According to The Verge, Microsoft is building an Xbox mobile game store to take on Apple and Google. According to reports, Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard’s deal is critical to its own mobile game store, which relies heavily on Activision and Activision-owned King games.
The CMA is currently investigating the $68.7 billion Activision Blizzard acquisition and is asking Microsoft for information. Microsoft said in the filing that a big motivation for the acquisition was to help expand its mobile gaming business. Apparently, the company’s plans in this area include the creation of the Xbox mobile gaming platform and store.
Call of Duty: Mobile and Candy Crush Saga are two hugely popular mobile games published by Activision and King, respectively, that Microsoft could use to build a game store to compete with Google Play and the App store. Given Apple’s policy of blocking third-party app stores on iOS, it’s hard to imagine Microsoft competing with Apple anytime soon. But that apparently didn’t stop Microsoft from envisioning the Xbox Mobile App Store.
Microsoft’s push for mobile gaming comes as the company increasingly positions Xbox cloud gaming as “an option for mobile gaming on emerging handheld devices.” Microsoft soon supported Xbox cloud gaming on Valve’s Steam Deck platform, and subsequently partnered with Logitech and Razer to develop their cloud gaming-focused handhelds. That means the push for mobile gaming could happen on multiple fronts — not just phones and tablets.