Earlier this yr, Microsoft shelled out a whopping $68 billion to amass the favored online game developer and writer Activision Blizzard. While the acquisition strengthened Microsoft’s place within the gaming house, it additionally turned the heads of some authorities, the Competition and Markets Authority of the United Kingdom being considered one of them. The organisation is worried concerning the lessening of the competitors after this acquisition takes place. Nevertheless, in a stunning flip of occasions, Microsoft’s response to CMA incorporates references to a brand new Xbox Store for cellular, which may compete with the Google Play Store and the Apple App Store. 

Microsoft’s response to CMA reveals plans to create a web-based app retailer

In an official doc titled Microsoft’s Response To The CMA’s Reference Decision, the Redmond-based firm mentions that its acquisition of Activision Blizzard will enhance its skill to create a next-generation sport retailer which works on a number of gadgets, together with cellular.

The firm plans to leverage the prevailing neighborhood of players round Activision Blizzard’s fashionable video games reminiscent of Call of Duty: Mobile and Candy Crush Saga for the Xbox Store, “attracting gamers to a new Xbox Mobile Platform.” Microsoft additionally mentions that making customers change from the Google Play Store and the Apple App Store would require a serious shift in shopper behaviour. 

Why does Microsoft want its personal app retailer?

But why does Microsoft wish to create an app retailer for cellular? Well, Microsoft has been within the online game trade for a very long time. The firm makes some of the fashionable gaming consoles, the Xbox. Now, to promote extra gaming consoles, Microsoft wants video games to draw individuals, proper? Hence, the corporate additionally invests in online game improvement, by the Xbox Game Studios or collaborations with different corporations. While a few of these video games are created solely for consoles, some are additionally accessible on cellular platforms. 

However, No matter how good a sport is, it must be listed with others on a web-based app retailer. At current, Google and Apple have a monopoly over the app distribution ecosystem on Android smartphones and Apple iPhones, respectively. From what it seems to be like, Microsoft needs to go previous all these restrictions and limitations of getting its sport on a third-party retailer and attain out to the gamer neighborhood immediately. 

Hence, it’s planning to create a web-based sport retailer, additionally known as the Xbox Store for cellular. While that was our tackle Microsoft’s plans to create a cellular app retailer, the corporate additionally mentions within the doc that the acquisition “will bring much-needed expertise in mobile game development, marketing and advertising.”