March 20 (Portaltic/EP) –
Microsoft has among its plans to launch its new application store with which to bring Xbox and Activision Blizzard games to the mobile platforms of Google and Apple, taking advantage of the entry into force of the European Digital Market Law.
Xbox is working on a mobile game store that will compete directly with those of Google and Apple, taking advantage of Activision Blizzard’s capabilities after the acquisition deal announced early last year, once resolved in its favor.
Although this is not the first news of Microsoft’s plans for this game application store, the head of Xbox, Phil Spencer, has referred to it before the entry into force of the European Union Digital Market Law, in March 2024, which will promote a fairer and more competitive market.
This law establishes new rules for digital companies, especially those like Meta, Apple or Google, considered controllers or ‘gatekeepers’, which must assume a series of obligations and prohibitions to guarantee fair competition.
In the case that concerns Xbox, Apple and Google, through their respective application stores (App Store and Play Store), they exercise what the antitrust authorities have called a ‘duopoly’, in relation to the distribution of mobile applications and games.
The European law “is a great opportunity,” Spencer said in an interview with Financial Times, awarded within the framework of the annual event of video game developers. If the acquisition is approved, he says it could boost competition in mobile phones, which he calls the “biggest platform people play games on.”
“We want to be able to deliver Xbox and content from both ourselves and our third-party partners to any screen anyone wants to play. […]Today, we can’t do that on mobile devices, but we want to build towards a world that we believe will come where those devices open up.”
One of the problems that they have been facing for some time in the case of the Apple store is the limitation of cloud games to a single ‘app’ that works natively on the iPhone. It also doesn’t allow individual games to be purchased from a store within native apps.
However, regulators are also analyzing the possible impact that the acquisition of Activision Blizzard will have on a competitive level, especially with the Call of Duty franchise, the main point of disagreement with Sony, responsible for PlayStation.
Xbox, for its part, has been closing availability agreements with other providers, such as Nintendo, Ubitus, Boosteroid and Nvidia, with which it undertakes to offer both its PC and Activision Blizzard games for a period of ten years.
Spencer acknowledges that it is not easy to specify a date for the launch of the game store, but she does understand that it is “trivial” that they adapt the Xbox and Game Pass applications for mobile devices.
Currently, Activision Blizzard games can be found in the Google and Apple stores, but Microsoft as such does not have a significant presence in mobile games. Therefore, if titles like Call of Duty Mobile, Diablo Immortal and Candy Crush Saga would be “extremely important” to attract players to the new store that Xbox is preparing.
