Of course, it only works if you have other people to play with. A few gamers who bought Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare through the digital storefront built into Windows 10 have discovered they can only play with other gamers who also bought the game from Microsoft. Xbox One players can only play with other Xbox One players, and PlayStation 4 players can only play with other PlayStation 4 players. This has always been the case. The trouble is that this time not all PC players can play with other PC players. For unknown reasons, Windows 10 Store customers are segregated from customers who bought the game from Steam, which is by far the most popular platform on PC.
That’s like buying a game from Target and learning you can’t play with people who bought it from Best Buy. Call of Duty fans who made the unfortunate of mistake of giving Microsoft their cash are left sitting in lonely multiplayer lobbies waiting for games that’ll never start.
Only two people were looking for a multiplayer game.
Microsoft knows virtually nobody gives a shit about their store, so they’re doing what they and other companies who have nothing but utter contempt for their customers do… try to brute force it on a public that wants nothing to do with it.
I was really hoping they’d be able to pull it together with the store, but it’s obviously not working for them. Time to go back to the drawing board.
So, Microsoft gets the stick even when the fault lies somewhere else (in this case game developer). As mentioned in the article, they initated refund as soon as user complained about the issue.
Um. What? It isn’t Microsoft that is causing this issue, and they issued a refund quickly.
Where do you find contempt for customers in Microsoft’s part?
Wait, how is this NOT Microsoft’s fault?
Steam has built in API’s for putting in game lobbies, and such, Not sure if Call of Duty uses this, but I’m guessing that’s the case.
I’m betting since the version bought from the Microsoft Store has no players in their lobbies, that the developers are just using whatever API the store it was purchased in.
Seems like Gaming for Windows all over again…
Granted I don’t know how they could really fix this, unless Call of Duty developers implement their own game lobbies.
Even admitting you don’t have facts to back your opinion up, you’re still blaming Microsoft?
And, if this is the case, it’s Microsoft’s fault that Activision used somebody else’s proprietary lobby API?
It appears that this is a combination of Microsoft requiring extra hoops for cross-play with Steam, and CoD publisher Activision not being willing to jump through these hoops.
So the fault is shared between Microsoft and Activision.
And yes, the contempt is erecting walls between walled gardens and expecting customers and business partners to buckle.
It isn’t Activision’s fault if Microsoft requires the vendor to engage into some pathetic vendor lock-in mechanisms to simply enable the game to be published in Windows Store. I am not saying this is the case, but it certainly seems like it.
The Windows Store is no more of a walled garden than Steam.
So, not a walled garden, just a store.
This should not be a shock to anyone, as it was made clear a few years ago. If you buy any game for PC, you can’t play the game with people on a console. If you buy any game on the xbox 360, you can’t play against players with an xbox one, or ps4, or pc. The same for any combination of the above, like buying for xbox one, you can’t play against the other platforms, etc. If you buy any game through steam, you can only play against other people who purchased the game through steam. The only issue here is that not many people bought it through the MS Store, so therefore no one to play against. So they are doing the right thing by refunding the money, since to find the above you really need to research it first. This is the fact that needs to be published more.
Your “always been” actually has “never been”. In basically every game (save for the very very rare oddball like this one) if you buy the PC version from Steam, Origin, Amazon (DVDs), or anywhere else, you can expect to be able to play with anyone else on PC form factors – even with people who play on Mac and Linux.
Do you even game bro?
I don’t game as much anymore, however have experienced what I wrote above several times. Duke Nukem Forever being one of the titles. Doom 4 being another.
The few times consoles were allowed to play on the same servers as PC were huge failures. PC gamers with faster machines and much better controllers (mice) slaughtered console gamers. Ever played against someone using the keyboard to steer and aim? Yeah, like that.
Well then, what’s that say about the consoles?
It says that they’re not competitive with PCs and have to be isolated so their users don’t feel inadequate.
Yeah, that’s pretty much what I was thinking.