Microsoft tap Phil Spencer to fix the Windows Microsoft Store

The Windows Store has been a wasteland of shit ever since Microsoft first launched it alongside Windows 8. Married to a Universal Windows Platform that never did take off, it has long been a developer- and customer-forsaken place; intended as the channel through which all applications would flow, to both desktop and mobile devices, it's instead become something of an albatross: an awkward, burdensome reminder of Microsoft's monopolistic sins.

This is at least partly why Microsoft rebranded the Store last year; Windows Store had negative connotations for consumers from which they wanted to distance themselves, in much the same way that the Windows 10 name was intended to put more distance between the current Windows version and the wildly unpopular Windows 8. Microsoft only changed the name, though, apparently hoping that a re-brand would be change enough.

Consumers, however, weren't fooled; when they remember to use the new name, it's normally as an afterthought. And, critically, nothing else about the Store was changed; it's still a developer- and customer-forsaken place, where it's both easier and more desirable to search for TV shows than software. This is especially true of games; even when they're running Windows 10, PC gamers use Steam, not Microsoft's terrible storefront, unless they're given no other choice. And Valve is working hard to ensure that they have other choices in most, if not all, cases.

The situation was clearly untenable for Microsoft, and it seems they've finally decided to do something about it: they're tapping the one person in their senior leadership team who seems to understand what consumers want, and to understand that it's important for a business to provide what consumers are asking for, to finally fix the thing. As reported by WCCFTech:

Phil Spencer, previously Head of Xbox at Microsoft, was promoted last year into the Senior Leadership Team where he now reports directly to CEO Satya Nadella as the Executive Vice President of Gaming. Spencer has since suggested that gaming isn’t the proverbial red-headed stepchild at Microsoft anymore, thanks to the importance placed by Nadella himself in this growing market.

We haven’t heard much from him after E3 2018. However, he briefly appeared on yesterday’s Inside Xbox: X018 Special live from Mexico City to make a few statements, the most interesting of which directly addressed the state of Windows 10 gaming on PC.
When asked about what will come next, he expressed the intent to focus on improving the Windows Store (now formally now as Microsoft Store) so that it can be properly tailored towards gamers.

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It’s not the first time Spencer talked about improving the Windows Store after the negative feedback received from many gamers. He did so in June 2017, during that year’s Electronic Entertainment Expo, though there haven’t been meaningful improvements since.

His decision to personally invest more time into this particular area could easily be interpreted as dissatisfaction with the negligible results obtained so far. It looks like he has now elected to take the matter in his own hands, in a manner of speaking.

Coming, as this is, several months after Valve declared themselves to finally be ready to seek their total independence from Windows, something which they're clearly on pace to achieve by 2020, Spencer's declared intention to match his newly-achieve clout with this long-held desire to fix this mess may be too little, too late, but it's heartening to see Microsoft finally addressing the issue of their Store by fixing the Store, rather than by continuing their efforts to force users to adopt it.

The strong focus on gaming isn't an accident, either. While iOS's App Store and Android's Play Store are central features of both operating systems, that's mainly a product of the fact that side-loadable software is scarce on Android, and non-existent on iOS. On Windows, however, "side loading" (i.e. normal Win32 software installs) are the norm, and digital storefronts have only really taken off in the video gaming space -- and even there, Steam is overwhelmingly dominant leader the segment, with GoG, Origin, Uplay, and even Battle.Net all well back of the market leader.

Phil Spencer, who's credited with turning around Microsoft's XBox division, clearly understands a) that games are the first place to work on creating a PC software storefront that consumers will actually want to use, and b) that fixing the storefront is the only way to convince consumers to use thing. Coercion is not only dodgy (i.e. ethically challenged) as a business practice, it's sketchy (i.e. poorly thought out, and unlikely to work) practice as well, and Spencer seems to get that. The fact that he's taking over the reigns on the Windows Microsoft Store can only mean a positive change, from the consumers' viewpoint.

Wow... that's two consumer-friendly moves from Microsoft in a matter of days. Could it be that they really were serious about wanting to appeal to consumers again? Or will Phil Spencer's desire to fix Windows 10's dysfunctional storefront turn out to be as irrelevant as his earlier statements on the subject? Only time will tell, but the thought that Microsoft's senior leadership includes at least one person who actually gets it, and who Satya Nadella will actually listen to, however belatedly, is a long-overdue positive development.