"Universal Windows Platform can, should, must, and will, die as a result of industry backlash."
Epic Games boss Tim Sweeney has described Microsoft's new Universal Windows Platform initiative as the "first step towards locking down the consumer PC ecosystem" and believes the platform holder is trying to "monopolise game development on PC."
With its new Universal Windows Platform (UWP) initiative, Microsoft has built a closed platform-within-a-platform into Windows 10," Sweeney said."Microsoft is moving against the entire PC industry--including consumers (and gamers in particular), software developers such as Epic Games, publishers like EA and Activision, and distributors like Valve and Good Old Games."
"They're curtailing users' freedom to install full-featured PC software, and subverting the rights of developers and publishers to maintain a direct relationship with their customers."
According to Sweeney, the Universal Windows Platform is locked down and "by default it's impossible to download UWP apps from websites of publishers and developers, to install them, update them, and conduct commerce in them outside of the Windows Store." "Gamers, developers, publishers simply cannot trust the PC UWP 'platform' so long as Microsoft gives evasive, ambiguous and sneaky answers to questions about UWP's future, as if it's a PR issue. This isn't a PR issue, it's an existential issue for Microsoft, a first-class determinant of Microsoft's future role in the world."
He continued: "Microsoft structuring its operating system to advantage its own store while unfairly disadvantaging competing app stores, as well as developers and publishers who distribute games directly to their customers."
Microsoft has responded to Tim Sweeney's criticism of the Universal Windows Platform:
"The Universal Windows Platform is a fully open ecosystem, available to every developer, that can be supported by any store. We continue to make improvements for developers; for example, in the Windows 10 November Update, we enabled people to easily side-load apps by default, with no UX required," it explained.
"We want to make Windows the best development platform regardless of technologies used, and offer tools to help developers with existing code bases of HTML/JavaScript, .NET and Win32, C+ + and Objective-C bring their code to Windows, and integrate UWP capabilities. With Xamarin, UWP developers can not only reach all Windows 10 devices, but they can now use a large percentage of their C# code to deliver a fully native mobile app experiences for iOS and Android. We’ll have more to share at Build."
