Microsoft is building a mobile game store to compete with Apple and Google

Microsoft intends to create a “next generation store” to directly offer games for mobile devices. The software giant first hinted at its plans at the beginning of this year, but now the details have been found in documents that turned out to be with the British CMA regulator. The antitrust agency is currently investigating a deal to acquire Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion and has requested relevant documents from Microsoft. In them, the company notes that it wants to expand its presence in the field of mobile games, and the purchase of Activision Blizzard should help it in this. Apparently, Redmond’s plans include the creation of an Xbox mobile gaming platform and a store.

“The deal will enhance Microsoft’s ability to create a next-generation game store that runs on a variety of gadgets, including mobile devices, by adding Activision Blizzard content. Building on Activision Blizzard’s existing gamer communities, Xbox will be looking to scale the Xbox Store for mobile by bringing gamers to the new mobile platform. The churn of users from Google Play and the App Store on mobile devices will require major changes, but Microsoft hopes that by offering well-known and popular content, gamers will be more likely to try something new, ”the document says.

Call of Duty: Mobile and Candy Crush Saga are two extremely popular mobile games released by Activision and King respectively. Microsoft can use these games to create a store that can compete with Google Play and the App Store. Given Apple’s policy, it’s hard to imagine how the company is going to get around the blocking of third-party services on iOS. However, that doesn’t stop you from adding the Xbox mobile app store to other platforms.

There is a lot of money at stake, as games are the most popular type of content that users download on mobile devices. Nevertheless, creating a successful competitor to Google Play or the App Store will be very problematic, and Microsoft will have to involve third-party developers. It looks like the company is already laying the groundwork for freedom to run its own stores inside the Xbox mobile platform and offer its own payment systems for in-app transaction processing. This key advantage will help keep developers interested. One company that might be particularly interested in this is Epic Games. Recently, she has been speaking out against App Store policies.

Source: Trash Box

You may also like