Sweeney renews Microsoft attack with fresh UWP criticism

Epic founder Tim Sweeney has continues his assault on Microsoft’s Windows 10 Universal Windows Platform applications in an interview at the GamesBeat Summit in California.

The developer in March launched a scathing attack on the platform, saying it was Microsoft’s most aggressive ever move on the PC market and an attempt to lock down the entire platform. And it appears his stance has softened in the weeks since.

Nobody is adopting UWP except the small group of developers Microsoft is paying to do so,” he said, as reported by PC Gamer. It’s the same with the Windows store – it’s mostly ports of Android titles.

If you throw a frog in boiling water, he’ll just hop out. But if you put him in warm water and you slowly ramp up the temperature, he will not notice and he’ll be boiled. But a lot of frogs in the industry have already been boiled.”

Sweeney went on to compare Microsoft’s evolution of its Windows strategy with that played out at fellow tech giant Facebook.

Every company moved their brand presence to Facebook, sending out messages for their customers to receive. Now, you have to pay to send out your messages to people who chose to follow you. [You’ve become] a boiling frog,” he added.

Continuing his criticism, Sweeney argued that other significant computing revolutions, such as the GPU and VR markets, are drives that happened without Microsoft involvement.

If that had relied on Microsoft initiative and Microsoft had actively blocked external drivers and apps supporting these things they didn’t approve of, it never would have happened,” he said of GPUs, before adding of VR: If you tried to make it work with the UWP system present, it would never happen.

Open platforms encourage innovation, and when you have a closed platform and a monopoly on commerce, it stifles it.”

Microsoft has previously contested Sweeney’s accusations.