Tim Sweeney has chimed in on the status of Xbox Games on the Xbox app on Android.
Yesterday, Xbox president Sarah Bond revealed that Microsoft has Xbox Games ready to play on their Xbox app on Android. This was a feature they decided to work on when Epic Games (of Fortnite fame) sued Google, so that third party developers on Android can offer more products and services on them.
Epic won their case, however, Google asked for an administrative stay in preparation for an appeal. So, Microsoft was preparing this feature based on the assumption that they could go forward with it, and just so happened to have been stopped right as they were about to launch it.
Google shared their own statement, claiming that Microsoft could already publish their games on their app. Now, Google is engaging in some doublespeak here, because their claim is about the technical feasibility to make Xbox Games work on the app. To review their exact wording:
“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.”
Google also claimed that the case revolved around security issues that they have, that Microsoft and Epic do not share. But at this point, Epic Games’ President, Tim Sweeney, has chimed in. On Twitter, he said this:
“Google’s statement is deceitful. Shame on them. They well know that the 30% cut they demand is far more than all of the profit from game streaming. They know this because they blew hundreds of millions of dollars building the failed Stadia game business themselves.”
And that’s as severe a rebuke as you can get. Indeed, Google, alongside Apple, seemed poised to create a new threat for Sony and Microsoft, so much so that they briefly talked about working together to combat the threat from the mobile platform holders now becoming game platform holders.
Google threw millions into Stadia, but unceremoniously dropped it, to the point that the developers were also caught unaware. Say what you will about when the conglomerates Sony and Microsoft decided to enter console gaming; they proved they were committed to the gamers in the long term, through good times and bad. Google wanted the big money, but when things got hard and unprofitable, they decided to bail out.
Android may be a decent platform for some game developers, but Google clearly isn’t on the same side as gamers. Some may argue that Google is simply protecting their profitability, but they can absolutely make new deals where they can make more money with their third-party developers.
But making such a deal would, for example, require that they also invest to help get those third-party developers and stores off the ground. As an investor, they may risk losing money if the consumers don’t buy in, but they can make more money than they do now if it becomes a success.
The 30 % cut is about Google making money regardless of how their third-party developers do in business. It’s an arrangement that also discourages more games from coming to Android.
So it should be crystal clear, between two game companies, and the one tech company that can’t make it in video games, what side gamers should be in.
