A few weeks ago, Microsoft Xbox head Phil Spencer first revealed that the company had plans to launch its own mobile games store to better compete with Apple and Google. Now he"s talking more about those plans in a new interview with FT.
Spencer says that Microsoft will take advantage of the European Union"s Digital Markets Act. That will make both Apple and Google open their iOS and Android mobile operating systems to third-party app stores starting in March 2024. Spencer says that they hope to bring its Xbox games, and games from other publishers, to all types of screens. He added:
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.
Microsoft"s plans to acquire Activision Blizzard will also tie into their mobile game store plans, stating that if the deal goes through, being able to offer mobile games like Call of Duty Mobile, Diablo Immortal, and Candy Crush Saga is "critically important". There"s no word on how quickly Microsoft could launch a third-party mobile store after March 2024. He did say it would be "pretty trivial" to offer both Xbox games and its Xbox Game Pass service to smartphones.
As we have mentioned before, the Xbox Cloud Gaming service available to Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscribers already lets Android device owners play over 100 games with Microsoft"s Xbox Android app, and even iOS owners can access the service via the Xbox website on Safari.
Source: FT