14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft has been pushing hard for UWP apps on its modern platform, as it hoped that the huge community of developers would abandon Win32 and support the expansion of the Microsoft Store.
But despite all of its efforts to convince app makers to migrate to UWP with apps that would essentially target more than just one category of devices, and we include here not just PCs, but also phones, tablets, and Xbox consoles, this new approach has more or less failed, and Windows 10 users still stick with Win32 for the most part.
As a result, Microsoft is making a step that everyone could see coming: the company allows developers to publish Win32 games in the Microsoft Store.
Previously, the software giant required everyone to rebuild their apps and games as UWP before publishing in the Microsoft Store, and it offered several tools to support this transition.
Back to Win32
But because of the adoption of this concept has remained low, Microsoft has no other option than to switch the focus back to Win32 once again.
“We want creators to be inspired to bring their best content to Windows 10, and we want Windows 10 to be the place where gamers come to discover their next favorite PC game,” Phil Spencer, head of Xbox, said in a blog post today.
“We recognize that Win32 is the app format that game developers love to use and gamers love to play, so we are excited to share that we will be enabling full support for native Win32 games to the Microsoft Store on Windows. This will unlock more options for developers and gamers alike, allowing for the customization and control they’ve come to expect from the open Windows gaming ecosystem.”
Microsoft itself is moving away from UWP, and the first step in this regard is the transition to a Chromium-based Microsoft Edge browser. Built as a Win32 app on Windows, the new Edge would no longer be exclusive to Windows 10 and distributed through the store, so users on Windows 7 and 8.1 would be able to install it as well.