Microsoft has been saying for a while now that it has been working on a mobile game store to compete with the Google Play Store and Apple"s iOS App Store. Today, we got a time frame for when that store will actually become available.
Bloomberg reports that Microsoft Xbox President Sarah Bond revealed that its mobile game store will launch sometime in July. Bond made that announcement as part of an interview during the Bloomberg Technology Summit. A video of her remarks was also posted on the Bloomberg Live X (formerly Twitter) account.
Sarah Bond, @Microsoft’s Xbox president, announced at #BloombergTech that the company will launch its own mobile game store in July, creating an alternative to Apple and Google’s app stores pic.twitter.com/hj6eLtsGfl
— Bloomberg Live (@BloombergLive) May 9, 2024
Bond said that the store will be released on the web first, rather than as an actual mobile app store. Bond stated the web-based store would be able to reach a bigger audience and more devices.
At first, the mobile game store will offer games that are currently owned like Microsoft. That would include games like the popular Candy Crush titles from King, which Microsoft acquired when it bought Activision Blizzard in October 2023. It would also likely include games like Minecraft and Call of Duty Mobile.
Bon said there is a plan to release third-party mobile games via the new store at some point but details of how that will work have yet to be revealed. Bond also suggested that Microsoft would like to sometime in the future extend the store beyond the web, which may mean it could launch an actual third-party gaming app store for Android and iOS.
Bond didn"t offer an actual name for the web-based store, She also didn"t state if there will be any testing of the store for Xbox Insiders before it officially goes live.