Yannick

For me it was the arbitrary restrictions on GPU usage and honestly the ill thought out mess that UWP is. Most professional game developers I know that have to use it want to thump who ever came up with it.

What GPU restrictions? On Windows or on Xbox One? On the latter, it was not "arbitrary" and it's been solved, see https://blogs.windows.com/buildingapps/2017/09/15/resources-universal-windows-platform-games-fall-xbox-one-update/#e01APAATox47z4IS.97 …. On the former, I'm not aware of restrictions, please let me know otherwise.

Solved until somebody else wanting to make partner in MS decides otherwise. It was never an engineering problem but a policy decision - and that's the main problem with UWP, it's being led by marketing not engineering.

I invite you to watch this awesome presentation from Build 2014 by Frank Savage about the Xbox Architecture. Great talk! https://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Build/2014/2-651 …. It explains how Xbox One essentially has three operating systems with various priorities and goals.

Indeed, but go beyond that and ask the devs being forced by policy to work on each of those systems and ask what it's really like - we only ever hear horror stories, find one who likes it is rarer than rocking horse... well, you know where that is going :)

Will you be at GDC? I would love to hear more specific first-hand accounts of these struggles, and especially how other consoles make it easier. I'll buy you a beer and we can chat.

Would love to be but sadly not. For me it's not about being difficult or not but more the worry about decisions of the future - especially after being told how UWP came into existence. MS was never particularly stable but it was dependable and now that seems to be being eroded.

I can understand the business decisions behind it - I don't have a problem with the concept of a walled garden as far as apps are concerned. It works on Mac and iOS. It's just that UWP feels like too much of an internal power play rather than for the good of the eco system.