The smartphone application market is substantially divided into two large blocks: the one for Android and the one for iOS. Respectively Google e Apple Lossless Audio CODEC (ALAC), are the owners of the stores in question but soon Microsoft may have its own app store. TO reveal it is the Financial Times who interviewed the head of Xbox Phil Spencer at the Game Developers Conference. Let's see the details of the news.
News that could shake Apple and Google: Microsoft is preparing an app store to rival the Google Play Store and App Store
Microsoft intends to launch a new app store with games for smartphones based on Android and iOS. This will happen next year whether regulators approve a deal to acquire Activision Blizzard for $68 billion. As Xbox head Phil Spencer said at the Game Developers Conference, this will allow Xbox and content to be offered by both Microsoft itself and partners on any device.
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"We want to be able to deliver Xbox and both our own and our third-party partners' content to any screen that anyone wants to play“Spencer explained. He clarified that at the moment this cannot be done on mobile devices, but the company wants “build a world" in which "those devices will be open“. Apparently, we are talking about new rules under which Apple and Google should allow the use of third-party app stores on their mobile platforms.
As for the deal between Microsoft and Activision Blizzard, Sony opposes it. If the deal goes through, it would allow Xbox developers to increase competition on the "biggest platform people play on", smartphones, of course. After all, Microsoft plans to fill the shortage of mobile games with Activision Blizzard projects.
In any case Spencer has not yet announced the launch date of the Microsoft app store, so it remains to wait for 2024.
