Xbox Mobile Store Launches This July With Its Own 'First Party Portfolio'

Because if there's one thing 99% of iPhone users are going to do when they want a new game app, it's ignore the App Store, go to Safari, search for Microsoft.com game store, download it, side load it, then side load games through it and pay MTX through it? But only some games.

I'm all for competing storefronts on Mobile. And on Xbox. But.... Doesn't there have to be a reason motivating people to take the inconvenient route? Are they offering incentives here? Discounts on mtx currency? Why would people use it? And what happened to cloud gaming?

If only Microsoft had their own phone.... If only....

@NEStalgia if you’ve been unaware, Apple will open its iphone ecosystem to 3rd party stores this summer. So, obviously xbox will have its own app and all.

Obviously they're going to pursue the avenues that will pay back the highest returns... seemingly at the expense of everything else.

@Savage_Joe Oh I know they will. But why would somebody use the Microsoft store and side load apps. Are they pulling their apps from the app store to force it? Are they offering discounts as incentive? What would motivate anyone to use this? Amazon is different as the have a complete store for "all" apps tied to Amazons checkout you may already use. This is really limited and games only.

I still feel that King was the biggest get out of the ABK acquisition. Microsoft had no serious presence on Mobile and now it is one of the bigger (is candy crush still super popular?) devs and publishers after the acquisition.

Hmm I see there was no mention of their game "Mighty Doom". I wonder ... (checks recent news) ... Oh dear.

They really should just have one app with store, games, stream, gamepass, chat.

@Scummbuddy Yep I can't wait to play Gears POP on there too.. oh wait..

@Savage_Joe Apple were forced to open up. In the EU at least. They introduced the Digital Market Act. Which if put on the list of Gatekeepers entitles you to open up the eco system or be fined 20% of there worldwide revenue. Apple IOS, Google Android , Amazon marketplace & Microsoft Windows are on the list.
I put Phil Spencers quotes of rival stores on Xbox as a result of the new EU law. If they go all digital they would come under EU scrutiny.

@Savage_Joe side loading on the iPhone has been available for a while now in the EU. Not sure it’s happening worldwide though is it?

Good Luck with that! And I mean it (because they will need a lot of it to succeed 😜)

Hopefully they will finally get the cloud streaming to include some of the purchased digital games instead of just gamepass.

@themightyant Yes, but why would anyone do that? Why would anyone download a secondary, tertiary app to mix their purchases between stores without that store offering an incentive to do so? People aren't going to change their routine with a convenient single universal store for everything if there's nothing in it for them. That's the entire strategy of IE/Edge

Just bring back the library they had on Windows Phone 7+
and go for there.

I'd kill for another copy of an achievement enabled Final Fantasy 1.

@NEStalgia "Yes, but why would anyone do that? Why would anyone download a secondary, tertiary app to mix their purchases between stores without that store offering an incentive to do so?"

I would definitely download and play mobile games if they had achievements that tied to my main account.
It might actually get me to see what games like Candy Crush are all about.

@Chaotic_Neutral Well, only if they restricted achievements if you use their store, but I'd think the individual apps would have the login for that regardless of what store it came from.

Plus I think the intersection of candy crush players and people who care about Xbox achievements is not going to be very big...

@themightyant exactly!

They can't convince people to use the Xbox app on PC...a platform THEY all but have a monopoly on...but, sure, spend millions building, launching, and maintaining a mobile storefront to try and compete with Apple and Google....

This is going to go exactly how anyone with half a brain cell thinks it's going to go.

What the actual F are they doing over there?

@NEStalgia Don't know if Microsoft will do that, but there is a fairly easy way to make people go there: Exclusive titles.

A new mobile Call of Duty game - only on Microsoft Store.
Problem solved.

But what I think is that this is only the first step. The next step will be Microsoft own Android Phone (not Surface Duo, a regular consumer-oriented Phone) and the phone will have that store and will be integrated with Xbox.

@eduscxbox Huh, interesting idea, you really think Microsoft would try to get to get back into phone hardware without having platform/os control? Their record on hardware between zune, phone, Xbox, surface is pretty poor and nadella doesn't strike me as a let's make hardware guy. Though sadly Microsoft hardware has actually always been really good. It just sells terribly.

@NEStalgia They kinda did with surface duo.

And by all means, Android is open source, so Microsoft can modify it at will. And if they expand the store more to have apps too they can get rid of google entirely and have a 100% Microsoft-custom Android device.

Since it would be android it wouldn't be difficult for Microsoft to get developers onboard.

@eduscxbox Technically Microsoft is somehow part of the commercial part of Android already. The royalties on Android from Google based phones is how they plugged the negative revenue from Xbox One for years 😆. So that's not that out of the realm.

It's so odd because Microsoft hardware is often nicer than most, or better purpose made. Ironically Microsoft hardware tends to be above average and let down by their software. But it's always late to every market and fails as a result. Heck Even Xbox handheld.... If they launched today it would be a hit. But they're faffing about with prototyping it and by the time they launch it switch 2 will be out, deck 2 will be out and half a dozen new handheld PCs will be out and Even if Xbox handheld is really better designed and integrated than the others, sales will suck because it'll be late to the party. Always a shame. They really do get good hardware engineers.

@NEStalgia That would be as crazy as trying to create their own music pla.... oh

Oh joy another bloody app to install. FWIW i find a lot of things about the xbox app now good. Same could be said for the playstation app. But also Some aspects are absolute bantha fodder.
Want to play remotely on your ps? sure just download the separate app, but you can access it through the main app....
Want to see what is on the xbox game store? sure thing. wanna see prices? LOL no wai bro, but you can download it to console.

Can we just have a nice single app please? kthnxbai.

I totally have faith in this after one of the 4 recent studios closed produced a good mobile game that's gonna end soon.

@NEStalgia they need to fix their timing ASAP. If they ever release a hardware at the right time it will be a success. It is like you said, MS Hardware are always high quality. All they need is to release them on time.

@GeneJacket it doesn't get millions to build a mobile store and microsoft already has the manpower to do it