Earlier today, the UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) released the responses it has received from various tech companies in response to its market investigation into the supply of mobile browsers and cloud gaming available in the UK. One notable response was from Microsoft which took a shot at Apple and the 30% fee it charges when customers make an in-app purchase.
In the past, Apple has always defended taking a 30% cut of the app and in-app purchases as it says it needs to host infrastructure and make developers' apps more discoverable. Microsoft, however, took a dim view of this. It said Apple contributes nothing to the purchases, discoverability, or accessibility when it comes to in-app purchases.
Microsoft says that Apple's in-app purchases fee is "neither economically sustainable nor justifiable." The fee, according to Microsoft, makes it impossible to monetize its cloud gaming services on iOS given that it is also not allowed to charge iPhone users more to cover the fee, according to Apple's rules.
Microsoft references a Mobile Ecosystem market study (page 82) conducted by the CMA which found that Apple's 30% fee was due to a lack of competition in the distribution of native iOS apps. In most markets, Apple doesn't allow sideloading of apps or the installation of apps from third-party app stores. This is in stark contrast to Google which gives Android users a lot of freedom such as allowing third-party app stores and sideloading apps.
Microsoft did not mention any problems with cloud gaming services on Android. It's unclear if Microsoft is totally happy with the situation there or not but as mentioned earlier, Microsoft has more maneuverability on that platform to offer its cloud gaming services.
The next deadline for this investigation will be in November when the CMA publishes a provisional decision report. The final report will be published by March 2025 a few months after relevant parties have gotten a chance to reply to the provisional decision report.
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