Microsoft is moving against the entire PC industry and gamers: Epic Games' Tim Sweeney

Epic Games’ Tim Sweeney seems to have taken a jab at Microsoft on its recent Microsoft’s Universal Windows Platform (UWP) initiative. The founder of Epic Games lashed out at Microsoft in an article penned down in the Guardian talking about how Microsoft is gradually trying to take complete control by introducing a locked-down UWP ecosystem. In the article Sweeney talks about how Microsoft launching Windows features that exist in the UWP scheme are  “effectively telling developers you can use these Windows features only if you submit to the control of our locked-down UWP ecosystem.”. He goes on to say that “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.”. Sweeney confirms that he is not against the development of the Windows Store, but with Microsoft bending the rules in its own favour. “My view is that bundling is a valuable practice that benefits users, and my criticism is limited to 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.”. However, Tim Sweeney’s comments did not fall on deaf ears. Microsoft CVP of Windows, Kevin Gallo stepped up with statement to defend Microsoft’s ideas about UWP scheme. “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. “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 also posted a blog on our development tools recently.” If Microsoft does take control, developers could be looking at a situation that would not let them sell to consumers directly. While the move will simplify things for consumers, game developers would be looking at a locked-down environment with Microsoft approving things for them. This in turn could either be the end of the PC as a gaming platform or could sow the seeds for a new gaming platform, one that does not need Microsoft inputs, but one that is run by game developers themselves. Microsoft already lost out on the smartphone race with Windows 10, could PC gaming be next?