Xbox Launching Mobile Game Store in July - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 02 June 2024 / 3,372 Views
Xbox President Sarah Bond speaking at the Bloomberg Technology Summit announced Xbox will be launching a mobile game store in July.
The store will launch with Xbox's own first-party games and will open up to other publishers at a later date. It will be launching on the web, rather than as an app.
Bond says this is to ensure it is "accessible across all devices, all countries, no matter what, independent of the policies of closed ecosystem stores."
The goal is to create a store that "goes truly across devices — where who you are, your library, your identity, your rewards travel with you versus being locked to a single ecosystem," said Bond.
This will facilitate gaming across consoles, computers, and mobile devices.
Thanks, Bloomberg.
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can contact the author on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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…does Microsoft just want to see Xbox collapse? They’ll do everything but focus on simply making games.
The Industry wanted Xbox gone, so they have their wish.
"Xbox gone..", or not, is more about MS Gaming leadership actions than the industry.
I mean, do you think Phil and team did enough to make XBOX the best console?
They literally tried everything.
They certainly didn't do enough. At the very least, they lacked the most important thing, that is, delivering the best games on the market.
Compare the last 10 years of Xbox with what was done by Sony. The green team failed to be nominated once in The Gamewards' "Game of the year", nor did it ever come close to delivering the most awarded game of the year. Meanwhile, Sony holds the record for nominations, in addition to delivering 4 of the 10 "most awarded games of the year"* over the last 10 years (more than any other publisher).
There is a clear abyss between Playstation and Xbox. Consumers and critics have solid reasons to prefer Sony's console, responsibility for failing to create "truly amazing games" falls on Phil Spencer and his team.
Best games are subjective. For example, Xbox has better1st party MP games to Sony. Industry awards are meaningless to buisness. Games like Fortnite never won GOTY yet its the reason Epic strived.
Sorry, but no Xbox 1st party exclusive came remotly close to Hell divers 2 as a MP game in the last 10 years. Also Fortnite, Roblox and others are multiplat. that have a bigger audience. The tradicional console gamer buy systens based on quality games, you know, the very same that are normaly critacaly acclaimed and take GoTY awards, like Zelda, God of War, The Last of US .
I mean, sure, there are games with mediocre quality, sometines even low, that generate console sales. It's the case of things like Pokemon, but that are very iconic IP that are an exception and not the rule.
Xbox has been struggling for years and Helldivars only released this year. Also Helldivars is subject. Isn't Sea of thieves topping PS charts? An Xbox MP game?
I fail to understand your point. Sea of Thieves only increases Playstation's dominance as the best platform for MP.
Also, Call of Duty, Overwatch 2, Diablo 4... none of these multiplat. games moves the needle in favor of Xbox. All of them are also available for PS5, they don't make Xbox a better choice.
You are saying Sony offer better MP games because of 1 MP game that released this year, what about all the previous years when Xbox had the better 1st party MP lineup? I am also not referring to 3rd party multiplats.
My post is that Xbox has better 1st party MP games and have had that dominance since its inception. So to claim PS has better games is subject because better determines which category. Sony definitely doesn't have a better FPS than Xbox to give a small example.
Actually, those games moved the profit margin for MS. You do know success has multiple factors even if most gamers narrow their vision to just one metric. MS gaming division brings in more profit than it expends and MS gaming division is right there with as the third or fourth biggest profit center for a billion-dollar company like MS. So while you are right that those ABK games are not moving hardware for MS, if you only look to now and do not look at the longer picture you are going to get tunnel vision. ABK is doing exactly what MS want and that is bringing in the bread. No one is silly enough to believe it going to change Xbox situation overnight. That will take years.
With all due respect, none of what you said was questioned.
Your points are true, but disconnected from what has been discussed so far. The initial premises were to define whether “Phil and team did enough to make XBOX the best console?”, and whether they really “tried everything”.
The topic is about what was done to make Xbox the "best console", not about profits, revenue, ABK is doing exactly what MS wants, or any topic you discussed
....
You are straying from the proposed topic. Severely, I dare say
Helldivers 2 puts that into contention imo. Currently the biggest multiplayer game, from the two sides is in playstations favor.
So another where the point went over your head. Helldivars 2 released this year, that doesn't explain the many years MP favored Xbox. Also pretty sure Sea of Thieves topped the PS charts recently.
Helldivers 2 is not first party, its just published by Sony. Without knowing the contract who knows if the sequel or even this game could not come to Xbox. Lets stick with first or even 2nd party games since that is easy to compare.
The is even rumors its meant to be coming to xbox soon. We all know how Sony fans love rumors and talk about them as legit so no reason for them to try deny this one..
Let's do it by steps:
1 - "...just published by Sony..."
Sony is not just the publisher, they own the IP.
https://trademarks.justia.com/860/42/helldivers-86042209.html
2 - "...who knows if the sequel or even this game could not come to Xbox..."
It is better not to speculate here. I mean, if we are going to use speculation, then Xbox may soon have no exclusives, and will be full 3rd party.
3- "...Lets stick with first or even 2nd party games..."
Arrowhead is a 2nd party developer for Hell Divers 2.
can y'all take this somewhere else lol?? Every time I get on vgchartz, I see another five notifications from this comment. (spare me...please.)
i'm sorry, i will stop.
The industry wanted them to create their own game series to compete with Sony and Nintendo. Be creative and work hard to achieve it. They couldn't do that, so they just kept spending money buying up third parties annoying everyone else. We wanted them to compel gamers to want an Xbox through creation, not through just buying it and taking it away.
Well they tried everything. Made a budget entry level console, created GamePass, got Exclusives, built many controllers designs, brought back backwards compatibility. It wasn't the lack of trying, the industry and audience just doesn't want Xbox and they got what they wished for.
I didn't want Xbox in this industry because I knew exactly what to expect from Microsoft from seeing them in action in pretty much every other industry they try to break into: buying up other companies and gutting them. They've left a huge trail of damage and destruction in their wake, as they always do. This is pretty much a repeat of their failed attempt to make Windows Phone a thing by buying the consumer part of Nokia, which ended a year later with them abandoning Nokia and Windows Phone.
They tried everything EXCEPT building studios and creating compelling content to entice people to buy their consoles. The only reason I bought a 360 was to get Japanese content that should have been on PS3 to begin, with like Tales of Vesperia. A lot of the companies that threw in with Microsoft back then suffered greatly.
Frankly, I hope the push for mobile gaming blows up in their faces, too. Then maybe the shareholders will pressure them to spin Xbox off into its own company, which would most likely end up being Activision 3.0. Microsoft is all about business solutions, not consumer products.
They also built studios
This is true. They DID do all those things, and they're all mostly great imo. But, like he said, the one thing they didn't do was create original games that went head-to-head with the other two in the room. They tried at the start of their run with games like Halo and Gears of War etc. But that soon fizzled out, and they either didn't want to allocate resources toward that goal, or they couldn't... which is why this is happening. Or, perhaps this was the plan all along. To get out of the console business and try their hand in other markets. We'll probably never know.
i do not understand why anyone cares who sales more unless you are a shareholder in one of the companies
No one should care if you are not a shareholder, I agree. Unfortunately, sales are what determines if a company hangs around or not.
this site reminds me of a nascar race, grown men shouting ford sucks, chevy sucks, ford sucks, chevy sucks
This site is called VGChartz. Sales are kind of the entire point of this site, dude.
And like it or not, but sales do impact consumers, because they determine what gets made in the future and for what platform. There are lots of games I'd love to see made today, but since their franchises didn't make enough money to justify their costs, they won't be made.
the point is why do adults care who wins or has hate towards the system the dont like?
i like following the tracking of sales, something to do when im on the computer.
this is a pretty good site!!!
Its not just that, its that a new store front, will obviously also need support (else why bother haveing one), so they ll start moveing devs from makeing games on console/pc to focus on mobile phones instead.
Why bother makeing games for your GAME CONSOLE ,when you can make a new store front, and focus on makeing phone games instead?
The way they are going Xbox is committing suicide.
One possibility is that When Xbox is half dead, they’ll try to be a total store like Valve, but that will end up in a disaster as well.
I always imagined the XBox division within mobile devices, in fact, it makes perfect sense for you not to stick to just one piece of hardware, HOWEVER, this should be accompanied by investments in current studios, improving the organizational climate and, above all, preserving jobs.
It's not about console sales, because that's bullshit... the most important thing for any company is revenue generation and profits, but don't set impossible goals for teams, because that's the dumbest tactic to fire people and lose talents. Dismissal must occur through a periodic evaluation, in which the boss gives feedback to the employee and, subsequently, gives time for productivity to increase. I think this is sensible and fair, as the employee knows his obligations and knows where he needs to improve to keep his job.
If mobile is responsible for maintaining jobs, generating jobs, generating investments for the XBox division, whether to expand studios or open new studios, then I hope that Microsoft's tactic will be very successful, in addition, if mobile can generate revenue for low and big budget game production for PC, console and cloud, I will definitely be rooting for this success.
that sounds like alot of copeing..... More money earned from say mobile phones.... doesnt have to mean more invested back into consoles. Chances are, they see they make more in mobile, they instead make less console/pc games, because it pays off better just makeing mobile phone games instead.
hope Apple will allow this on its iphones
So this is why they are "spread too thin".
I don't know what the plan is. But frankly, a half decent phone can run many MS owned games. So if the plan is to bring some of that to mobile devices, great.
Regardless of peoples opinions on the state of Xbox or how MS is treating it. This is still needed to help compete with the monopolies of Apple and Google. However, "It will be launching on the web, rather than as an app." this doesn't really combat the issue.
Microsoft already had their shot at that, and blew it. Remember Nokia and Windows Phone?
God, yes. The ideas were fine just the take up was small. They ditched instead of stucking with it. ... great, now I'm going to go on a internet dive as to why it failed. :P
Unfortunately this was the plan all along. Mobile makes a disgusting amount of money. Look at monopoly go, $2 billion in revenue in 10 months. Candy crush almost $1 billion in 2023. Warzone mobile launched 2 months ago I think. Diablo immortal $500 million in just under a year. What's next? Overwatch mobile? Halo multiplayer mobile?
I wish they would just pump the profits made from mobile games into xbox game studios/zenimax lol
I think you are under the impression that they won't ruin that too.
They told us this was the plan when they said that the Activision purchase was more about King than it was about call of CoD. Gamers in forums like this got caught up in the console stuff, because that's what we care about, and that's what was being discussed in court. But Microsoft always told us it was about mobile.
Because most people don't believe that BS, not even Microsoft. They could have gone to Activision and made an offer for King Games if all they wanted was to expand into mobile. They could also have developed their own mobile apps. It would have been less expensive and less of a PR disaster for Microsoft. But again, it's Microsoft, which is as clueless about the video game industry as they were 24 years ago when they thought they could buy their way to the top by flying to Kyoto and flashing their checkbook at Nintendo's executives (and they seem equally clueless about the mobile market, given the Windows Phone/Nokia disaster of ten years ago). The 360 was a fluke that owed its success more to Sony's mistakes than to its own successes.
