Xbox President Sarah Bond has shared some good news and some bad news about Xbox Games on mobile.
Bond shared this message on Twitter, Threads, and Bluesky. She said:
“At Xbox, we want to offer players more choice on how and where they play, including being able to play and buy games directly from the Xbox app. I recently shared our ambition to unlock these features first with the Google Play Store on Android devices in the U.S. while other app stores adapt to meet consumer demand.
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. We are eager to launch and give more choice and flexibility to players.”
For those who may not remember, Microsoft made this announcement that they would let their Xbox users play games on their Xbox app on Android last month. The reason this is possible is Google lost a case to Epic Games on how third party developers can offer their games and services on Android.
Google shared this statement to The Verge in relation to this news:
“Microsoft has always been able to offer their Android users the ability to play and purchase Xbox games directly from their app – they’ve simply chosen not to. The Court’s order, and rush to force its implementation, threaten Google Play’s ability to provide a safe and secure experience.
Microsoft, like Epic, are ignoring these very real security concerns. We remain focused on supporting an ecosystem that works for everyone, not just two of the largest game companies.”
If it sounds like Microsoft is leaving some details out, we’ll fill them out for you. Epic sued Google for third party developers to be able to do things on Android, that Google is currently disallowing. You probably heard that what Epic and Microsoft wants is to put up their own app stores.
But in this specific example, the reason Microsoft cannot move forward is they have to get every game approved with Google. They will also need to use Google’s payment systems, meaning Google takes a cut, if they put a store for Xbox Games on their Xbox App.
What’s interesting about all this, of course, is that Microsoft has nothing to do with the case. It’s Epic that’s fighting for developers to be able to do this on Google’s platform. But one could argue that Microsoft moved prematurely, as a way of supporting Epic’s case.
Epic can now point to Microsoft’s actions, and argue that Google is getting in the way of Microsoft doing business now. In that way, Google is also hampering consumers from having options. That’s the reason Google is making the argument that Microsoft can already do these things on Android.
For now, it looks like Xbox gamers won’t be able to offer those additional options for their consumers. There’s also no real schedule for how long litigation can get settled, as both sides can keep appealing and escalating to higher courts. So if you ever wondered why gamers should care about game companies going to courts, it’s because gamers can gain or lose things like this.
