Microsoft plans to launch its own mobile gaming shop to compete with Google’s Play Store and Apple’s App Store.
Recently, regulators have been looking closely at both Google and Apple because of their mobile app stores and the lack of competition in the market. Microsoft, it turns out, has been secretly developing its own mobile gaming shop to compete with Google’s Play Store and Apple’s App Store; however, this endeavor is contingent on a future acquisition.
According to The Goonglo.com, the UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is looking into Microsoft’s proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard, and the findings of that investigation have revealed that Microsoft intends to create an Xbox-branded mobile game store to compete with the Google Play Store and the Apple App Store. The Xbox Store would grow as a result of this.
Microsoft believes that by acquiring Activision Blizzard, the shop will gain since it will provide customers with popular games like Candy Crush Saga (created by King but marketed by Activision) and Call of Duty: Mobile, giving them an incentive to “try something new.” Those two video games are enough to convince many customers to look elsewhere.
Xbox plans to leverage Activision Blizzard’s current gaming communities to expand the Xbox Store to mobile and lure gamers to the forthcoming Xbox Mobile Platform. However, if you want people to stop using mobile app stores like the App Store and Google Play, you’ll need to do more than just change the prices. Microsoft is banking on gamers being open to new experiences by providing them with familiar and well-liked material.
On Android, Microsoft could create its own mobile gaming store in the same manner that Epic Games has supplied its own store on Android for some time, but the business would have an uphill battle on iOS, where Apple still heavily shuts down side-loading. As a result of Apple’s rules, cloud gaming is limited to browsers rather than streamed through native apps. Meanwhile, Google has worked to enhance the functionality of alternative app shops for Android users.
Microsoft notes in the same study that acquiring Activision Blizzard would give the company “much-needed expertise” in the mobile gaming business and increase income from both game sales and advertising. Microsoft has provided a graph showing that mobile gaming accounts for 51% of the gaming market, while the CMA is more concerned with the effect on console gaming.
While Microsoft has promised a mobile gaming shop, whether or not it ever materializes is still up in the air. Microsoft’s claim that the acquisition of Activision Blizzard might increase competition rather than reduce it, as the CMA is concerned about, would be strengthened by such a suggestion.