5 ms·

> It's in the interest of both companies to kill Windows Sorry why is it in both of their interests to do so?

by vecinu 8y ago

foota 8y ago
As far as valve goes, the windows store is a potential competitor to steam.
- astrowilliam 8y ago
  I'm an avid gamer and would never buy anything from the Windows store. Casual players even use Steam. I'd like to see the sales stats between the WS and Steam to compare.
  - uomopertica 8y ago
    I can confirm that! I had to download Gears of War 4 from the Windows Store because it was distributed there. I had a terrible experience: account not logging, download not initiating etc. In the end I had to download it on my laptop whose Store was seemingly working better and transfer the files over to the Desktop. My experience is that WS is very fragile and much less reliable than Steam.
    - dogma1138 8y ago
      That something I never understood the Xbox store works pretty much flawlessly. How hard do you need to work to screw up something that already works just fine.
      - gmueckl 8y ago
        If I had to guess I'd say by having it reimplemented in a different department... MS in the past has shown very severe symptoms of NIH between teams.
  - beagle3 8y ago
    You are talking about the next month, but this game plays over a decade. I remember the mid. And even late ‘90s when gamers said they would never ever run games in windows, DOS is forever! Times change.
ReverseCold 8y ago
Time spent not in a browser is time spent where Google might not be able to see what you're doing. Considering that their business is watching what you do all the time...
moetech 8y ago
The whole Steam on Linux thing is believed to have started because Valve saw the Windows Store as a threat to their business model. IIRC, at the time it looked like Microsoft would disallow installation of programs from outside sources. As for Google, well they are just big competitors in a lot of areas. I'm sure they would love to beat Microsoft on the desktop like they did in the smartphone space.
- Klover 8y ago
  Would Valve not rather have Microsoft than Google then? Windows users have administrator accounts and can install steam and its games without issue. Google play store would directly compete with steam.
  - moetech 8y ago
    No, because Google doesn't wield the same power over Android that Microsoft wields over Windows. If Google decided to disallow Steam from Android, Valve could just fork Android and carry on. They can't do that with Windows.
    - Fnoord 8y ago
      You can't "just fork Android". Android devices come pre-installed with Android right now. OEMs aren't allowed by Google to distribute a non-official Android version. Its Microsoft all over again.
    - Sylos 8y ago
      That's optimistic... Google exerts a lot of power over Android. The EU did recently punish Google for that, so theoretically Google now has to stop with it, but up until this point, they forced manufacturers to only ever preinstall the Google version of Android (or permanently lose their license to preinstall the Google Apps) and also forced manufacturers to always install the whole Google app bundle, not just the Play Store. To put their power into perspective, just remember that Amazon has been in the game of distributing an Android fork and alternative app store for a while now. And Amazon is magnitudes bigger than Valve.

> It's in the interest of both companies to kill Windows Sorry why is it in both of their interests to do so?

by vecinu 8y ago

> It's in the interest of both companies to kill Windows Sorry why is it in both of their interests to do so?

foota 8y ago

As far as valve goes, the windows store is a potential competitor to steam.

astrowilliam 8y ago
I'm an avid gamer and would never buy anything from the Windows store. Casual players even use Steam. I'd like to see the sales stats between the WS and Steam to compare.
- uomopertica 8y ago
  I can confirm that! I had to download Gears of War 4 from the Windows Store because it was distributed there. I had a terrible experience: account not logging, download not initiating etc. In the end I had to download it on my laptop whose Store was seemingly working better and transfer the files over to the Desktop. My experience is that WS is very fragile and much less reliable than Steam.
  - dogma1138 8y ago
    That something I never understood the Xbox store works pretty much flawlessly. How hard do you need to work to screw up something that already works just fine.
    - gmueckl 8y ago
      If I had to guess I'd say by having it reimplemented in a different department... MS in the past has shown very severe symptoms of NIH between teams.
- beagle3 8y ago
  You are talking about the next month, but this game plays over a decade. I remember the mid. And even late ‘90s when gamers said they would never ever run games in windows, DOS is forever! Times change.

ReverseCold 8y ago

Time spent not in a browser is time spent where Google might not be able to see what you're doing. Considering that their business is watching what you do all the time...

moetech 8y ago

The whole Steam on Linux thing is believed to have started because Valve saw the Windows Store as a threat to their business model. IIRC, at the time it looked like Microsoft would disallow installation of programs from outside sources. As for Google, well they are just big competitors in a lot of areas. I'm sure they would love to beat Microsoft on the desktop like they did in the smartphone space.

Klover 8y ago
Would Valve not rather have Microsoft than Google then? Windows users have administrator accounts and can install steam and its games without issue. Google play store would directly compete with steam.
- moetech 8y ago
  No, because Google doesn't wield the same power over Android that Microsoft wields over Windows. If Google decided to disallow Steam from Android, Valve could just fork Android and carry on. They can't do that with Windows.
  - Fnoord 8y ago
    You can't "just fork Android". Android devices come pre-installed with Android right now. OEMs aren't allowed by Google to distribute a non-official Android version. Its Microsoft all over again.
  - Sylos 8y ago
    That's optimistic... Google exerts a lot of power over Android. The EU did recently punish Google for that, so theoretically Google now has to stop with it, but up until this point, they forced manufacturers to only ever preinstall the Google version of Android (or permanently lose their license to preinstall the Google Apps) and also forced manufacturers to always install the whole Google app bundle, not just the Play Store. To put their power into perspective, just remember that Amazon has been in the game of distributing an Android fork and alternative app store for a while now. And Amazon is magnitudes bigger than Valve.