Microsoft Aims to Launch its Mobile Games Store Next Year

Microsoft would like to launch a new mobile app store for games on iOS and Android as soon as next year, Microsoft Gaming Chief Phil Spencer told the Financial Times in an interview. However, Microsoft completing its acquisition of Activision Blizzard will be a key requirement for that to happen, as Microsoft is counting on the vast catalog of gaming IPs to make its mobile game store a true killer app.

“We want to be in a position to offer Xbox and content from both us and our third-party partners across any screen where somebody would want to play,” said Phil Spencer in an interview ahead of the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco. “Today, we can’t do that on mobile devices but we want to build towards a world that we think will be coming where those devices are opened up.”

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The exec was referring to the EU’s Digital Markets Act, a new legislation that will require Apple and Google to open up their mobile platforms to third-party app stores. While third-party app stores are already allowed on Android, that’s still not the case on iOS, though this is expected to change once the company is forced to comply with the EU’s Digital Markets Act starting in March 2024.

According to Spencer, it would be “pretty trivial” for Microsoft to update its Xbox and Game Pass mobile apps to offer games sales and subscriptions. And offering these apps through Microsoft’s own mobile stores would mean that Apple and Google wouldn’t be able to take a cut on these transactions.

Still, Spencer emphasized that Microsoft having no significant mobile games to release on its planned mobile store was an “obvious hole in our capability” that the company plans to fill with games from Activision (Call of Duty Mobile), Blizzard (Diablo Immortal), and King (Candy Crush). All these games would be “critically important” to make Microsoft’s mobile game store stand out, though the company’s Activision Blizzard deal isn’t guaranteed to get the green light from the UK’s CMA and the European Union yet.

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