![]() ![]() “Activision’s attractive content and experience with player engagement and acquisition will help to enhance the discoverability, searchability, and ease of user engagement of the new mobile platform,” Microsoft wrote in one of its responses to the CMA’s findings. In Microsoft’s case, the company is also focused on improving the experience of finding apps, even claiming that Activision could be the key to succeeding. That could mean a better split on sales revenue, more subscription options, and aggressive courting of developers for exclusives. It’ll force Apple and Google to compete for developers' apps and, assuming both companies comply fully with the DMA, use of their payment systems. Ultimately, upsetting the App Store and Play Store duopoly over distributing mobile apps and games should only be good. It’s unclear if or how Apple and Google will comply with those requirements once they’re officially enforced - the companies can both technically appeal the Digital Markets Act - but Apple is reportedly prepping iOS 17 for the possibility of app store alternatives, according to Bloomberg. “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,” Spencer told FT.Īmong its sweeping changes, one of the most significant impacts the Digital Markets Act could have on smartphones is requiring that platform holders like Apple or Google (“gatekeepers” in the European Union’s terminology) allow for third-party app stores and even alternative payment methods. An app store seems like a natural evolution of that idea by allowing Microsoft more control over how its future mobile apps are distributed. Making Xbox games as broadly available as possible has been the center of the general Microsoft gaming strategy for the last few years. Microsoft currently gets its games on mobile devices through web apps, but that could change once it's running its own app store. With the right opening, Microsoft has an opportunity to shake up how mobile gaming works dramatically. Despite benefiting from the lucrative sales of games on iOS and Android, neither Google nor Apple has done much to improve the experience of finding them or enticing developers to make exclusive games for their platforms. The timing is key for Microsoft, it’s long tried to bring its Game Pass subscription service to iOS and Android through a native application, and the changes the EU’s Digital Markets Act will force on iOS and Android could be perfect for swooping in with an enticing alternative way to get mobile games.īut a hypothetical “Xbox App Store” would be about more than smuggling in Game Pass. Competition and Markets Authority’s review of the Activision Blizzard acquisition. ![]() The company's plans to compete directly with Google and Apple on app distribution have been known since the fall of 2022, dug up as part of the U.K. ![]() In an interview with the Financial Times, chief executive of Microsoft Gaming, Phil Spencer, revealed the company could launch an alternative app store on iOS and Android as early as 2024. In addition, not everyone would probably be able to open a third-party app store as the company wants to prevent the iOS ecosystem from being untrusted.Microsoft has its eyes set on the App Store. While we still need to wait for Apple to announce the changes, the company will likely find a way to charge for a tax from third-party app stores. Spencer thinks games from the studio would be “critically important” in enticing iPhone users to use an Xbox app store. The Financial Times report also touches on the Activision Blizzard deal as the European Union delayed whether Microsoft can merge the studio as another of its companies. Microsoft’s executive is focused on bringing the Xbox app store to mobile as it’s “the largest platform people play on.” He wants “to build towards a world that we think will be coming where those devices are opened up.” “ 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.” “The Digital Markets Act that’s coming – those are the kinds of things that we are planning for,” Spencer said in the interview. ![]()
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