During Build 2016 day 1, we got a brief glimpse of a new Forza game for Windows 10 in a video that showcased the gaming potential of the Universal Windows Platform (UWP). That video has now been uploaded onto YouTube, so let’s look at it a bit more carefully.
Forza Motorsport 6: Apex will be the first entry of the series to appear on Windows 10 as a Universal Windows App, and will serve as a proof-of-concept for the power of UWP and DirectX 12, as used by a first-party studio; in other words, people really familiar with the platform’s capabilities. The result sounds stunning: 4K resolution at 60fps for capable machines, a first ever for the series.
On the developer’s side, the fact that UWP requires core code to be written only once is a big lure for Turn10’s members. While the experience will still be tailored to best suit each platform, the universality of core codes and toolsets makes development time shorter and with less effort, something developers will definitely appreciate. As a commitment to the potential of UWP, Turn10 has revealed another juicy bit of news: all of their games from now on will be shipping on both Xbox and Windows, so expect more Forza games and other cool, polished projects oncoming.
Forza, Tomb Raider, and a few others are spearheading the arrival of Xbox exclusives on Windows. The advantages are clear, as is the benefit to PC gamers everywhere. Only the future can tell how this will affect sales of Xbox One and Microsoft’s strategy in the console space; for now however, let us enjoy some fine racing.
