Earlier this month, Epic Games boss Tim Sweeney described Microsoft's Universal Windows Platform, in an editorial in The Guardian, as a "closed platform-within-a-platform into Windows 10" that is "locking down the consumer PC ecosystem." More than that, Sweeney believes that this is an attempt to "monopolise game development on PC."
Xbox boss Phil Spencer has responded to this accusation during Microsoft's Build conference, inferring that Windows 10 has always been "an open ecosystem." Despite doubts from PC users that it is indeed "open" considering that there are no MS Store exclusive games on, say, Steam, this mimics Microsoft's initial response to Sweeney's editorial where it claims that "the Universal Windows Platform is a fully open ecosystem, available to every developer, that can be supported by and store."
Spencer, as reported by Gamespot, believes that "Tim wanted us to say [that] 'We're not locking down the app framework to lock down people's ability to distribute games and applications on the platform.' That's right, that's not what we're doing."
He also clarified Microsoft's position on the supposed requirement of selling a game or app in Microsoft's store to be counted as a Universal Windows Application:
You have to submit to our store if you're going to sell through our store, but you don't have to sell through our store.With Xbox, I've got five-year-olds through 95-year-olds on my platform and I need to know that my parental control systems are going to work, I need to know that IP protection is there. I can't have somebody ripping off Mario 64 and throwing it in our store.
I will protect the sanctity and safety of the Xbox One experience because as a parent myself I want to know that when I say 'This is what my kids can see or play,' this is what's going to happen…
Spencer went further, citing Minecraft as one of the success stories for Windows:
Notch wrote this Java game, stuck it on a website, put a Paypal link next to it, said 'Click here to download,' and now he's a billionaire. There aren't that many ecosystems out there where something like that can happen.
