The Windows 11 launch next week includes a makeover for the Microsoft Store, which will now support third-party storefront apps, like those from Epic Games and Amazon.
"Just like any other app, third-party storefront apps will have a product detail page that can be found via search or by browsing – so that users can easily find and install it with the same confidence as any other app in the Microsoft Store on Windows," Giorgio Sardo, General Manager of the Microsoft Store, writes in a blog post.
Amazon's Appstore and the Epic Games Store will be the first storefront apps to hit the Microsoft Store "over the next few months, and we look forward to welcoming other stores as well in the future," Sardo says.
That could include Steam, according to The Verge, which notes that inclusion of these storefronts doesn't mean you can search through them from the Microsoft Store. You search for the storefronts themselves, download, and then search inside the app for what you want.
Amazon would be an exception, since Microsoft has plans to bring Android apps to Windows 11. PCMag's Sascha Segan is a little skeptical about that, but Windows Insiders will get a chance to try it out "soon," Sardo says.
The new Microsoft Store arrives with Windows 11 on Oct. 5 and is coming to Windows 10 in the coming months.
A Different App Store Approach
The new store will allow developers to submit popular apps without rewriting their code. And, crucially, Microsoft will allow apps and third-party stores to handle in-app payments on their own without sharing a cut of the revenue with Microsoft.
One notable exception? Games, The Verge reports.
App developers have long grumbled over revenue payments to Apple and Google, and that came to a head in the Epic-Apple lawsuit, in which Epic is challenging Apple's policy of taking a 15-30% cut of in-app purchase revenue. The judge in that case recently ordered Apple to allow access to third-party payment options on its platform, though it stopped short of calling Apple a monopoly. Epic is appealing.
Microsoft may be looking to get ahead of any similar legal battles with its own store. And that exception for games? Epic chief Tim Sweeney seems fine with it, since it doesn't apply to games purchased inside the Epic Games storefront app.
Overall, since a preview program for the new Microsoft Store opened in June, Microsoft says "hundreds" of app developers have registered to add their apps to Windows. They include:
- Communication platforms: Discord, Zoom Cloud Meetings, KakaoTalk
- Creativity-focused tools: Luminar AI, Music Maker, VLC
- Desktop productivity applications: TeamViewer, Adobe Acrobat Reader DC, LibreOffice
- Microsoft apps: Microsoft PowerToys, Visual Studio Code, Visual Studio Community.
A number of those apps compete directly with Microsoft's own services, like Microsoft Teams and the Microsoft Office suite. Redmond is also opening the doors to alternative browsers, though the list currently only includes Opera and Yandex Browser.
Just how much Microsoft’s changes to the Windows Store will actually resonate remains to be seen. Unlike on iOS and Android, where users largely get apps exclusively through their built-in app stores, Windows users have had the option to simply turn to the web for the programs they want. Time will tell if the Microsoft Store becomes a popular alternative for Windows users and popular app developers.