Microsoft confirms Media Center will be in Windows 8
Windows Media Center fans can finally breathe again. After seemingly endless will they / won't they speculation Steven Sinofsky, the President of the Windows Division has confirmed in a blog post that Media Center will return for yet another go 'round in Windows 8. There's no word on any possible changes, only that the company has "work to do" concerning the quality and compatibility of add-ins. Wondering why it hasn't been in some pre-release builds? Between the potential for multiple SKUs (no details until closer to release, but it seems like you'll be looking for an Ultimate pack or something similar again to get everything) and simple engineering decisions as features are added and removed that's just the way it is. Another factor is that WMC isn't exactly mass market, as he cites stats indicating only 6 percent of Windows 7 users launched the app in July, with over half of those sessions lasting less than a couple of minutes. Meanwhile, IE apparently pops up on 88 percent of Windows 7 desktops. Check the blog post for his full statement, plus a bit of discussion about the new Metro style and ribbon mechanism.
[Thanks, Joe]
