During the Bloomberg Technology Summit (via The Verge), Xbox president Sarah Bond spoke about the Xbox mobile gaming store and how the company plans to launch it this July offering an experience that is accessible across all devices and countries independent of any closed ecosystem restrictions. This store will feature first party titles like Minecraft ($6.99) and Candy Crush, but she goes on to say that it will be extended to other parties as well. This will let Microsoft attempt to have an alternative to the App Store on iOS and Google Play on Android. It will start on the web. Watch Sarah Bond talk about this in the clip on Twitter below:
Sarah Bond, @Microsoft’s Xbox president, announced at #BloombergTech that the company will launch its own mobile game store in July, creating an alternative to Apple and Google’s app stores pic.twitter.com/hj6eLtsGfl
— Bloomberg Live (@BloombergLive) May 9, 2024
We’ve seen Apple open up its restrictions to some degree in the EU, but how successful Microsoft is at this remains to be seen. Aside from those two titles, Call of Duty is also first party, and I imagine they will try to get people to use the alternative Xbox gaming store versions of the Call of Duty mobile games with some incentive. I can’t imagine Microsoft even attempts to pull these games from the App Store and Google Play given their success there, but I can’t say anything for sure relating to Microsoft lately after we recently had its other mobile game Mighty Doom announced to be closed and with it shutting down the studio that made my favorite Xbox game since Forza Horizon 2 in Tango Gameworks’ closure following the launch of the incredible HiFi Rush. What do you think of the possibilities of this store and what would you like to see on it?