Definitive Edition can be available on Steam

Age of Empires: Definitive Edition will be available on the Windows Store on February 20, but not on Steam, an absence attributed in part to Valve’s fault. “Steam rules don’t allow this,” read the title on German news site GameStar.de. However, the website did not specify which “rules” were broken.

As it turns out, the decision to keep AoE exclusive rests with Microsoft, and has nothing to do with Steam giving or disallowing it.

“We decided to launch Age of Empires: Definitive Edition on the Windows Store, and we’re excited that it includes so many things, including tons of things from Xbox Live (achievements, cloud saves, network multiplayer). fastest and more reliable, among other things),” a Microsoft spokesperson said in the text.

“Games like Quantum Break, Gears of War 4, Forza Horizon 3, Halo Wars 2, and many more that are in our Store have improved the Store as well as Windows 10 to support features like unlocking. aspect ratio, and generally improve the consumer experience for the better. Competing on PC is also good for the gaming industry and good for gamers, it pushes innovation and adds value to consumers.”

Microsoft left the door open to bring its game to other platforms: “Before selling on another platform, we want to make sure consumers have the best experience, and other platforms need to fully support Windows 10. completely before we bring Age of Empires: Definitive Edition there,” the spokesperson added.

Such a move is not unprecedented, and it can happen quite quickly. Remedy’s Quantum Break was initially released on the Windows Store, but a Steam version was announced just six months later; The Steam version also supports Windows 7, while the Windows Store version (of the two titles) is only for Windows 10. With Steam’s latest hardware survey showing that 70% of users are running Windows 7, that’s A number of potential customers are being left open.

The biggest challenge that Microsoft is facing is not that their online store is bad, but that their ‘bad’ reputation is so deeply ingrained that a large number of players would rather wait for other versions to come out. somewhere instead of suffering now.