So, it looks like we're finally seeing the fruits of Microsoft's plans to "Win back PC Gamers."Microsoft is now trying to push their new gaming platform, that is, buying games through the Windows Store. The Windows Store was originally launched with Windows 8 to sell Metro Apps, when Microsoft apparently thought the entirety of PC users were going to migrate to tablets. Now that the Windows Store is meant to be a platform for games, it has a number of concerning problems, which I think will damage future games that are tied to the platform in a similar way to how GFWL hurt many otherwise good games. I also believe (though this is more subjective) rather anti-consumer goals from Microsoft that will make PC gaming more closed and console-like. The aim of this thread is to identify and address each of the issues with Microsoft's new platform and how they might affect games, and update the thread if/when Microsoft fixes these.
-UWP: Universal Windows PlatformThis is the biggest issue with games for the Windows Store right now. Instead of running from an ordinary executable file, they run from a UWP, a Universal Windows Platform file- meant to work on PCs as well as phones and tablets. These were originally shown to the world as Windows 8's hated "Metro Apps" although in general they have improved since then. This is great for Candy Crush, not so great for, say, Tomb Raider.
It has a hefty list of problems that are all a result of the fact that UWP games are NOT the same as regular programs, they are ports of the game as a UWP App rather than a normal executable. This effectively makes the game locked down, like a console game rather than a PC game. Problems resulting from this include:
-No mods, ever
-No messing with files, or command line arguments
-UWP forces Vsync
-UWP forces windowed full screen mode, so your desktop continues to use video ram
-In Tomb Raider's case, NO SLI/Crossfire support. Microsoft says that UWP does support this, if it's programmed for the game, but since the Steam version of TR supports this and the Windows Store version does not, and this is a big AAA release, we can expect that Microsoft will make no effort to support this. In a similar vein, the Windows store version of the game does not support ultra-wide resolutions, which is just lazy.
-The lack of an .exe file prevents compatibility with a number of features, such as forcing graphics options with Nvidia/AMD's control panels, using the Steam overlay (and therefore Steam controller), and using programs like FRAPs and makes video recording difficult. It also prevents program-specific mouse macros.
In summary, UWP Framework causes problems that Microsoft
promises to remedy in part (Vsync, for example) and the only benefits to this are UWP programs working on your tablet (worthless for core gaming) and, presumably, the entire system being some kind of anti-piracy. Oh, and it requires Windows 10 of course. Microsoft is also unwilling to provide the support you expect for games.
UWP is worse for games and Microsoft presumably knows this, but does it
solely because it will force users to move to Windows 10 or as an anti-piracy measure. "Making good games" is demonstrably not part of this agenda, or Microsoft would have allowed normal executables. I repeat again: this is an example of Microsoft spending a lot of effort to make what they know are worse games, and providing minimal support for them. We'll see whether this lack of support and features changes, or continues as the store goes forward.
-Gears of War runs like garbage on specific high end AMD cardsThis is another concerning example of Microsoft being unwilling to provide basic support for games.
Certain video cards run very poorly on the Windows Store port of Gears of War: Ultimate edition. These are all AMD cards with GCN 1.1 and 1.2 architectures. Microsoft says they plan to fix this, and they probably will, but it's still very concerning to see this. A very short amount of Q&A would have revealed that certain video cards -popular ones!- run "Arkham Knight Bad" in this game. Microsoft either did basically no Q&A or knowingly pushed this game out of the door which would be utterly broken for 20% or so of its audience.
-Quantum Break windows store exclusive, more AAA games likely to followSeeing how the Windows Store versions of games are for the moment buggy compared to their regular counterparts, and will probably forever be unmoddable and locked down, a lot of gamers are
rather irate that Quantum Break, a highly anticipated game, will be exclusive to the Windows Store. This means that if you're bothered by the UWP's bugs/lack of features, you're SOL, there's no other version. There can be absolutely no doubt that Microsoft is testing the waters here, and despite saying they
don't intend to compete with Steam they're openly competing with Steam. Only, they're not competing with Steam by providing a better service which will entice users, but by locking down their games. If Halo ever comes to PC, for example, you can bet it'll be within Microsoft's walled garden where you can't mod it, can't run without logging in to your Microsoft account, can't run it on Linux with WINE, and won't see it go on sale similar to Steam titles.
Furthermore, it may or may not bother you to learn that Forza Motorsport is coming to PC, but only as the beautiful looking, feature-incomplete, free-to-play
Forza Apex. This is a "curated" port of Forza 6, which means that instead of being able to buy the whole game, you'll have access to 6 tracks and 20 cars, with another 40 cars that can be either unlocked by playing the game or purchasing them with real money. This is compared to Forza 6's 460 cars and 26 tracks, which you get for $60. No word on pricing yet, but I'd bet my left nut that unlocking everything in Forza Apex will cost more than $120. More on this as it develops.
-More on Quantum Break: You can install the cinemas on Xbox, but they MUST be streamed on PC, forcing you to be onlineFrom this article:Quantum Break [official site] features full live-action episodes telling half of the game’s story... And, er, to see those episodes you’ll need to be online to stream the videos. It’s baffling.
...
It’d end up too big for an Xbox One disc, basically. But the puzzling bit is that while the Xbox One will have an option to download all the episode videos in advance and skip streaming, the Windows 10 version won’t. That’s the opposite of what I’d expect. Louden explained to Game Informer that the PC version will support 2160p-resolution videos, which would be hefty files but… PCs are not typically short of storage space. Baffling.
If I had to speculate on a motive for this, it'd be anti-piracy. I mean, the option 2160p videos are no doubt huge, but I can't imagine any other reason why they wouldn't have the option to download 1080p video, just like the Xbox which has a 500GB or 1TB hard drive. Most likely Microsoft is deliberately crippling the PC version of the game because PC users are just damn, dirty pirates and the only way to keep them in line is to force them to be online. Okay, I'm getting salty, but can anyone think of a better reason?
-Quantum Break for PC runs like assI predicted we'd see a few games fall casualty to UWP, and it looks like
Quantum Break is the first new, AAA, non-remake game to be UWP exclusive on PC. Does it run terribly? Yes, yes it does. SLI doesn't work, GSync doesn't work, DSR downsampling doesn't work, and it gets poor framerates on insanely powerful hardware at 1080p ultra. As an added bonus, it's carried over blurry textures and bad anti-aliasing from the Xbox. There's bad pop-in and apparently it
runs terribly on more normal hardware.
-Windows store lacks convenient refunds or customer serviceIn particular, for large downloads, downloading frequently stops with an ambiguous "There was a problem on our end" message. Right now, there's no clear policy on when Windows Store Apps will or won't be refunded, and all refunds are handled by starting a customer support ticket. Needless to say, this is behind Steam or Origin in terms of refunds. Furthermore, there's very little communication that happens on the platform. Developter Nixxes, who are responsible for the UWP port of Rise of the Tomb Raider,
had to post on Steam to get in contact with their fans about patching problems with said game. A number of people have reported very slow customer service since RotTR came out, the system of employees manually handling all support doesn't scale well.
-The storefront itself is lousyWhile we're at it, the windows storefront is ugly and it's hard to find stuff. If they are to be a serious gaming platform, their discoverability will be worse than Steam, in part because it's flooded with garbage mobile apps. Many of these apps were actual scams, which had deceptively similar (or literally, fraudulently copied) names to other popular games or programs.
Microsoft said they're working on that, but seemingly it's still full of
fake apps that try to steal your personal information as of October. (Someone inform me if this has improved significantly since then.) I mean, people complain about lousy games on the Steam store, but can you imagine if some were actual viruses?
As an added bonus, apparently right now Windows Store downloads will completely break themselves if they are interrupted- say, by your computer shutting down for windows updates.
Ooh, speaking of mobile device-related problems, it looks like nothing stops you from accidentally buying Gears of War Ultimate on your tablet, only to find out that tablets can't run it. I don't blame consumers at all for assuming that their tablet could run Gears, since it's a 9 year old game, but of course they only sell the beefed up DX12 version.
-DX12 is part of Microsoft's Sandboxed App PlanDirectX12, toted as the graphics API to vastly reduce CPU load and enable better game performance on Windows 10, suffers from some issues that are similar to the
sandboxed UWP games.
This PC perspective article goes into great detail about some issues with DX12, as they're demonstrated in Ashes of the Singularity. DirectX12 games are encourage (or REQUIRED, if on the Windows Store) to put all graphics through the Windows Compositing Engine, which is basically responsible for the inability to use exclusive fullscreen. It also forces Vsync on AMD cards, causing some frame timing issues, although Nvidia seems to have some kind of workaround that allows their cards to run with Vsync off... sometimes. I don't know if this will prevent .exe games on DX12 from using hooks (Streaming software, Nvidia GeForce experience, etc) from working properly in the long run.
Microsoft has several reasons for this, most of which involve support for the various overlays and integrations that the company would like to integrate with Windows games. MS wants to have an Action bar, a recording bar, on-screen keyboard support for running games on tablets and 2-in-1s and more.
So, basically these issues exist in the name of a universal Windows overlay (not yet implemented) and tablet-oriented features.
-Microsoft "aware of issues and working to fix them"The most specific promise I've seen is the addition of the option to turn off Vsync in UWP games. We'll see whether the store continues to sell games that lack features, run poorly, and generally have issues solely for the cause of being in the store. Microsoft says the store and UWP platform will improve, but I'd recommend not taking that for granted until we see results Remember GFWL: Microsoft constantly promised to improve the
lack of customer support, lousy interface and other issues (for instance, I once had my cloud saves corrupted), but
delayed for years with no improvement before shutting the system down.
Again, not saying Microsoft won't improve the Windows Store. I hope they do! Just don't assume they are really going to
until you see results. Right now it looks like they are pushing the boundaries of making games on PC more closed-off, more pared-back, and they're probably going to end up hampering a number of good games doing so. If you were thinking of buying from the Windows Store, be aware of the caveats. Remember:
Microsoft spread misinformation to try to get you to buy an Xbox instead of a PC.
Now, discuss.Have any of you used the store/these games? Do you think it will improve, or be a disaster? Any news? Reply!
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Topic: The Windows Store- GFWL 2: Electric Boogaloo (Read 12321 times)