Yes I do. By putting a built in Microsoft store on Windows 8 Windows gives itself a TREMENDOUS advantage. Why is anyone going to go to another source to buy their games? There are ways you could theoretically get Applications on an Android phone from a place other than the Android Market, in fact Amazon introduced an entirely second store front but NO ONE used it very much until Amazon started making their own devices that ONLY provided the Amazon Market. The convince factor and the fact that the store front is already there will make it cost prohibitive for companies to market their games anywhere but in the Microsoft store. Microsoft is doing what Apple has done here for awhile on their iOS devices and while it certainly is a good "Business" move it will mean less competition in the software market and will give Microsoft tremendous leverage over what software is made and published where they have never had this power before. In the past development was largely open and free, now Microsoft has forced itself into the market and there isn't anything anyone else can do that is likely cost effective to compete with that. It wont have a big impact right away but remember this, and lets see in 5-10 years how many Gamers Gates, or Steams or other publishers are left, and lets also analyze the health of the indie market. I'm worried by lumping everyone in the same store more indie developers will emerge but they'll all get lost in the shuffle and Microsoft will only promote the big guys so less and less indie games will be produced. I could be wrong on this last point but that's my fear.
Do you really believe this?The Windows store will replace them all, even if Steam tries to support Windows 8, people likely would never download it if it was there. At least that's what Windows hopes for.
And you say you don't care about Microsoft getting a 30% commission on any Store sale. I do... Not because it's unfair, but because that's a huge amount of money that use to go to developers, publishers, and artists that now means there is less profitability to EVERY copy of a game is sold. That will push developers to abandon publishers or vise versa and will harm the industry as a whole. Traditionally Microsoft has let the developers and publishers do their own thing, now in an attempt to model the Apple Store they are going to limit everyone's choices and to me its far more threatening than what Apple has done because Microsoft's market share is so much bigger and traditionally has been more supportive to software and game development.
I'll make an odd comparison here. Imagine if your local liquor store was owned by Miller or Bud and it was the only store in town, sure another town 20 miles away has a independent store but the one right there in your local area is there so why are you going to drive 20 miles to go get the stuff from somewhere else? Some people will be most will not, now imagine how much shelf space would get allocated to craft breweries?
You can see the conflict of interest in a situation like that... In fact it is for this very reason that it is against the law for a Brewery to own a Liquor Store, this law is in place to keep competition possible. I'm not saying its a perfect comparison but its fairly similar. I am not saying there should be a law against this, but it is one thing that worries me because there really isn't any viable competition since Apple already does the same thing.
The whole concept of the OS manufacture determining who gets listed in their storefront that is pre built into the OS really bugs me and runs counter to the freedom and openness that the tech industry has for years promoted. I'm not worried that I wont be able to get 3rd party software, but I am worried more about the implications this has for the software industry as a whole. Closed markets are not a good thing for the industry in my opinion.
