What is Microsoft doing on mobile?

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Microsoft has once again delayed its mobile web store. This time, it’s cited the temporary pause in remedies from Epic Games’ victory against Google.

Google had previously been ordered to open up the Play Store to rival marketplaces while giving them access to the full library of Google Play apps. On top of that, for a period of three years from November 1st, Google was ordered to allow the use of alternative payment methods.

That order was largely delayed, at least temporarily, as Google appeals the ruling. However, it still prevents Google from blocking rival app stores’ pre-installation through deals with carriers or manufacturers.

In response, Xbox president Sarah Bond took to BlueSky to deliver the bad news: “Due to a temporary administrative stay recently granted by the courts, we are currently unable to launch these features as planned. Our team has the functionality built and ready to go live as soon as the court makes a final decision.”

So Microsoft was ready to go, if it weren’t for those meddling kids.

Will they, won't they

A web-based store was originally set to go live in July, following Bond’s announcement at Bloomberg Live. The marketplace was going to be “accessible across all devices, all countries, no matter what, independent of the policies of closed ecosystem stores”.

It would be a “true, cross-platform, game-centric mobile experience” and would come with titles like Candy Crush Saga and Minecraft, before opening up to other publishers. In fact, we know it’s already been in discussions with developers about the store.

But July came and went without any clarification on what was going on. Well, unless you count a landing page. It’s still coming soon, btw. Then once again in October, a LinkedIn post delivered the good news: in November, players will be able to play and purchase Xbox games directly from the Xbox app on Android. But now they can’t.

It shouldn’t be played down just how difficult Apple and Google make it for rivals to be successful on their platforms. And yet, the latest post on BlueSky feels like an excuse. Other stores are launching amid regulatory changes and uncertainty in the European Union and elsewhere (including Epic Games, which picked up 10m downloads for its mobile store by the end of September) - why not Microsoft?

Half measures

The most astonishing part of all this is not the challenges of battling with Google and Apple. Microsoft has yet to announce its Xbox mobile plans through official channels outside of a Bloomberg Live fireside chat and statements on social media. And the public details of what the store actually is are confusing.

Microsoft has this enormous marketing apparatus for Xbox, but none of it has been unleashed for its mobile ambitions. I wonder how that makes potential partners feel.
It would not do this for its console business or on PC.

Could you imagine if Microsoft casually announced the next Xbox with an imminent release date through a post on Bluesky and then went silent for two months? (I guess Shigeru Miyamoto makes that possibility not that hard to imagine).

What makes mobile, where it plans to launch a serious marketplace and business, different? It needs to get a grip and take the mobile games industry, developers and publishers seriously.

There’s no use in having this opportunity to rival Google Play and the App Store if Microsoft is going to treat it as just something it can do on the side. That’s not how it built Xbox and it won’t be how it builds a mobile store. It’s time to put the machine to work.