Microsoft is developing an Xbox mobile gaming store to rule the mobile gaming market
Microsoft is strategically planning to get in on the mobile gaming market, a big part of its plans to buy out a huge chunk of the game publishing world apparently hinges on developing an in-house mobile gaming store. Microsoft is constructing an Xbox mobile gaming store to offer games directly on mobile devices, challenging Apple and Google.
The software giant first gave clue at a “next-generation” store it would “build for games” earlier this year but has now silently revealed details of the plans in filings with the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA). Filings produced by Microsoft to the UK for the company’s ongoing Activision Blizzard purchase reveal Microsoft’s future plans for setting up a mobile gaming store that would include games from the game publisher’s large library. The filing was made for the U.K. Competition and Markets Authority. The country’s competition regular announced earlier this year it was probing the company over its plans for its US$68.7 billion buyout of the world’s fifth-largest video game publisher in the mobile gaming market.
As the U.K. is investigating whether the third largest technology company is pushing itself ahead to create a monopoly, Microsoft’s language involves words like “expand choice” and “bringing more games to a mobile gaming store.” Further down in the filing, the company mentioned the buyout would improve Microsoft’s ability to create a next-generation game store and this will provide a wonderful platform to Microsoft in the mobile gaming market which operates across a range of devices, including mobile. This would supposedly add Activision Blizzard content, like high-selling games like Call of Duty: Mobile or the much more maligned Diablo: Immortal.
Buying out Activision Blizzard would also include King, the developer of the longtime mobile megahit Candy Crush Saga. The filing observed that Candy Crush was one of three main series that account for over three-quarters of Activision Blizzard’s net revenues, other than Call of Duty and World of Warcraft. Putting such titles up on its mobile store would probably provide the company with a major boost to its nascent service.
