Apple seems to be making new major moves in their video game business.
The Verge reports on a Bloomberg rumor that the company is planning to launch a new dedicated gaming app. The app will be replacing Game Center, and it will function more like the Xbox app on mobile.
For those who don’t remember, Game Center was a social app that added online interactivity to games on iOS. You could use the app to see the leaderboards for each game, and connect to play together.
However, as of this writing, there really isn’t a Game Center app anymore. Instead, Game Center just pops up whenever you open a game on your iPhone or iPad that supports it.
Now, most people will think of the Xbox mobile app as a way to stream games to your phone or tablet, and that’s definitely the big selling point for the app used with Game Pass Ultimate. But neither Bloomberg or Verge have heard that Apple is planning to launch their own game streaming service.
So, they may instead be referring to the Xbox app’s other functions, and there’s certainly a lot. The app of course has incorporated Xbox’s achievements system, which Microsoft pioneered on. They also have chat, fully featured to support onscreen keyboard and voice chat. That chat function extend to support Xbox parties, which allows you to bring a group of players over to talk with each other while playing and jumping between different games. Xbox parties are supported across Xbox on PC, Xbox Series X|S, and Xbox One.
Xbox app’s Sharing function is about as featured as Sony’s, and light years ahead of Apple’s. You can take screenshots and clips of your gameplay and share them across Discord, Snapchat, Whatsapp, Facebook, Instagram, etc. Finally, the Xbox app is its own marketplace for games.
These features were long overdue for Apple if they were serious about competing with Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo as a video game console alternative. While Apple Arcade is a qualified success, it’s clearly not been good enough for them to be considered a serious contender in this space.
Apple Arcade existed as an alternative to the free-to-play games that dominate their app store. While Apple continues to allow these games to thrive, Apple Arcade hints that they don’t want to be associated with them. Apple has also been funding ports of AAA games to iOS, like Resident Evil Village, Assassin’s Creed Mirage, and Death Stranding. While Apple’s evangelists will praise them for these efforts, they continue to be considered tangential to the business as best.
Similarly, Apple tried to do everything they could to stop Epic Games from publishing Fortnite on iOS in terms that were favorable to Epic. They failed, and that’s why Epic is bringing back Fortnite in a big way to their platform. Apple hasn’t come up with a successful initiative to steer their game business the way they want so far, but this could hint at new plans yet again.
