You may soon be able to download games from an Xbox Store for iOS and Android. As we announced at the end of February, Microsoft could very soon offer its own store for mobile applications on iPhones and Android smartphones. That’s what Phil Spencer, head of the Xbox division, just confirmed in an interview with the Financial Times ahead of the annual game developers’ conference in San Francisco.
An Xbox Store for iOS and Android
By March 2024, the new European regulation will come into force, which aims to force the big digital players to open their platforms to competition. And Microsoft intends to fill that gap to try and get its share of the pie. The Redmond company is already working on an application store for iOS and Android, which will, however, be dedicated exclusively to games.
“We want to be able to deliver our Xbox content and that of our partners to any screen that someone wants to play on. […] Today we can’t do that on mobile devices, but we want to build a mode that we think will come out of the openness of devices,” said Phil Spencer.
According to Phil Spencer, porting Xbox applications and their Game Pass to mobile platforms would be “pretty trivial”. Above all, opening up to the competition of Android and especially iOS should allow Microsoft to attract new mobile players. Because until now, the Redmond-based company had an issue with Apple that prevented it from getting its Xbox Game Pass to work properly on iPhones. Due to the current rules of Apple and its App Store, Microsoft has not been able to offer a dedicated application that allows Xbox Game Pass subscribers to take full advantage of the service from their iPhone. To circumvent this limitation, players have no choice but to log into Microsoft’s cloud gaming platform through a web browser. The arrival of an Xbox Store on iOS, possible thanks to the new European regulations, would therefore solve the problem.
However, Microsoft could not give an exact date for a possible availability of an Xbox Store for iOS and Android. Because in order to be able to realize this dream, Microsoft has to wait for the decision of the various regulatory authorities to take over Activision Blizzard.