In my original Windows Retailer evaluation

　　More than nine months into the terrific revamping known as Windows eight, a clear vision of its core is lastly beginning to emerge. The baked-in apps happen to be streamlined and Windows eight.1 looms, ready to polish the quite a few rough edges found within the original release with the operating program. But Microsoft alone can’t enhance what's really the beating heart of Windows eight: The Windows Store.
　　Windows eight revolves around the Windows Shop. Every single Live Tile that glimmers on the modern-style Begin screen is definitely the iconic representation of a Windows eight app-and you'll be able to only snag Windows eight apps in Microsoft’s own Windows Shop. Because the Windows Retailer goes, so goes the Windows eight encounter.
　　How, exactly, will be the Windows Retailer doing? The clear indicators are mixed. Windows RT devices can run only modern-style apps, not desktop apps, and they’re tanking really hard. But app submissions picked up steam around the time of Microsoft’s Construct conference, culminating inside the shattering of your one hundred,000-app barrier in early July, and they’re nonetheless going (somewhat) robust.
　　That is a terrific milestone for Microsoft, but it’s still paltry when compared with the approximately 1 million apps in Google Play and 900,000 apps in Apple’s App Store. So it is a great time for you to take the pulse with the Windows Store again: Is 100,000 apps enough to keep a body content? As I did last February, I spent days scouring the Windows Shop and taking notes in 5 key categories: games, music apps, video apps, social apps, as well as a catch-all “other” category-to see how effectively Microsoft covered each. Here’s how they all measured up.
　　In my original Windows Retailer evaluation, I noted that the game selection was an early highlight-and it has only gotten stronger since February. The amount of readily available apps has tripled in that time. Whilst the roughly 13,500 available games don’t hold a candle to the vast Android and iOS libraries, there's more than adequate to help keep you distracted for months to come. A lot of them are ports from other platforms, but, hey, they play just as nicely on Windows.
　　Actually, they play so nicely that we’ve had two separate roundups of killer Windows 8 games, with incredibly little overlap. Should you open the Games tab inside the Windows Retailer and sort by "noteworthy," you will uncover dozens and dozens of high-quality titles. (I’ve been playing Royal Revolt nonstop lately.) Microsoft Studios in certain has released a bevy of bodacious games like Pinball FX2, Hydro Thunder Hurricane, as well as the Gunstringer.
　　Speaking of which, two games from Microsoft Studios-Skulls in the Shogun and Halo: Spartan Assault-aren’t just a blast-they’re also far-reaching, letting you play with gamers on Windows Telephone and Xbox Live at the same time as with fellow Windows Shop shoppers. That sort of cross-platform expertise is definitely an exciting tease from the potential of Windows 8 gaming inside a One particular Microsoft kind of world. Here’s hoping it continues.
　　That’s to not say that all is effectively in Winny’s world, however. As talked about, whilst the Windows Store game choice is impressive, it cannot examine to the selections for iOS or Android-you will not discover any mobile Walking Dead games or Grand Theft Auto ports here.