Microsoft plans to launch a mobile game store in 2024 to compete with Apple and Google
Microsoft is going to launch a new app store with games for Android and iOS smartphones. This will happen next year if regulators approve the deal to acquire Activision Blizzard for $68.77 billion. This statement was made by the head of Xbox Phil Spencer during the Game Developers Conference.
New rules requiring Apple and Google to open their mobile platforms to app stores owned and operated by other companies are expected to come into effect in March 2024 under the EU Digital Markets Act.
“We want to be able to offer Xbox and content from both us and our third-party partners on any screen that someone wants to play on,” said Phil Spencer.
He added that it is currently impossible to do this on mobile devices, but the company wants to “build a world” in which “such devices will be open.”
Microsoft is currently fighting with regulators in the US, Europe and the UK, who are concerned about the potential impact on competition of the deal to buy Activision Blizzard. Sony is a staunch opponent of the deal. However, Spencer argues that the deal could increase competition on the “biggest platform people play on” – smartphones. Currently, this market is dominated by a “duopoly” in the distribution of games and other applications. The Digital Markets Act will help to rectify this situation and open up additional opportunities for other companies.
Spencer said that it is difficult to predict exactly when Microsoft will be able to launch its own app store. But he noted that the company will “fairly trivially” adapt its Xbox and Game Pass apps to sell games and subscriptions on mobile devices. Microsoft’s current lack of mobile games was an “obvious gap in our capabilities” that needed to be filled with the help of Activision Blizzard, Spencer added.
According to him, popular games such as Call of Duty Mobile, Diablo Immortal and Candy Crush Saga, as well as others in development, will be “critical” to attracting players from Apple and Google marketplaces to the Xbox mobile store.
Microsoft and Apple have been arguing for years over how the cloud gaming service, which is part of the Xbox Game Pass, works on the iPhone. Microsoft argues that Apple’s App Store rules limit its ability to offer cloud gaming through a single app that runs immediately on the iPhone. Instead, Apple forces users to access the service through a browser, which causes a decrease in performance. Apple denies that it is blocking cloud gaming applications, but App Store rules require that vendors list each game on the App Store separately.
