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The Verge: Microsoft wants to make the Xbox app the home of PC gaming

Where's the lack of competition?

There's not a lack, there just should be more :lollipop_baby_angel:

Millions of Chinese Steam users migrating to a Tencent launcher would be great for that gaming market. Japan should have their own regional PC launcher, perhaps by reputable success and software innovator, Sega :messenger_sunglasses:

Saggy old tired PlayStation will probably drag it's feet to the party in 10 years when everyone else has :messenger_grimmacing_
 

Gamezone

Gold Member
What's the point of having Steam games on this app? Will they have Xbox achievements and be avaliable on Steam?
 

Oppoi

Member
Winning people over to the Xbox PC App is going to be hard for the same reasons Phil suggested Xbox can't prevail in the console space: the incumbent market leader is really, really fucking good.

Knowing Microsoft they'll be using the stick rather than the carrot and rely on paid shills and astroturf to try and make it happen. I think they'll make sure their games won't work on Linux/SteamOS. Probably because anti cheat or some other excuse.
 

ZehDon

Member
Microsoft looking for a new "Embrace, Extend, Extinguish" target but they are going after Steam 20 years too late

It's like watching them trying to introduce Windows Phone a decade late again
Lol, not really. I think Microsoft has realised there's still a lot of value in being second place so long as you're second place everywhere. Second place in consoles, second place in PC, second place in mobile, second place in cloud - it makes their "platform" that much more attractive to potential buy in because it's literally everywhere. No one else has the resources to deploy across that kind of breadth. I don't think it's a "winning" strategy, it's a "we're not leaving money on the table" strategy.

Knowing Microsoft they'll be using the stick rather than the carrot and rely on paid shills and astroturf to try and make it happen. I think they'll make sure their games won't work on Linux/SteamOS. Probably because anti cheat or some other excuse.
They've literally released patches for their games to specifically add SteamOS support for Steam Deck.
 
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HogIsland

Member
Winning people over to the Xbox PC App is going to be hard for the same reasons Phil suggested Xbox can't prevail in the console space: the incumbent market leader is really, really fucking good.

The Xbox PC App is... fine. But the game update process is terrible, deferring to the Windows store update process which is simply fucking awful, and it lacks most of the major features the Steam app has had for years. This will be the third time they've, effectively, re-booted it - and they're still not achieving parity. The Steam app has taken a hit in the last year or so, with the App adopting the same slow, sluggish UI design that a lot of modern apps have (Everything is laden with simply unnecessary dynamic async processing causing the whole UI to feel worse). They might be able to eventually have a better app experience if Valve begins down the enshitification process, but they still seem years away from beating Steam's user experience... which is where they've been for years.
The fact that they're talking about improvements to the Xbox App, rather than to Windows shows they're not close. They have to get to where a regular Windows install can optionally boot into a gaming UI with full gamepad support, suspend/resume, etc. Plus like you said, the gaming features in the Xbox app are far from what Steam offers.
 

Topher

Identifies as young
Wow!!! 400 games!!! About 44,600 games to go to catch up with Steam. Oh wait, about 100 games probably dropped on Steam since this morning.

And that's the case despite publishers getting a large cut of revenue from the Windows store. Says a lot
 

Futaleufu

Member
I still remember that Games for Windows Live thing, so...good luck?
That was the best chance MS ever had to dominate PC gaming, yet they chose to keep their games exclusive for Xbox360, releasing mobile quality games instead and expecting third parties to fill the void.
 
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Topher

Identifies as young
No point. Once Xbox finally breathes its last i'll be swapping to PC so PS dies anyway.
Animated GIF
 

Oppoi

Member
They've literally released patches for their games to specifically add SteamOS support for Steam Deck.
Microsoft is a widely branched monopolistic megacorporation. They work several angles at the same time. I do not for a second believe in their support of SteamOS/Linux.
 
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Guesclin

Member
That was the best chance MS ever had to dominate PC gaming, yet they chose to keep their games exclusive for Xbox360, releasing mobile quality games instead and expecting third parties to fill the void.
PC wasn't as profitable back then, selling hardware and exclusivity was the name of the game.
 
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I legitimately can't stop laughing after reading this. The xbox app is freaking terrible and no one is going to use that piece of garbage when you can just use steam which obliterates it.

200w.gif
 

HogIsland

Member
What's the point of having Steam games on this app? Will they have Xbox achievements and be avaliable on Steam?
because PCs are consoles. expecting livingroom and handheld users to alt-tab between Xbox and Steam and Epic games is a poor user experience. it has to be one cohesive UI with full gamepad support.
 
OYoj1qL.jpeg

This dude's gotta be a certified idiot, with a capital R. First off, regulators don't give two shits about consoles having one storefront; you're conflating their issue with certain mobile phone platforms with the console market.

Secondly, this isn't a storefront from Microsoft. It's a catch-all OS-side utility feature that, if it works, will let you launch games with fewer clicks. So instead of having to launch Steam and then launching a game through there, you'd just use this hypothetical app, see your Steam game, select it and then the program handles all the steps to launch it from there.

MS already has a gaming storefront on PC, and it's not Valve's fault that or the other storefronts you mentioned have failed to take significant market share from Steam. Steam's market share, just like PlayStation's in console gaming, is a result of customers in the market choosing one product much more than the alternative. You're not arguing for equality; you're arguing for equity.

In a capital market fueled by competition, equality can lead to successes for the ones offering the best, but equity will always stagnate and decay. You can't argue for equity in a competitive market.
 

WaterOnix

Neo Member
It might be improved since I last tried it several years ago, but when I used it I couldn't uninstall a 100gb game no matter what I tried and ended up having to do a fresh install of Windows 10 to get that drive space back. Never had that happen anywhere else, even on Ubisoft's and EA's crappy launchers. It left one hell of a bad impression. I'll continue keeping my distance
 

Garibaldi

Member
They should make it just like Games for Windows Live. I think it was just ahead of its time and is clearly a Steam beater.

They are really disrespectful of Valve, who basically made modern PC gaming what it is today. Fix your shit Microsoft before you start mouthing off about being the home of gaming.
 

Gaelyon

Member
To make the xbox app the home of pc gaming they need to kill Steam. Good luck on that, tough they now how to make vaporware... so maybe ?
 

Ebrietas

Member
Windows has to get better for gaming. Windows getting better for gaming is not evidence of MS playing dirty toward Valve/Steam.

There's lots of examples of Microsoft going out of their way to support Steam AND SteamOS:
- Updating Master Chief Collection specifically to support the Deck
- Shutting down Bethesda's launcher and converting to Steam licenses
- Bringing Overwatch 2 and Diablo 4 to Steam with no Battle.net requirement

Xbox is a more reliable supporter of Steam than Playstation.

Potential causes for a "victory lap" (which haven't happened):
- MS stops putting games on Steam or imposes exclusivity windows in favor of their platforms
- Xbox games on Steam throw up a big Xbox launcher as with Ubisoft
- Xbox games work on Windows but not SteamOS/Deck
- Xbox games adopt incompatible anticheat
- Xbox games reject Steam features like Family sharing, Steam Input, Remote Play, etc
Embrace extend extinguish.

They are not doing any of this for the sake of steam. As long as they depend on windows MS will have the upper hand.
 

ZehDon

Member
Microsoft is a widely branched monopolistic megacorporation. They work several angles at the same time. I do not for a second believe in their support of SteamOS/Linux.
"Microsoft will SABBOTAGE their games on SteamOS and Linux! They'll try and CRUSH Valve and Steam!"
"Actually, Microsoft openly support SteamOS and add support for it specifically into their games, and they were the first platform holder to openly embrace Valve's Steam platform dating back close to a decade ago."
"I don't believe them!"

:pie_eyeroll:
 

Thebonehead

Gold Member
everybody wants steam's place but nobody want to do the same work they did to earn the good will from the community
Yes taking away my ability to sell my pc cd games by giving activation keys on steam with the CD to play.

Those of us that bought half life 2 remember the stink and controversy.
 

Magic Carpet

Gold Member
Yes taking away my ability to sell my pc cd games by giving activation keys on steam with the CD to play.

Those of us that bought half life 2 remember the stink and controversy.
That was back during the old days of hard drives going bad and losing all your save files. Why didn't you back them up? Everyone should back up their save files.
 

winjer

Gold Member
The Xbox app on PC is such an gigantic pile of crap.
So many bugs and issues. And UWP apps are slower, more prone to problems and no support for mods or tweaks.
How does Microsoft intend to compete with any other launcher, when the Xbox app is almost as bad as Games For Windows Live....

Sad Gordon Ramsay GIF by Hell's Kitchen
 

HogIsland

Member
Embrace extend extinguish.

They are not doing any of this for the sake of steam. As long as they depend on windows MS will have the upper hand.
Did Edge adopt Chomium to shore up Google or did they just have to accept their position of weakness? Nobody would say the first, and nobody cares about the 2nd. What matters is what they're doing, and whether they adopt bad policies.

Playstation has lengthy delays, occasionally poor quality outsourced ports, unnecessary PSN account requirements... Am I supposed to prefer that because it doesn't have a catchphrase ending in "extinguish"???

Whatever counter-incentives MS has to be a good actor on Steam, they have been a pretty good actor since roughly 2016. I don't like a lot of their games, but they generally do the basic stuff I want all PC games to do.
 

Zacfoldor

Member
Microsoft is coming for Steam, oh yeah, they are coming for your libraries PC fans. They aim to take your platform down and your library with it. Just Iike EGS tried to do, remember? Microsoft hates Steam. Oh they hates it. They were gonna team up with PC influencers and beat Sony and we were going to have a 1000 year utopia on PC where there were no walled gardens and all games were cheap or free.

Then "The Verge" article happened.

Obi Wan GIF by Star Wars


Oh Phil, how could you. Of all the things you aim to take down, you choose steam? PC fans rooting for Xbox and pretending like they pay for gamepass were all you had left. They supported you by pretending they were subscribed. Now this betrayal.
 

Branded

Member
Is it more than just a glorified storefront for games now then or what? Does it offer even a quarter of Steam's features yet?
 

Nonehxc

Member
XboxAppInsiderHERO.png







Stop sucking dick, Whorren.

There's such a thing as Dick Induced Dementia. You're living proof of it. 😄

Guess all that money saved from paying zealots is going towards the old whore guard, the 'reputable' media, because lately Whorren has been on a superb dicksucking tour with many panegirical articles about MS strategy and future here, there and everywhere.
 
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