Tech giant Microsoft is reportedly planning to launch its own mobile game store in July 2024 in order to compete with rivals Apple and Google.
Xbox President Sarah Bond said during the Bloomberg Technology Summit that Microsoft's new mobile gaming store will launch with the company's own games. These include Candy Crush and it will open up the web store to other publishers in the future.
Microsoft's Mobile Game Store
(Photo : Michael M. Santiago, Getty Images / Screenshot taken from official website)
Bond also hinted that Minecraft could be among the titles that will become an early addition to the storefront later this year. She also noted that the store would debut on the web rather than an app, which would make it more accessible across various devices and countries.
Microsoft's new mobile gaming storefront will present an alternative to the ones that currently exist, made by Apple and Google. Right now, these two dominate the app store environment and have been reported to charge an "approximate 30% fee on sales," according to IGN.
Last year, Xbox boss Phil Spencer reaffirmed Microsoft's commitment to opening up a mobile gaming storefront. This came as the European Union's Digital Markets Act came into force in March 2024.
The new set of European regulations is trying to make the digital market landscape "fairer" and give tech companies the ability to make their own web stores outside of the Apple and Google ecosystem.
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In an interview last year, Spencer said that they want to be in a position to offer Xbox and content from both them and their third-party partners across any screen where someone would want to play games.
Microsoft's upcoming mobile game store would most likely have to rely on content from its Activision Blizzard acquisition, including popular staples such as Call of Duty: Mobile.
It also comes as the company lagged behind game industry competitors in entering the $90 billion mobile gaming market, said Bloomberg.
Competing With Apple and Google
The tech giant's Xbox unit is not poised to make a big impression after its $69 billion takeover of Activision Blizzard. In particular, Candy Crush has been downloaded 5 billion times since it was released in 2012 and has generated $20 billion in revenue, which makes it a promising title.
Since 2020, various tech giants have been fighting over the future of digital storefronts for mobile games after Fortnite maker Epic Games Inc. launched its Project Liberty campaign.
This included an announcement that users would receive a 20% discount when buying Fortnite currency on its own website.
Apple and Google, in response, deleted Fortnite from their respective app stores and Epic filed lawsuits against the two companies. The latter alleged illegal monopolistic control over their mobile phone ecosystems.
While the global mobile gaming market gets a fraction of the press coverage, it makes nearly as much money as the PC and console sectors combined. A recent report also showed that mobile gaming makes up $90.5 billion of the games industry's worldwide revenue,
This is something that is primarily driven by emerging markets, where it might be rare for an average consumer to have a computer or gaming system that can run highly popular games.
However, the majority of these people have smartphones that can play nearly all mobile games, according to GeekWire.
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