Microsoft has even been down this road before. Windows RT, the version of Windows 8 and 8.1 for ARM processors, included a near-complete Win32 API, but it locked that API away; only applications developed and digitally signed by Microsoft could use it. Third-party applications all had to use WinRT, making the systems running Windows RT functionally equivalent to “Windows but without Win32.” They bombed, hard. Windows without Win32 means Windows without Win32 applications, and the market for Windows without Win32 applications is very limited indeed.
Sweeney appears to be betting that Microsoft will make the same costly mistake again. While a richer UWP ecosystem will certainly make ditching Win32 more palatable, especially for those with simple needs, the notion that Microsoft will willingly break compatibility with a million or more extant Win32 applications is ridiculous. Indeed, the company is, if anything, working in the opposite direction: Project Centennial makes it possible for developers to use the Windows Store to sell and service their existing Win32 applications without having to rewrite them to use UWP.
Xbox chief Phil Spencer even recognizes how core this backwards compatibility is to gaming. Back when rumors of an updated Xbox first started circulating, Spencer said that any hypothetical upgrade or replacement would “effectively feel a little bit more like we see on PC, where I can still go back and run my old Doom and Quake games that I used to play years ago, but I can still see the best 4K games come out and my library is always with me.” This compatibility is a virtue, and the still-mysterious next generation Xbox system Project Scorpio will boast full compatibility with the Xbox One and Xbox One S.
More extraordinarily, Sweeney believes that Microsoft will somehow sabotage Steam to drive gamers away:
Slowly, over the next five years, they will force-patch Windows 10 to make Steam progressively worse and more broken. They’ll never completely break it, but [Microsoft] will continue to break it until, in five years, people are so fed up that Steam is buggy that the Windows Store seems like an ideal alternative. That’s exactly what they did to their previous competitors in other areas. Now they’re doing it to Steam. It’s only just starting to become visible. Microsoft might not be competent enough to succeed with their plan, but they’re certainly trying.
If this were Wikipedia, both the “that’s exactly what they did” and “they’re certainly trying” claims would be adorned “citation needed.” Evidence of Microsoft doing such a thing is decidedly thin on the ground. Perhaps Sweeney is thinking back to beta versions of Windows 3.1, which issued warnings when used in conjunction with DR-DOS, Digital Research’s competitor to Microsoft’s MS-DOS.