6 ms·

This talk should really be titled "Update on UWP game development." Because that is not equal to the future of game development in total on Windows, unless Mic

by ebbv 11y ago

This talk should really be titled "Update on UWP game development." Because that is not equal to the future of game development in total on Windows, unless Microsoft is planning to disallow non-UWP installations. In which case they can expect to get sued by Valve and other publishers.

Eridrus 11y ago
I wonder why people think it's ok for Apple to maintain a stranglehold on iOS, but don't think it would be ok for Microsoft to control application installation on Windows. I'm sure Valve would sue them, because no-one gives up a billion dollar business without a fight, but I don't see why they would win.
- shurcooL 11y ago
  > I wonder why people think it's ok for Apple to maintain a stranglehold on iOS, but don't think it would be ok for Microsoft to control application installation on Windows. I think it's because Apple established that as the baseline when releasing iOS. It was a closed and controlled ecosystem from release day. Apple did it to be able to offer a better product/experience for their target market. We, as the consumers, could look at it and decide if it's a product we like and want to buy. Nothing was taken away from you when iOS and its closed garden came to be. People decided to accept the limitations in return for a better user experience by buying iOS devices. You have a choice to have something open by buying a mobile device that's not iOS. However, desktop systems have existed for a long time with higher freedoms. So, you can't take away the ability to do "anything" with computers without taking away something we've had for a long time.
  - Cyph0n 11y ago
    I wonder what your response will be once Apple applies the walled garden approach to OS X. It hasn't happened yet, but the features they've been introducing these past few releases are a clear indication of where they see OS X in the future.
    - djrogers 11y ago
      > the features they've been introducing these past few releases are a clear indication of where they see OS X in the future. What features has apple added that inevitably lead to a walled garden on OS X that can't be more easily attributed to improved security?
      - i386 11y ago
        I think the poster is referring to Sandboxing and SIP.
        Longhanks 11y ago
        Which can both be disabled.
    - ebbv 11y ago
      People have been saying this since 2007. It's not happening. Apple has continued to add new APIs and update existing ones and they have not closed anything. In fact they just open sourced Swift which is the future of OS X and iOS development.
    - BuckRogers 11y ago
      My guess is that his response will be the same. But that isn't what Apple would do. They're not stupid to change OSX midstream on existing devices.. that's what MS is trying to do. They'll put a new form of iOS, with OSX backwards compatibility on new hardware. Where if you buy it, you're not getting OSX. You're getting iOS on a Macbook with some OSX shims in place for legacy software. Sidesteps every issue mentioned. But MS can't do this, because they don't have total vertical integration like Apple.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
- zeta0134 11y ago
  Valve is very smartly building up a competing platform with Steam OS. Microsoft is trying really hard to position itself so that it can kill Win32; they backpedaled hard with Windows 10, but only because their own tech isn't there yet, and the user experience with no transition period was awful. I'm sure they'll try again; controlling the market would simultaneously solve their malware problem (real sandboxing and the ability to remotely kill malicious apps) and make them buckets of money. It would also be terrible for users, who would lose their freedoms over their own machines in favor of the Microsoft Walled garden.
  - Silhouette 11y ago
    Well, if any organisation is influential enough to make the year of Linux on the desktop actually happen, it's Microsoft. I find it extremely hard to believe their big corporate customers would accept that kind of walled garden. Of course, based on what we've seen with Windows 10, it seems Microsoft aren't foolish enough to go up against their big customers and would rather produce a very different product under the same branding that doesn't have the unwanted restrictions or anti-features. That seems a far more likely outcome even if they try to move the low-end/consumer market into more of an app store model. And if they do try that, then if any organisation is influential enough to steal the gaming market from them, it's Valve.
    - lmz 11y ago
      If you sell it as "only allowing authorized applications to run on domain-joined computers" it doesn't sound so bad.
      - Silhouette 11y ago
        Perhaps, but the next question any sysadmin is going to ask is "Authorized by whom?" and the conversation is likely to end shortly after the answer to that one. Microsoft have spent much of the past two years training everyone that their advice on new or updated software simply can't be trusted any more. They'll recommend updates even when you have actively indicated you don't want them. They'll override those indications and offer the same thing again anyway. They'll even shove things out and call them security updates when they have nothing to do with security. I expect they'll get away with that, up to a point, with home users. I've seen plenty of people who think it's wonderful that they've got a free upgrade to Windows 10, even if they don't know why they should like it, because it's newer and so must be better, right? Within that market, Microsoft is still a big brand with a lot of weight. But professional sysadmins and "power users" aren't nearly as easily convinced. I doubt MS would get away with the kind of half-truth you mentioned for more than a moment within that community, because it would be all over every online forum within 24 hours just like the GWX control panel, the policies to set on domain machines to block Windows 10, the warnings about the IE security update that also introduced the ad, and so on.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- djrogers 11y ago
  It's really no different from the stranglehold Microsoft has had on the Xbox line. It's all a matter of expectations - much easier to start with walls than it is to build them 20+ years after the fact.
- sgift 11y ago
  > I'm sure Valve would sue them, because no-one gives up a billion dollar business without a fight, but I don't see why they would win. Because Windows is still more or less a monopoly, which puts Microsoft in a special position. Apple can deliver Safari as their browser on Mac OS without problems - IE on Windows was far more problematic for Microsoft.
  - Eridrus 11y ago
    I see this as a much harder argument to make than 10 years ago. There are more iOS/Android devices than Windows/OSX devices. With the huge amount of software that is a webapp now, OSX is a significantly more viable alternative to Windows for many consumers.
    - tormeh 11y ago
      Desktop/laptop and mobile/tablet are distinct markets. OS X's marketshare is minuscule in comparison to Windows's. Not in certain groups, yes, but overall.
- ebbv 11y ago
  iOS was introduced to the world with no third party developer access, so technically Apple has only opened it up over its lifetime. Windows has always been open and never locked down, Microsoft choosing to lock it down is a very different thing. Look at the OS X App Store, which is a much more apt comparison. Apple introduced it and made it available to developers, but in no way has coerced it. It is no harder to make a "standard" OS X app that can also build to iOS than it is to make an app that's going in the App Store. UWP, on the other hand, is only available in conjunction with the Windows store.
  - contextfree 11y ago
    no longer true, they are enabling double-click install of appx packages from arbitrary sources by default
- overgard 11y ago
  As rich as apple is, they don't have a stranglehold on the market in the way that 1990s microsoft did. Of course, we're not talking about 1990s microsoft anymore, but the reputation continues. (That said, I think their policies are equally awful. Nobody should be happy with apple's nonsense.)
- kartan 11y ago
  > I wonder why people think it's ok for Apple to maintain a stranglehold on iOS It is not OK for Apple either. But I agree that it is a matter of expectations. iOS is closed and hard to work with in the same way that you do on desktop (Windows/Linux/OSX/...). You can't access freely the file system. There is a lot of hassle to share documents between applications. You are restricted in the peripherals that you can add. And a long list of things that makes mobile OSs not apt for software development or even office work. I use Windows, Linux and OSX machines for software development. And I'm happy with all of them. But I have never used iOS or Android for development, I don't know anyone that does it either, as it is just too hard to work efficiently with that OSs. The problem here is that it looks like Microsoft wants to bring mobile restrictions to the desktop. And that is scary not only from a freedom point of view, but also it makes your desktop machine less useful.
- cm3 11y ago
  Because it's how it was from the beginning, if you ignore the phase before the SDK was released. On Windows this would be removing functionality, but I doubt Microsoft will do this. It would be the final nail in the coffin.
tdicola 11y ago
Why would Microsoft be sued, what law specifically would they be breaking?
- jimmaswell 11y ago
  Antitrust laws?
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]

by ebbv 11y ago

Eridrus 11y ago

I wonder why people think it's ok for Apple to maintain a stranglehold on iOS, but don't think it would be ok for Microsoft to control application installation on Windows. I'm sure Valve would sue them, because no-one gives up a billion dollar business without a fight, but I don't see why they would win.

shurcooL 11y ago
> I wonder why people think it's ok for Apple to maintain a stranglehold on iOS, but don't think it would be ok for Microsoft to control application installation on Windows. I think it's because Apple established that as the baseline when releasing iOS. It was a closed and controlled ecosystem from release day. Apple did it to be able to offer a better product/experience for their target market. We, as the consumers, could look at it and decide if it's a product we like and want to buy. Nothing was taken away from you when iOS and its closed garden came to be. People decided to accept the limitations in return for a better user experience by buying iOS devices. You have a choice to have something open by buying a mobile device that's not iOS. However, desktop systems have existed for a long time with higher freedoms. So, you can't take away the ability to do "anything" with computers without taking away something we've had for a long time.
- Cyph0n 11y ago
  I wonder what your response will be once Apple applies the walled garden approach to OS X. It hasn't happened yet, but the features they've been introducing these past few releases are a clear indication of where they see OS X in the future.
  - djrogers 11y ago
    > the features they've been introducing these past few releases are a clear indication of where they see OS X in the future. What features has apple added that inevitably lead to a walled garden on OS X that can't be more easily attributed to improved security?
    - i386 11y ago
      I think the poster is referring to Sandboxing and SIP.
      - Longhanks 11y ago
        Which can both be disabled.
  - ebbv 11y ago
    People have been saying this since 2007. It's not happening. Apple has continued to add new APIs and update existing ones and they have not closed anything. In fact they just open sourced Swift which is the future of OS X and iOS development.
  - BuckRogers 11y ago
    My guess is that his response will be the same. But that isn't what Apple would do. They're not stupid to change OSX midstream on existing devices.. that's what MS is trying to do. They'll put a new form of iOS, with OSX backwards compatibility on new hardware. Where if you buy it, you're not getting OSX. You're getting iOS on a Macbook with some OSX shims in place for legacy software. Sidesteps every issue mentioned. But MS can't do this, because they don't have total vertical integration like Apple.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
zeta0134 11y ago
Valve is very smartly building up a competing platform with Steam OS. Microsoft is trying really hard to position itself so that it can kill Win32; they backpedaled hard with Windows 10, but only because their own tech isn't there yet, and the user experience with no transition period was awful. I'm sure they'll try again; controlling the market would simultaneously solve their malware problem (real sandboxing and the ability to remotely kill malicious apps) and make them buckets of money. It would also be terrible for users, who would lose their freedoms over their own machines in favor of the Microsoft Walled garden.
- Silhouette 11y ago
  Well, if any organisation is influential enough to make the year of Linux on the desktop actually happen, it's Microsoft. I find it extremely hard to believe their big corporate customers would accept that kind of walled garden. Of course, based on what we've seen with Windows 10, it seems Microsoft aren't foolish enough to go up against their big customers and would rather produce a very different product under the same branding that doesn't have the unwanted restrictions or anti-features. That seems a far more likely outcome even if they try to move the low-end/consumer market into more of an app store model. And if they do try that, then if any organisation is influential enough to steal the gaming market from them, it's Valve.
  - lmz 11y ago
    If you sell it as "only allowing authorized applications to run on domain-joined computers" it doesn't sound so bad.
    - Silhouette 11y ago
      Perhaps, but the next question any sysadmin is going to ask is "Authorized by whom?" and the conversation is likely to end shortly after the answer to that one. Microsoft have spent much of the past two years training everyone that their advice on new or updated software simply can't be trusted any more. They'll recommend updates even when you have actively indicated you don't want them. They'll override those indications and offer the same thing again anyway. They'll even shove things out and call them security updates when they have nothing to do with security. I expect they'll get away with that, up to a point, with home users. I've seen plenty of people who think it's wonderful that they've got a free upgrade to Windows 10, even if they don't know why they should like it, because it's newer and so must be better, right? Within that market, Microsoft is still a big brand with a lot of weight. But professional sysadmins and "power users" aren't nearly as easily convinced. I doubt MS would get away with the kind of half-truth you mentioned for more than a moment within that community, because it would be all over every online forum within 24 hours just like the GWX control panel, the policies to set on domain machines to block Windows 10, the warnings about the IE security update that also introduced the ad, and so on.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
djrogers 11y ago
It's really no different from the stranglehold Microsoft has had on the Xbox line. It's all a matter of expectations - much easier to start with walls than it is to build them 20+ years after the fact.
sgift 11y ago
> I'm sure Valve would sue them, because no-one gives up a billion dollar business without a fight, but I don't see why they would win. Because Windows is still more or less a monopoly, which puts Microsoft in a special position. Apple can deliver Safari as their browser on Mac OS without problems - IE on Windows was far more problematic for Microsoft.
- Eridrus 11y ago
  I see this as a much harder argument to make than 10 years ago. There are more iOS/Android devices than Windows/OSX devices. With the huge amount of software that is a webapp now, OSX is a significantly more viable alternative to Windows for many consumers.
  - tormeh 11y ago
    Desktop/laptop and mobile/tablet are distinct markets. OS X's marketshare is minuscule in comparison to Windows's. Not in certain groups, yes, but overall.
ebbv 11y ago
iOS was introduced to the world with no third party developer access, so technically Apple has only opened it up over its lifetime. Windows has always been open and never locked down, Microsoft choosing to lock it down is a very different thing. Look at the OS X App Store, which is a much more apt comparison. Apple introduced it and made it available to developers, but in no way has coerced it. It is no harder to make a "standard" OS X app that can also build to iOS than it is to make an app that's going in the App Store. UWP, on the other hand, is only available in conjunction with the Windows store.
- contextfree 11y ago
  no longer true, they are enabling double-click install of appx packages from arbitrary sources by default
overgard 11y ago
As rich as apple is, they don't have a stranglehold on the market in the way that 1990s microsoft did. Of course, we're not talking about 1990s microsoft anymore, but the reputation continues. (That said, I think their policies are equally awful. Nobody should be happy with apple's nonsense.)
kartan 11y ago
> I wonder why people think it's ok for Apple to maintain a stranglehold on iOS It is not OK for Apple either. But I agree that it is a matter of expectations. iOS is closed and hard to work with in the same way that you do on desktop (Windows/Linux/OSX/...). You can't access freely the file system. There is a lot of hassle to share documents between applications. You are restricted in the peripherals that you can add. And a long list of things that makes mobile OSs not apt for software development or even office work. I use Windows, Linux and OSX machines for software development. And I'm happy with all of them. But I have never used iOS or Android for development, I don't know anyone that does it either, as it is just too hard to work efficiently with that OSs. The problem here is that it looks like Microsoft wants to bring mobile restrictions to the desktop. And that is scary not only from a freedom point of view, but also it makes your desktop machine less useful.
cm3 11y ago
Because it's how it was from the beginning, if you ignore the phase before the SDK was released. On Windows this would be removing functionality, but I doubt Microsoft will do this. It would be the final nail in the coffin.

tdicola 11y ago

Why would Microsoft be sued, what law specifically would they be breaking?

jimmaswell 11y ago
Antitrust laws?

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]