Gears of War 4

It appears that Microsoft will potentally release their games on Valve’s Steam platform again, if the words of Xbox exec Phil Spencer is anything to go by.

Speaking to MCV, Spencer talks about Microsoft recognising the potential and growth of Steam, and the response that they have had from releasing their games exclusively on Windows 10 via their own store.

Here is what Phil Spencer said.

“I look at Steam today, it’s on an incredible growth trajectory. It’s a massive force in gaming; a positive force. I think it will be bigger a year from now than it is today. And five years later it will still be bigger again.

I look at Valve as an important [independent software vendor] for us on Windows. They are a critical part of gaming’s success on Windows. I don’t think Valve’s hurt by not having our first-party games in their store right now. They’re doing incredible well.

There’s going to be areas where we cooperate and there’s going to be areas where we compete. The end result is better for gamers. We will ship games on Steam again.

[The Windows 10 game releases] all haven’t gone swimmingly. Some of them have gone well,” he said of their four UWP Windows 10 releases to date. “Forza 6 Apex did well. Quantum Break wasn’t our best PC release. Killer Instinct did well on PC. Gears of War Ultimate Edition was OK–we definitely learned there.”

It appears that Microsoft are continuing to show awareness of their market, which is always something important you need to consider in business (Steam is your one stop shop for all ages visual novels for example, which is something VN localisers need to consider). It will be interesting to see what Microsoft choose to do, and what games they may release on Steam in the future. Considering that virtually all the games Microsoft announced at their E3 conference are also coming to Windows 10 as well as Xbox One, they will have many titles to choose from