Microsoft will launch the Xbox games store in July

Microsoft has officially confirmed that the company will launch its Xbox mobile games store on Android and iOS in July, and that it will bring Candy Crush, Minecraft and more.

As part of the Bloomberg Technology Summit today, Microsoft’s Sarah Bond, president of Xbox, confirmed that its mobile games store will launch in July. Microsoft has been talking about plans to create an alternative games store to Apple’s App Store and Google’s Play Store for some time, but this is the first time a firm date has been set.

Beyond that, Bond also confirmed that the Xbox games store for mobile will not launch as a native app.

Rather, the store will “start on the web.” This allows Microsoft to distribute the store globally on “all devices”. Technically, the company would be able to launch its own app store on Android in any part of the world, but iOS is a different story. The EU forced Apple to open iOS to third-party app stores (although Apple made this as difficult and unattractive as possible), but Apple only allows this in the EU. So, by launching on the web, Microsoft can distribute its store globally on iOS.

That said, it is not clear how these games will be distributed via the web. iOS also now supports sideloading, but again, only in the EU. It seems very likely that cloud gaming could play a role.

Bond explained:

In July, we will launch our mobile store experience. In fact, we’re going to start by bringing our own first party portfolio into it. So you’re going to see games like Candy Crush show up in this experience, games like Minecraft. And then we’re going to extend that capability to partners so they can take advantage of it and have a true cross-platform gaming-centric mobile experience.

We’re going to start on the web, and we’re doing that because it really allows us to have an accessible experience on all devices, in all countries, no matter what, regardless of the policies of, you know, closed. ecosystem stores. And then we’ll expand from there.

The end goal, it seems, is to offer a real alternative to Apple and Google’s offerings, with third-party support, but it seems that this is still a long way off.