Wow. I guess that's a good thing...
I hope they continue eventually releasing win32 versions of their games on functional storefronts.
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UWP and Windows Store comedy of errors: The Ars Technica story
- Thread starter Paul
- Start date
I hope they continue eventually releasing win32 versions of their games on functional storefronts.
This made me spit out my tea.
Good times, good times.
Notice how those guys are nowhere to be seen in these threads now... Hilarious.
Oh I know, I've been listening since the beginning just like with most TWiT shows. I thought that might lure you here. I have spoken to TWiT about gaming content many times and will absolutely continue to do so. Always enjoy when you show up! Just hoping these versions of Know How while Robert is away either eventually take over the show or get spun off.
As many said, the problem is probably the fact that the Store is so deeply connected with the OS itself.
I remember when the first Store games were coming out, a lot of people couldn't even download or launch them. Now that is a common problem still, but back then ti was even worse - turned out a lot of it had to do with people disabling certain windows services like Xbox or telemetry. Stuff that a lot of people have been disabling for many years now since it always seemed pointless, but the Store heavily relies on them.
The same sort of applies to Teredo, the networking service that every MS game uses. It's often something that people disable or - and this is the funniest - their router has it disabled BY DEFAULT (fritzbox) which prevents online from working. And there is no "press a button to fix Teredo" even after all these years. Instead there's a long and pretty complex process that most of the time only works temporarily.
It can be, that something that you would not in a million years think has anything to do with the windows store is what's causing the issues. I remember when I got a new PC, I had a fresh windows 10 install on it, and Teredo flat out refused to work no matter what I did. I then reinstalled the same copy of windows and it worked perfectly fine. Like, how does that make ANY sense?
I personally thought that after the mess that Quantum Break was, but certainly after Forza Horizon 3, we will see MS make a seperate client that you need to download that has everything it needs to function without relying on OS services, but, no. Several years later we're still downloading 100gb games from a storefront that was designed for mobile and tablet apps.
The reports that they are not supporting it are incorrect. What they said is that the priority for the mobile versions are on iOS/Android because right now they no longer have a mobile platform and they are able to deliver the desktop version to all other devices, even on arm, but they will continue to support and add features to the uwp version, just not at the same time as the ios/android versions.
Also, The uwp version of the office apps first released on 2014 for insiders and in 2015 for the general public.
Edit: Also, you have to consider when the applications were developed. When uwp office came uwp itself was way more restricted than it is now, so they need a new app that starts over from scratch to support the store.
Now they can distribute office through the store and the development platform has evolved to a point where they can deliver the uwp features from their win32 app, so no point to throw out decades of win32 code if you can just gradually port those over.
They have moved the Windows team so many times now I'm not sure. Guess Joe Belfiore is your best bet, reporting to Rajesh Jha is my guess. But they are in a reorganization, so I'm not really sure anymore.
I think the upgrade from Win 7 to Win 10 was through the Windows Store, right? I recall it took multiple tries for that one to go through, the download kept failing, but at least it was a major OS update. Having so much trouble with a game though is unnaceptable.
I hope this as well. But the more people supporting the Windows Store anyway, the less chance that will ever happen.
they tried a little bit with Games for Windows Marketplace, and even that wasn't great
Because developing good software hasn't been their goal.
Their goal has been to bring Xbox-like controls to the Windows PC gaming market. It's why we had GFWL (which let's not forget started out with a paid multiplayer service like the console version), and it's why the focus is on UWP and the Microsoft store instead of just a lightweight store/launcher client. Ever since Live got big on console, that's been Microsoft's overriding goal for PC gaming.
I suspect their organizational structure has issues. And, no, I realize the image with different groups pointing guns at each other is outdated.
Simply based on my exposure to other tech giants, it seems likely they have too many cooks in the kitchen and have trouble following a single vision for the long-term.
I see lesser but similar issues with Office, of which I am a heavy user. Word still has bugs that have been in there for multiple years - bugs that any QA process would catch on a first pass. And other forward-facing design inconsistencies that should have been fixed a long time ago. They have the time, resources, and expertise to put out a much more polished product. But it doesn't happen. Why? The organization has to be the issue.
I understand, but you'd think that one of their first goals in their quest to bring in more customers would be to create something that people could at least tolerate using and maybe one day want to use. This thing is a complete disaster and it has been a complete disaster for years with no signs of improving. It's baffling.
Oh, the problems with the Microsoft Store are caused by different interests and goals within divisions at Microsoft. The Windows team has other goals, deadlines and priorities than the Xbox team.
That's how it seems to me..
This is probably true. But still, it's remarkable that being able to download the apps you bought isn't the highest priority for the Windows team. The store is (or was) meant as the most important way to monetize Windows for consumers.
Another problem here is that the Xbox team doesn't really care about PC gaming. This was confirmed in a few other WinStore threads here on Era by that dude that actually worked at Forza.
What Microsoft needs is a dedicated team for PC gaming, that works together with both the Xbox and Windows teams. I hope articles like this will motivate Microsoft to make this happen.
Exactly. Despite all the issues of the store and the locked down nature of these encrypted UWP games, plenty of people are buying Microsofts exclusives anyway. While I perfectly understand that those people just wanna play FH4, this isn't a motivation for Microsoft to improve anything. It will only lead to more Windows Store exclusive games...
I've tried to install exactly one game from the Store and, 3 100gb downloads and one really painful uninstall process later, I'm done with it forever. I'll never, ever, try to install anything from it again. It's unfixable garbage.
It's crazy to me that Microsoft still can't build a functional storefront for Win10 apps. Stories like this have been around for the entire life of Windows 10, with little apparent improvement. How can it still be this broken?
Semi-related question: are UWAs sold in anyone else's digital stores? I remember some time back MS announced they would let other stores support UWP when people started getting anxious about the future of win32, but I don't know if anyone ever took them up on it.
Semi-related question: are UWAs sold in anyone else's digital stores? I remember some time back MS announced they would let other stores support UWP when people started getting anxious about the future of win32, but I don't know if anyone ever took them up on it.
I develop on UWP as part of my work, and I always characterize development on UWP as simultaneously super convenient while also being bafflingly shitty at the same time.
Glad to know the article basically confirms it's the same experience on the consumer side. Kind of remarkable in a way. Fantastically convenient and seamless when it works, absolute garbage when it doesn't.
Glad to know the article basically confirms it's the same experience on the consumer side. Kind of remarkable in a way. Fantastically convenient and seamless when it works, absolute garbage when it doesn't.
Sadly, that isn't going to happen. Windows Store discounts are terrible compared to other game stores on PC, and the few times MS offers a deep discount on their 1st party (play anywhere) games, you need a paid Gold subscription because of price parity with Xbox.
No. The Windows Store is the only store selling UWP games, and Microsoft is the only publisher that releases UWP exclusive games.
Other stores CAN sell UWP games, but they have no reason to do so since most PC gamers prefer win32 and lots of features (overlay, universal controller support, mods etc) wouldn't work anymore.
For the sake of the open nature of PC gaming, I hope it stays this way.
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In a followup to a convo with Skyfireblaze in the Forza Horizon 4 thread:
I'm not doing all of that in the OP. Screw the windows store.copelandmaster said:Thanks so much for remembering!
Unfortunately, my issue seems to be that the 'Win 10/Store' layer of the OS can't detect the drive at all. Legacy layer is fine. Don't know why, all my data drives are connected via the top 6 Intel SATA 6 ports, rather than the later two ports governed by my Maximus VI's Marvell controller.
The one time it did detect my EVO was when I detached my biggest drive and filled the Win 10 OS drive, then it gave me the option. Once I put everything back into place, the drive was gone. I had to manually delete all the files at the root install folder.
Maybe the coming fall update will finally fix the problem ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Damn. What a shitshow. Surely this kind of ineptitude should've been getting traction across lots of places on the web?
And people wonder why people like myself are so skeptic of Xbox growing with the studio acquisitions. They recently have been talking about keyboard/mouse support for developers, but they can't even get shit working on the PC front of their store. So going forward is PC still a pillar for them to integrate into the new xbox scarlet? Or will they have a new box/service that can stream to any device and you can use mouse and keyboard, but still have to use their shitty store?
Because if that's part of the plan and this shit isn't fixed by next gen which is around the corner, it won't matter what they try to push. GAMEPASS, or whatever they are going to do won't take off like they want it on streaming devices if the store front, and all that is shit. You have to build a base of customers who desire your software.
And if they want that software to be on PC with any relevancy then they need to fix their shit asap. It's been 3 years, and people wonder why we are not as gung ho for Xbox these days.
Yea was going to ask where are people like Zedox? WHo champion UWP apps, and most of what Microsoft does?
Just curious, how many games that you play were you going to purchase via the windows store?
Probably on Microsoft's payroll by now for their unrelenting support of the brand. They deserve it.
Oh don't remind me. I had to spend 3 hours trouble shooting my computer, with the only solutions relating to teredo, but that not working because my internet doesn't need teredo. Just to get Gears of War 4's co-op to work. So miserable. Command prompts, network settings, registry stuff, the whole works. Thank goodness I got it finally working.
Teredo is hilarious. It sometimes works, then other times, it doesn't. There is no reason why it would randomly deactivate or uninstall itself, but hey, it happens.
Don't use the store or Windows 10.
If your game doesn't work, request a refund. The end.
It's perfectly okay to criticize their creations, but I notice conspiracists always come to related threads just to claim that MS is plotting something to hurt PC gaming... as if the store isn't optional!
If your game doesn't work, request a refund. The end.
It's perfectly okay to criticize their creations, but I notice conspiracists always come to related threads just to claim that MS is plotting something to hurt PC gaming... as if the store isn't optional!
Exclusive fullscreen is deprecated. Expect more and more games to not support it going forward.
User Banned (3 Days) - Advocating Piracy
Holly cra*p, I just build a gaming pc and was planing on buying gears 4, as I only game on PS platforms. But after reading this I think It will be best to pirate the game (don't get me wrong i never do that and i always buy my games, but I'll hate myself if i throw money away).
I honestly don't know how this is possible and hope their future releases come to Steam too so I could avoid all the headaches.
After looking pretty close at Microsoft UWP API's and their whole dev ecosystem it's not surprising that even their in-house devs are struggling to build something decent in the sea of this over-engineered mess.
Even Visual Studio power can barely hold all this shit together.
Even Visual Studio power can barely hold all this shit together.
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Non its just that I don't want to have to turn on hdr in the display settings before I play a game like forza motorsport 7 or forza horizon 4 as the color is extremely dull with it on when playing other non uwp games.
Id of thought power usage would be up also on your tv as settings are cranked max automatically when a tv detects hdr so leaving it hdr mode will surely use more power
Yeah, having to toggle it yourself is a pretty dumb design decision. I wish it all just worked like how other games did it (eg RE 7, Destiny 2, etc). That actually makes it easier to know too that the game supports HDR since some people seem to get the impression that enabling Windows HDR gives you HDR in other games like Gears 4 and Rise of the Tomb Raider
Surprised to hear this, I always used it because games performed a little better in it. What's the reason for it?
In DX12 on Windows 10, they made Borderless perform as well as EF, no more perf drop. Thus there is no reason for EF to exist anymore.
Obviously there is hardware and games that prefer it. The transition will take 5-10 years, but it will eventually fully go away.