Microsoft to Launch Mobile Game Store in July

Microsoft revealed today that it will open a mobile game store on the web in July to take on Apple and Google. It will offer first-party games initially and then open up to other game publishers.

“This web-based store is the first step in our journey to building a trusted app store with its roots in gaming,” a statement from the Xbox organization reads.

Microsoft Xbox president Sarah Bond announced the plans at the Bloomberg Technology Summit, explaining that putting it on the web would make it “accessible across all devices, all countries, no matter what, independent of the policies of closed ecosystem stores. [This store] goes truly across devices — where who you are, your library, your identity, your rewards travel with you versus being locked to a single ecosystem.”

Microsoft’s mobile game store will initially offer titles like Candy Crush Saga, which it brought in-house as part of its $68 billion Activision Blizzard acquisition last year, and Minecraft. The company had previously indicated that it would make moves on mobile now that Apple and Google, which dominate the mobile market, are shackled by the legal requirements of the EU Digital Markets Act. But it’s been quiet on this topic since last November.

“We are actively … talking to other partners who’d also like to see more choice for how they can monetize on the phone,” Microsoft Xbox chief Phil Spencer said at the time.

Obviously, we all have questions. But there’s no word on fees, availability outside the EU, or anything else. This is all we know for now.