I have been reading some of the comments made about UWP on this forum, and there is a negative view of UWP for a reason I don’t really understand.
Tim Sweeney made remarks about UWP that are not true, and I feel some people rolled with it just because, without really understanding what UWP is. UWP apps can be side loaded into the OS just like .apk can on Android FYI, so it isn’t a walled garden. And just like the Amazon App store which sells .apks, if Steam chooses, they can also sell.appx (uwp).
There is no reason for Epic to withhold support for UWP. As UWP is the future of Windows, a developer only needs to package his game for UWP and it will work across Xbox One, Windows 10 and the upcoming project scorpio. When Steam adopts UWP, and they will, developers will have the ability to sell their game on steam as well, obviously you will need to modify it to work with steam, but this eliminates creating a Win32 and Xbox version of the same game. PC gamers will have to choose whether they want the UWP version that comes with a free xbox copy that supports cloud saves between xbox and windows, or the Steam version which only works on Windows 10. UWP is also very secure, and at the moment, it cannot be cracked.
Yes, I know the Windows Store isn’t the best, but it will obviously keep improving, the point I am trying to make is that it is better for us to create UWP games instead Win32 because it is a very consumer friendly practice to allow your software to work across a family of devices as well as gaining the xbox user base, and it allows your customers to choose what store they wish to purchase from (future). I don’t think it would be a bad idea for devs to start porting their games to the windows store as this will allows them to also sell their game on Xbox while simultaneously future proofing their game.
I’d much rather have Epic support something like Linux games far before giving M$ a reacharound. Just sayin.
Also, UWP is literally the monopolization of PC games. If you can’t see that, just go look at the dev tools. It’s pretty clear what M$ wants. But they probably won’t get it. By the looks of it, M$ is still going to use steam to sell games after all.
UWP isn’t a good direction to be going in to, I’d much rather go through the trouble of making a Win32 version and a separate Xbox version than to give Microsoft the chance to take control over the Windows software marketplace.
I fully agree with this too. I’m currently using Windows 7, and I have no plans to ever switch to Windows 10. Once Windows 7 support ended I hope Linux will be good enough and all software I need, including UE4, will run well enough on Linux so that there’s no need to ever touch Windows again.
Linux is the future, and now with Steam and Vulkan, there’s not really anything that holds back Linux from becoming a major gaming platform.
Apple has always had a fairly closed ecosystem of hardware and software. More recently that has gone to the extreme with the app store. Windows has been more open in the past, so I think that this is outside of people’s expectations.
I’m not going to weigh in on the general question of UWP, but I did want to comment on this:
RE: Current limits of UWP on XB1. You do not get access to anywhere near the full hardware capabilities or resources when using UWP versus using the native SDK (much less memory and CPU, limited to DX10 feature set, etc…), and Microsoft has made no comment or announcement to expect that to change.
The main issue with supporting anything new from Microsoft is that they’ve had a track record of being wishy-washy over the past few years. And I say that as someone who prefers their approach over the Linux priesthood and Apple followers.
Just ask any Windows Phone user. Or anyone who had the “pleasure” of using GFWL. Or anyone who had a Windows 8 tablet and “upgraded” to Windows 10’s quite obviously never tested (and still not fixed and not even announced to be getting a fix) tablet UI.
For UWP, it’s best to wait and see how it develops.
Personally, I’m very iffy even about Steam, but I can see it as a necessary evil and it does have a track record of staying pretty strong. UWP and the Microsoft Store, however, seem like an even worse version at the moment, with a far less certain future.
Is it even possible to enable modding and set text config files in a UWP app?
They’ve given us enough headroom to develop games. I’d like to be able to use my Xbox for testing, but don’t have time to dig into building a UWP without support.
Microsoft “Taking control” was a conspiracy theory generated by the state of Windows 10 blocking non store apps between 2014 and 2017. The ability to allow the installation of non store apps has been a part of all versions of Windows 10 since then. So lets stop with the UWP hate. It’s keeping a lot of aspiring developers that don’t meet the ID@XBOX criteria or can’t afford the associated kit locked out of the XBOX platform using Unreal and forcing them to use something else. When they can move up to higher tiers of development they are likely to stick with what they know and/or stay loyal to the engine that has supported them all along. Or does Epic only want to support already established developers?
Found another thread oN uwp, AND THAT ue4 doesn’t support Uwp ANYMORE other than 4.19 ? I don’t get it, why would this api be ignorted given its fundamental to multiplatform support ?
Epic has never supported UWP. UE 4.19 was forked by Microsoft Advanced Technology Group, available through GitHub as source build only. This fork is incredibly difficult to build as an installed build (my preferred work flow) but it can be done with a lot of debugging. It was a very painful process.
