Windows 8 is coming and it’s going to make all your wildest dreams come true. OK, that might not be wholly accurate, but at least Microsoft is hoping it’ll shake things up in the world of computing. One of the new additions will be a Windows Store, which was shown off at a preview event yesterday. It’ll be the place to grab Metro-style apps, games and content.
So, it’s not just apps — they’ll be movies, books, magazines and games too. An app store to rival the best of the rest; or at least that’s the plan. They’ll also give more back to the developers than the likes of Apple, taking the same 30 per cent cut up to $US25,000 of sales, after which Microsoft will drop its cut to just 20 per cent.
It’ll open in late February 2012, but Microsoft is being strict about only accepting free apps and by invitation only to start with. It’ll be interesting whether the Windows Store will really take off. When Apple launched its Mac App Store, there was quite a lot of opinion that it wouldn’t take off, that desktop users didn’t want a curated App Store environment. If you look at it now, it’s safe to say that it’s been a success of sorts. But would you buy your Windows applications from a Windows Store? [Microsoft via Engadget]
Chris
Thursday, December 8, 2011 at 11:06 AMin reference to the mac app store comment i think you should consider the windows store to be more like the ipad app store. the metro apps of win8 are much more ipadish than they are more traditional versions of software
wsDK_II
Thursday, December 8, 2011 at 1:17 PMi would expect to find the windows app store like the one on my WIn7 Mob, meaning that i would expect to be able to download Adobe stuff, Office stuff, Firefox, VLC, codecs (e.g. CCCP), tune-up, misc admin util, games for windows and other stuff. It would be a central repository of the latest and safest downloads for windows software.