Earlier this week, an interview with Tim Sweeney in Epic magazine was published, in which the Gears of War developer once again expressed his skepticism of the Universal Windows Platform.
Sweeney went a bit further than he did back in March when he made his original accusations. Back then, he said that UWP is a walled garden, that it forces users to get their apps from the Windows Store. Of course, this wasn't true, and Microsoft responded with such a message.
This time, the Epic Games co-founder said that Microsoft will gradually phase out Win32, and once it does, it's a small step to force everyone to get their apps from the Windows Store. He also stated that over the next five years, Microsoft will release a series of updates that will make Steam "worse and more broken", until "people are so fed up that Steam is buggy that the Windows Store seem like an ideal alternative."
Microsoft responded with the following statement (via GameInformer):
Tim is a respected figure in the gaming world, and we value his feedback… As stated previously, the Universal Windows Platform is a fully open ecosystem that is available to every developer, and can be supported by any store. It’s early, and we recognize there is still work to be done, but we want to make Windows the best development platform regardless of technologies used.
The company clearly took the high road, sticking to facts instead of commenting on the conspiracy theory that it will basically break Win32. It's a similar statement to the one that was released back in March, which was tweeted by Xbox head Phil Spencer.
Source: GameInformer via WinBeta | Image via Gameranx
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