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Microsoft will ship games on Steam again eventually

Microsoft is finally committing to bringing all of its future first-party Xbox exclusives to Windows and while for now building up the Windows 10 store is taking priority, the company will eventually ship games on Steam again, according to Phil Spencer, the head of Xbox.

During an interview with Giant Bomb, Phil Spencer spoke at length about his plans for PC gaming and while Windows Store has been receiving a push, Steam is being factored into future plans as well.

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“I look at Steam today, it's on an incredible growth trajectory. It's a massive force in gaming; a positive force. I think it will be bigger a year from now than it is today. And five years later it will still be bigger again. I don't think Valve's hurt by not having our first-party games in their store right now. They're doing incredible well. We will ship games on Steam again.”

“I want to build a store; there's no doubt about that”, but Spencer isn't under any illusions when it comes to how a lot of PC gamers view the Windows Store right now. While some of the free games like Forza Apex have done well, full releases like Quantum Break and Gears of War weren't quite as good as they should have been.

“There's going to be areas where Microsoft and Valve cooperate and there's going to be areas where we compete, the end result is better for gamers.”

KitGuru Says: While Steam might be factored into future plans, there is no doubt that Windows Store is the priority right now. However, there is still a lot of work to be done, perhaps Microsoft should release a separate ‘games only' application like Steam or Origin. On top of that, UWP has been getting some important feature updates so hopefully by the time the next batch of exclusive games land on PC, they will be at the standard we all hoped for from the start. 

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20 comments

  1. The new Play Anywhere initiative makes it understandable (finally gives a decent reason) as to why games can only be found on the windows store but the fact that Steam is at least incorporated into their future plans is good, though I’m not sure how I feel about Phil Spencer talking about Steam as if it isn’t as big as it is xD

  2. WhateverYouWantItToBe

    Stop cutting off half of your own market by making it Big Brother OS exclusive and then we’ll talk.

    We never needed UWP, we never asked for it and it brings absolutely no advantages to PC users over Win32. All it does is pave the way for cross-platform “apps” which usually suck compared to either their Win32 equivalent or browser equivalent.

  3. “big brother OS” You realise the only difference between Windows 10 and Windows 7 is transparency, right?

  4. Stop being stupid. UWP is a big improvement over Win32, it just needs more polishing.
    Microsoft is heading in the right direction. Not fast by any means, but it’s getting there.

  5. And what does it improve exactly if I may ask? Everything until now hasn’t brought any advantages, even worse, the things we had with Win32 games weren’t on UWP. No SLI, No G-Sync/FreeSync, capped frame rates/V-Sync switch on/off…yeah it’s getting there, but even if those are fixed, what do we need more? I don’t see the point of UWP…

  6. WhateverYouWantItToBe

    In what way does it improve functionality of PC programs?

  7. WhateverYouWantItToBe

    Nope, not if you disable the specific update that added user tracking. Plus its just simply a better operating system.

  8. George Baggo Baggaley

    Windows 10 is far better than 7…

  9. Wasn’t G-Sync and frame caps fixed ages ago?

  10. It was indeed. UWP now is better than when it first launched and by the time these new games from E3 come around, there will likely be more improvements. It’s a work in progress for sure but they aren’t just ignoring the feedback they get with each release.

  11. Nikolas Karampelas

    Will they come to gog too? 😛

  12. Microsoft buying Steam confirmed!

  13. Steam is Big and awesome and the leaders in gaming – period. go suck a console.

  14. Actually, I got the impression he was saying it is quite big… and will only get much bigger.

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  16. For starters, security. As I’ve said, it needs to be polished, but the idea is great. Also the system footprint is waaaaaay lower.
    I’d suggest you to read a bit more about this whole thing.

  17. “We want to test the waters again after Games for Windows went belly up, but we will inevitably have to ditch out again due to the poorness of our offering and lack of appetite for Windows exclusives”.

  18. what is the system footprint? the memory space it use? If we compare tomb raider uwp vs win32 what would be the difference?

  19. Try checking out the registry footprint for large applications, for example. UWP is a winner.

  20. The windows registry? Well I ll take my most recent large game purchase as an exemple. Total war warhammer 22 GB game, it has added 5 line in the registry. I m not sure how reducing that number of line would have any impact on a modern pc. Most of my other games have similar entries or smaller. Please correct me if i m wrong.