There’s been a big push lately for gameplay streams and not the streams where you watch other people enjoy video games. Instead, there are the likes of Sony’s PlayStation Now, Google Stadia, along with Microsoft’s latest Project xCloud. However, for the latter of the bunch, Microsoft has been working hard to bring out their Xbox Game Pass on more platforms including the likes of smartphones. While this subscription service has been accessible for the likes of Android users, there’s been a few road bumps for Apple iOS owners.
Apple has been in the news headlines for the video game industry quite a bit recently. With the big legal ordeal between Epic Game and Apple, you might have forgotten that Microsoft has had their issue with the Apple brand. When the Xbox Game Pass came out for Android, it provided users a way to access their Xbox Game Pass account and stream video games right on their smartphones or tablets. Now the idea was to get the same subscription service functionality to Apple iOS. However, that didn’t happen and it was mainly because Apple couldn’t regulate the kind of content that would be accessed through Xbox Game Pass.
Because there are so many unique video games that will be uploaded at any given time, it looks like Apple is not enthusiastic about this service is readily available for its user base. However, it seems that other streaming services could get away with this same functionality such as the likes of shows and films on Netflix or the various albums featured on Spotify. As a result, there was a bit of uncertainty why Xbox Game Pass was having such a hard time.
With that, all said, you shouldn’t write off Xbox Game Pass on iOS just yet. Recently the head of Xbox, Phil Spencer, went on CNBC where he made note that the Microsoft team is still committed to bringing Xbox Game Pass to the Apple phones. Currently, there are still conversations being had so perhaps after enough talk is done we can see this subscription service application gets presented on the Apple iOS storefront as well.