It seems Microsoft has a plan for an Xbox app store for mobiles that it hopes will challenge Apple and Google on their own turf.
Details about the potential app were noticed by The Verge as it sifted through the findings released from Microsoft’s recent review by the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority. As the CMA has reviewed Microsoft’s proposed $US68.8 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard, it has asked Microsoft to provide context in its rationale for a purchase of this size. Microsoft has maintained that a big part of its desire to snap up Activision Blizzard is to bolster its presence in the mobile space.
Per the filings:
The transaction will improve Microsoft’s ability to create a next generation game store which operates across a range of devices, including mobile as a result of the addition of Activision Blizzard’s content. Building on Activision Blizzard’s existing communities of gamers, Xbox will seek to scale the Xbox Store to mobile, attracting gamers to a new Xbox Mobile Platform. Shifting consumers away from the Google Play Store and App Store on mobile devices will, however, require a major shift in consumer behavior. Microsoft hopes that by offering well-known and popular content, gamers will be more inclined to try something new.
They’re not wrong. Call of Duty Mobile and Candy Crush Saga are extremely popular mobile games published, respectively, by Activision and its mobile subsidiary King. Any Xbox mobile app would benefit significantly from their presence in the store, and it comes as no surprise that Microsoft wants to put them to work. There are roadblocks involved, certainly — Apple doesn’t allow third-party app stores on its platform for instance — but, as far as Microsoft is concerned, a multi-billion dollar corporation can dream, can’t it?
As the handheld market rears its head once more, most visibly in Valve’s Steam Deck and Android devices from Logitech, Razer and Ayaneo, Microsoft was ready. Xbox Cloud Gaming has been quickly positioned as a big reason to buy in on these machines, allowing players to take a huge library of AAA and indie games with them on hardware that sometimes could not natively support them.
As things stand, Microsoft’s desire to get in on the extremely lucrative mobile market seems to have flown under the CPA’s radar, with the bulk of the investigation focused on console gaming and the ramifications of locking mega franchises like Call of Duty behind the iron curtain of the Game Pass platform.
You can read the Verge’s lengthy (and very illuminating) story, right over here.
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