Over the past year-or-so, we've been hearing about plans for Xbox to develop a mobile gaming store to compete with Apple and Google, and Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer has confirmed that work is still going ahead with this.
In an interview with Bloomberg this week, Spencer highlighted how the team is "actively working" on this mobile store idea, and there's even discussion taking place with "partners" about what they'd ideally want to see from it.
"It’s an important part of our strategy and something we are actively working on today not only alone, but talking to other partners who’d also like to see more choice for how they can monetize on the phone."
It was back in late 2022 that Microsoft revealed plans to the UK CMA about this store (as part of the Activision Blizzard takeover), explaining that the intent was to "shift consumers away from the Google Play Store and App Store on mobile devices" by building a "next generation game store" that would allow the Xbox Store to be scaled to mobile.
There's no kind of release date for this mobile store just yet, but Spencer told Bloomberg this week that he didn't think it'd be multiple years away, suggesting it'd be "sooner than that". Could it arrive in 2024? We'll have to wait and see...