Microsoft finally relents; brings Quantum Break to Steam. Will Gears of War and Forza follow suit?

Microsoft has done an about-turn on one of their most controversial statements. Quantum Break will no longer remain a Windows 10 and Windows Store exclusive and will be coming to Steam this September.

Quantum Break got caught up in one of Microsoft’s over-ambitious plans. The plan in question was gunning for PC, Xbox cross-buy, shared saves, achievements, and maybe even cross-play, across platforms. While this sounds really nice on paper, there were some ground realities that Microsoft just didn’t seem to realise.

First, the price. The idea with cross-buy is that you buy a game on Windows 10 or Xbox One and you get to play it on both. That’s a lovely idea for Xbox One gamers, but terrible for PC gamers. Console games are 3-4 times more expensive than PC games and don’t benefit from monthly discounts. As such, Quantum Break on PC debuted for Rs 4,500 (a steep price by any measure) and has stubbornly stayed at that price since April. No member of the real PCMasterRace in his right mind is ever going to fall for that.

Second, UWP. UWP or Universal Windows Platform wasn’t even really ready when Microsoft started forcing it on developers. Again, the concept is amazing: Build an app for one platform and experience it across all. And again, the implementation was terrible. SLI  and V-Sync issues, crippling lag and performance issues and many more such issues stirred gamers to a frenzy.

Third, all games released in such a way were to be released as Windows 10 exclusives. This alienated an entire audience on Windows 7 and forcibly restricted users to a platform that many weren’t even interested in.

To add to the trouble, Xbox’s Aaron Greenberg stated, in no uncertain terms , that “Quantum Break on Windows 10 is a Windows Store exclusive."

Thankfully, this is one promise that Microsoft couldn’t keep. PCGamer reports that Quantum Break is coming to Steam and we’re happy it is.

Of course, it’s entirely possible that Microsoft had nothing to do with this decision because the game’s developers, Remedy Entertainment, aren’t a Microsoft company.

Will Gears of War 4 and Forza Motorsport  make it to Steam? I don’t know yet, but they better.

Windows Store may be the future as far as Microsoft is concerned, but when they build a platform that’s actually worse than Uplay and Origin , you know something is seriously wrong.