Microsoft's Mobile Gaming Store Is Being Tested Internally At Xbox

We need new bingo cards printed.

I'm still very much excited to see how this turns out. I really hope they plan on native games, and not cloud games for this mobile store. A native port of the old halo games would be great as well as a more mobile friendly port of the Forza games.

I'm still not entirely sure how this is supposed to be a thing or how its supposed to play out.

Why should Joe public use MS' alt appstore over the ones that actually come with their devices? Cloud games? Native game ports seems chatoic considering the range of abdroid devices and indervidual quirks of OS builds.
People didn't want a MS appstore when they was using windows phone, why would they want this now?

I'm guessing the long term plan is to pull the content from the other appstores and expect the folks playing candy crush to migrate to it.

I will check it out. Hopefully some of the play anywhere games will be compatible for my phone.

@AverageGamer A great idea would be to release native versions of games like Halo and release those there. That would make the investment worthwhile and make their place some kind of exclusive premium store where they don't pay commissions to Google and Apple. In a sense, like what Apple does with the exclusive content although in their case isn't theirs and rely on Apple's fans to sustain their business.

It can be very interesting, there are two things that I am very excited about with this store:

The first is the possibility of seeing native Xbox games on mobile phones, this would give access to a much larger market than PC or all consoles combined.

The second is the possibility of seeing mobile games with Xbox achievements, like in the days of Windows Phone. For me it was a real incentive to play on mobile.

really liking this new approach xbox is taking tbh. play anywhere with your same xbox account, purchases and friends list is great

Sure sure just like how the Xbox app on PC has been great.

Honestly not think this mobile thing is going to be as big or as big game changer as Microsoft thinks it will be. Not many people want to play a big "legit" game on a phone. Majority of that type "gamer" wants to play tetris style games with candy.

But if the mobile Xbox console is a real thing. It very well may change lot of people's thoughts.

But....then again it's Microsoft. They have the history of canceling snd/or giving up on great products at drop of a hat.

No one cares about mobile gaming

@nomither6 it's awful

After seeing that the current Xbox president has 0 qualifications, all these nonsensical and random decisions finally make sense.

I think it would be great to literally play anywhere

Is this just going to be the phone equivalent of the Xbox store on PC, with third party mobile games on it? Because I hate to tell you, but that store/app is:
1. garbage
2. has barely anything on it compared to Steam because probably 95% of the games on the Xbox PC store are only there because Microsoft got them onto Game Pass at some point

How many plates does Microsoft have to spin before one of them (probably the one shaped like an Xbox console) falls? Never mind, they'll just sweep that under the rug hiding all the shards of Zune, Windows Phone and Mixer.

**** me, I'm dramatic!

@Markatron84 Even better it looks like the AI bubble just popped and the big tech big AI stocks including MS are getting slaughtered. Buckle up!

@abe_hikura Yeah, exactly, there's no incentive to actually use this app store unless the games are cheaper, rewards are proffered, or they just pull their games from other stores (and I don't see that happening, their revenue would crater.) I get that having a store monopoly on iOS/Android is a big problem and competition needs to exist....but why a Microsoft Games-specific app store? Amazon app store makes more sense given it's about all apps and connects to Amazon and their own devices.

Feels very much like "we have a store too!" I guess achievement connections for some of the smaller indie type games would make a lot of sense.

@AverageGamer Considering they paid $70b for King and own Minecraft, one would think it'll be all about native games.

OTOH, this is Xbox so it's probably just a portal to download the Game Pass app.

Mobile gaming will help fund a lot of the console games. Those of you who are angry should take note.

@cburg I wouldn't say I'm angry; more... bewildered? A Microsoft store app on mobile doesn't need to exist, as they're already raking in the King money.

@NEStalgia I mean... Yeah. But Microsoft has a ton of stuff that isn't King or Minecraft that could benefit from a native port. There is always that strange possibility of them just having us stream games. With us just download a separate client app for each game.

@AverageGamer the question is: is it worth Microsoft doing native phone ports of its console games? Capcom and Unisoft haven't exactly seen record numbers with their recent iPhone ports, and if you can't get Assassin's Creed to sell, what can you?

@AverageGamer But why make mobile native ports on 2 phone oses of console/PC games that mobile players generally won't play, while also pushing mobile cloud of the same thing while also selling a handheld? And why not just put halo on the app store where people are more likely to buy it than a special store download!

If it doesn't lead to one or all of the following it doesn't matter, a waste of time.

1. More AA and AAA Xbox game studios games more often than 2-3 games a year. 4-5 is more ideal with the lack of them the last 3 years.
2. A way to buy and download digital games like the PlayStation app.
3. Fixing the streaming quality with a better type of codex so gaming streaming on good to great connections isn't total ass and has 20-30 ms input latency.

I'm honestly surprised it's taken them this long to get it done. Seems like a no brainer.

@Markatron84 Capcom and Ubisoft ports was $30($40 in the case of RE7) for games that barely ran and was limited to the highest end devices. People will buy games if they make sense for the platform, cheap, and run well. Older games are perfect for this as they are lighter on the hardware and can be price between $5-10.

"if you can't get Assassin's Creed to sell, what can you?"

The funny parts it that the SpongeBob remake ports on mobile have sold better than Assassin's Creed...

@Dan1283 Many people care about mobile gaming. Who wouldn’t like to have the option to play their Xbox games anywhere they want?

@NEStalgia Cause native ports are better for smaller and lighter games. It makes no sense to stream something like among us. When that'll run just fine on native mobile hardware. Cloud stream should be a last-ditch effort to play game that literally can't be run on the hardware.

@AverageGamer but Among Us is already on mobile. So is fortnite, warzone, Minecraft. Genshin, honkhai which aren't even on Xbox. Most of these are mobile native games on stores everyone already has, so the question remains, what is supposed to make people want to use the magic Microsoft store with a separate app? That's what they haven't really provided an answer for and seem to think it merely existing will attract people.

@AverageGamer You are right, but most people here have the console (or high-end gaming PC) mindset. It's absolutely not meant as an insult, because I'm a console player since I could hold a controller. It's the same with the hardware sales articles, many still believe that more consoles sold mean higher revenue and they're stuck on the 90s wars.

Definitely, Microsoft should include native ports of their console games on the mobile store, because that would be the main appeal. Cloud games are on Game Pass apps and existing ABK games are everywhere. If they include those games, then people will start downloading Candy Crush. It's like Samsung's store, you launch it for one thing and then you don't mind using it for a curated Android store selection. If they only include games available on the other stores, few people will care and third parties will ignore it, unless they do like Epic on PC and work on other perks, but it's complicated in the saturated mobile market and if there's one thing that Microsoft have is content.