> they will be easier to port to Android, Linux, Mac OS, and even the iPhone.
Bingo. Microsoft was never very fond of the idea of people porting Windows apps to other platforms. If people develop portable apps that run everywhere, the network effects achieved by having OEMs bundling Windows on every PC are neutralized.
The irony is now MSFT needs these other developers to port their successful iOS/Android games to their platform. MSFT shouldn't be making this a difficult choice for devs. The few people who do end up with Win RT tablets and such will likely hear about games/apps working on other platforms and then look to see if they are available on the Win device...and since MSFT put up this wall....well....users will think should've bought an iPad.
(Note, i'm actually a little excited about the Surface tablet as a potential device that crosses the chasm between full tablet and laptop. But I don't have very many apps that I use now on my iPad.)
EDIT: Also, I don't know much about any game development SDK engines that abstract devs from these proprietary libraries and runtimes...however I think they must exist?
You can already get something like the surface: Asus' Transformer series.
I have a Transformer Prime (#2, Transformer Infinity is the newest one) and the keyboard dock. Android apps/games, plus terminal, VNC, etc for doing real work.
And Android 4.0 looks more like Windows 7 than Windows 8 does (black "taskbar" on the bottom with clock and notifications on the right, home button, back button, and app switcher button on the left, and the 'desktop' can have icons and widgets).
Bingo. Microsoft was never very fond of the idea of people porting Windows apps to other platforms. If people develop portable apps that run everywhere, the network effects achieved by having OEMs bundling Windows on every PC are neutralized.