Instead, Spencer is most likely spinning a regulator-friendly argument in favour of the Activision Blizzard deal. Microsoft’s own rationale is that it wouldn’t make business sense for it to withdraw Call of Duty games from PlayStation, and surely the same applies here. Acknowledging mobile games as an “obvious hole in our capability,” he cited Candy Crush, Call of Duty Mobile and Diablo Immortal as games that would be “critically important” to the success of this strategy.Ĭertainly the acquisition would bring Microsoft some hit mobile games, but these are games that already flourish within the iOS and Android ecosystems. Spencer spoke about the importance of Microsoft’s proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard to his ambition to build app stores. The company already publishes Xbox and Game Pass apps that would be “pretty trivial” to adapt into storefronts, Spencer said.

But he suggested Microsoft would be able to spin up such a store pretty quickly once the rules allowed it. Spencer said he couldn’t predict when such a store might go live it’s possible Apple and Google can delay the European legislation by filing appeals against it. “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.”

“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,” Spencer said, reiterating the line on platform-agnostic gaming he has consistently held for some years now. “I think it’s a huge opportunity,” Spencer told the FT. The Digital Markets Act, expected to come into force in March 2024, will require the mobile tech giants to open up their platforms to app stores from other companies. Until now, such stores have been disallowed by Google and Apple, but incoming European Union legislation is set to change that. Phil Spencer, Microsoft’s head of gaming, has told the Financial Times Microsoft would like to launch Xbox-branded mobile gaming app stores on both Android and iOS - ideally as soon as next year.

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