Microsoft to Build a Mobile Games Store to Take on its Rivals

After last year reports the stir that Microsoft is to build a mobile games store to take on its rivals Google and Apple. The company had first hinted its plan on the same during February last year through a blog titled Adapting ahead of regulation: a principled approach to app stores. Here they had revealed the principles that will apply to Microsoft Store on Windows.

There is no two opinions on the fact that Apple and Google are basically the only authority in mobile games store sector. While Microsoft has made quite efforts to enter this market may it be in the way of Windows Phone store. Therefore, Microsoft has been quite eager to launch their own mobile games store to create a strong hold in this market.

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Also, in the latest filings In October with the Competition and Markets Authority cases (CMA) regarding Microsoft and Activision Blizzard Merger it wrote “The transaction will improve Microsoft’s ability to create a next-generation game store that operates across a range of devices, including mobile, as a result of the addition of Activision Blizzard’s content. Building on Activision Blizzard’s existing communities of gamers, Xbox will seek to scale the Xbox Store to mobile, attracting gamers to a new Xbox Mobile Platform,”

Now the newest addition to this is an interview of Microsoft’s gaming head Phil Spencer with the Financial Times. Here he said, “We want to be in a position to offer Xbox and content from both us and our third-party partners across any screen where somebody would want to play,” He further added “Today, we can’t do that on mobile devices but we want to build towards a world that we think will be coming where those devices are opened up.”

The biggest hurdle in Microsoft path is to get done with Activision Blizzard deal. The idea behind this was to put in some competition against the leaders in the video gaming market especially the players like Sony and Tencent. But there has been quite an opposition from gamers as well as regulators from the US, UK and Europe who have raised concerns about the potential monopoly that it can lead to.

This concern is not created out of thin air as Microsoft has already acquitted ZeniMax Media in year 2020. It is the company that owns Bethesda Game Studios, Arkane Studios, Tango Gameworks, and id Software.

But last month, Microsoft President Brad Smith stated that the US software company was prepared to negotiate licensing deals with rivals in order to allay antitrust concerns, but it would not sell Activision’s lucrative “Call of Duty” franchise.

It would be interesting to see how this turns out after its acquisition of Activision as Microsoft is set to win EU nod on Activision with licensing offer.

Source: Microsoft Blog