Windows 8 App Store to stifle competition?

This article focuses mostly on gaming app stores that compete with the Windows App Store (Steam, Origin) but the argument can be extended to any application store.

Gamasutra - News - Windows 8 arrives amid serious concerns from PC game devs

The basic premise of the article is that the Windows App store, if it becomes dominant, can effectively shut out other App stores since only the Windows App store can take advantage of Metro UI features.

My editorial is this: MS is chasing the iOS model. If this becomes true, part of the blame goes consumers and developers. 1. Consumers have proven that they prioritize convenience over choice. Android has the best of the current models. Android has Google Play but allows other App stores to be loaded. Android has a walled garden but not a forced walled garden. Consumers on iOS should support this model but they don't care. Note I have an iPad but have never spent on their App store. 2. Developers see short term $$$ and don't care that they are supporting a forced walled garden monopoly.

MS sees that iOS consumers and developers are happy in their forced walled gardens and thinks maybe they can get away with it too if they gradually move toward that model in 10-15 years.

 

Windows 8 (x86) doesn't follow the iOS model; it follows the OSX model. It gives the people an app store but doesn't lock out other sources of software. Thus, it doesn't STIFLE competition, it provides more competition. Just as having OSX games in the OSX app store didn't crush Steam for OSX or Blizzard's OSX sales.

 

Yes, that is true as stated in the OP...today. But if you read between the lines, you can see that MS wants to relegate Windows desktop to DOS status. It will take time maybe 10-15 years. OSX probably wants control their apps too in time.
Here is the way they would do it. Because Windows App store apps can take advantage of Windows Metro features, and is prominent, MS hopes people will just start almost exclusively buying apps for it and then in time, MS will say, "Well hardly anyone uses the desktop anymore" so we'll deprioritize it and by Windows 11, users will have to hunt down the desktop to even see it. Windows 8 is not a forced walled garden, but if consumers and developers are complacent, it will be. Gabe Newall is being somewhat of an alarmist, but if it's not said now, it will be too late in 10 years.

 

And if we're complacent, robots will harvest our bodies as a source of energy. But the OP talks about the Windows 8 App Store, and it neither stifles competition nor harvests our bodies for electricity.

Gabe Newell doesn't want to compete. Another competitor just entered the market. He's going to scream about it because every customer who cross-shops in the Windows 8 store is one less person potentially buying from him. But that doesn't mean the competition is unfair. Gabe Newell is like a Walmart store manager complaining that Target just opened a store in town. His self-interest is glaringly obvious.

 

Heh, that's a very, very big "if" right there. I wouldn't worry about it.

Sure, but they're a day late and a dollar short on that one. Don't worry about it.

 

Until so-called sideloading is prohibited in Windows 8 proper, (and just RT, though I dislike the prohibition of non-MS approved software in that realm as well) I can't see a compelling argument being made for the App Store stifling competition without its proponents leaning heavily on fearmongering. Alternative means of distribution have not been severed and I'd imagine that the vast majority of software will continue to propagate beyond the walled garden.