windows for mobile devices.
 
J

José Mourinho

cocknose
I like how I'm likely to be on a W10 preview before O2 manage to roll out Denim.

As a side, I really wish I had of jumped ship like I was thinking about when I got the 930.
 
H

Heretic

Member
maeh2k said:
Hope for what? People won't suddenly start developing apps for the desktop -- everyone's happy with websites. And people won't start writing apps for the sinking ship that is Windows for mobile devices.
Click to expand...

That's the spirit! UniApps! UniApps! UniApps!
 
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