In October, it became very clear that Microsoft and Google were at war again. After a six-year truce on legal battles ended in 2021, Google has, in fresh months, been voicing its concerns about Microsoft’s cloud business. That peculiar dispute is at the “lobbying regulators” stage, but another disagreement between the 2 tech giants has slipped into the courts and the public sphere and could sway the very future of Xbox.
Microsoft revealed last week that it built a fresh Xbox game store for Android but has been incapable to launch it. The store relies on a key court ruling that would force sweeping changes to Google’s Play Store, beginning it up to competition and ending the request for apps to usage Google Play Billing. Microsoft has been desperate for regulators to act and pave the way for its ambitious Xbox mobile efforts. But after the court ruling offered a brief minute of hope, Google won a temporary administrative stay blocking the changes from coming into effect in November.
Microsoft had planned to sale games straight in its Xbox app for Android and let customers to immediately stream those games straight to their phones and tablets. These 2 features combined aren’t possible right now, unless Microsoft is willing to sacrifice 30 percent of Xbox game purchases on Android to Google.
“Due to a temporary administrative stay late granted by the courts, we are presently incapable to launch these features as planned,” said Xbox president Sarah Bond in a Bluesky post last week on the eve of Thanksgiving. “Our squad has the functionality built and ready to go live as shortly as the court makes a final decision.”
Google’s reaction was different, though. “Microsoft has always been able to offer their Android users the ability to play and acquisition Xbox games straight from their app – they’ve simply chosen not to,” said Google spokesperson Dan Jackson in consequence to Microsoft’s public complaint.
As always, the reality between Microsoft’s and Google’s statements here is somewhere in the middle. Microsoft utilized to let you to buy games in the Xbox mobile app on Android, but it removed the functionality in 2020 erstwhile it decided to add distant console streaming to the app. Google’s Play store policies mean Microsoft would gotta quit a 30 percent cut if it wanted to let Xbox players to buy games in an Android app and then besides play them.
Google “allows customers to acquisition digital content utilizing non-Google commerce systems in a native app — but only if the content is not consumed in the app, e.g., a client can usage Sony’s PlayStation app to acquisition (but not to play) digital games,” says Microsoft in a court filing last month. That explains why Sony and Valve both offer the ability to buy games in their Android apps but run separate streaming apps for distant play.
Microsoft says Google’s fees are “exorbitantly expensive,” making it “uneconomic” for the company to offer streaming Xbox games in the way it wants to. More than that, Microsoft says Google Play Billing just won’t work due to the fact that in-game purchases in Xbox console games are engineered to usage its own payment systems. It would “take years” for Microsoft to rewrite the code, the company says. “Many of the most popular Xbox games are third-party titles that Microsoft cannot rewrite due to the fact that it does not make those games,” says Microsoft.
I’m not so certain it would take years to offer Google’s payment strategy in Xbox games, but it’s clearly something Microsoft has no incentive to build just to give 30 percent of game purchases to Google. Microsoft should be allowed to easy link out to a website to let people stream the games they just purchased — precisely the kind of Xbox app it just built.
The court ruling and any possible hold here will be key to Microsoft’s plans to extend Xbox beyond a console base that isn’t growing. Microsoft late launched its “This is an Xbox” marketing run to effort and make people think of phones, laptops, tablets, and handheld gaming PCs as Xbox devices. This full marketing run and Microsoft’s strategy trust heavy on regulators and courts forcing Apple and Google to open up their stores and let the acquisition and streaming of Xbox games without the 30 percent cut.
Microsoft wants to make it easy for people to buy Xbox games or subscribe to Xbox Game Pass and then play those games within a single app to make it feel like a telephone truly is an extension of an Xbox console. Back in 2018, Microsoft powerfully believed it could scope 2 billion more gamers this way, and it was assured it would be able to launch an Xbox Cloud Gaming app on iOS and Android and sale consumers on its Xbox Game Pass vision.
That never happened. Microsoft’s full Xbox mobile imagination has been delayed and complicated by app store policies from Google and Apple, but Xbox president Sarah Bond inactive very much believes in this vision. Sources at Xbox tell me that Bond has staked her career reputation on the thought of Xbox being everywhere, across multiple platforms and devices.
The fresh “This is an Xbox” marketing effort is the first large run to launch after Microsoft shook up its interior Xbox marketing teams earlier this year. erstwhile Xbox chief marketing officer Jerret West departed in June, enabling Microsoft Gaming to decision its marketing teams closer to the Xbox business alternatively of Microsoft’s central marketing teams. The Xbox marketing squad now reports straight up to Bond, who is clearly keen to get the “Xbox everywhere” message out there.
A large part of this “Xbox everywhere” strategy is an Xbox mobile store. Microsoft has been teasing its vision of a “next-generation” Xbox store on mobile for years, with Microsoft’s $68.7 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard securing key mobile games like Call of Duty and Candy Crush that could possibly tempt consumers distant from the Google Play store and Apple’s App Store.
Microsoft was hoping that the EU’s Digital Markets Act would aid it launch the Xbox mobile store this year, with Xbox chief Phil Spencer describing the regulations as a “huge opportunity” for Microsoft. That mobile store hasn’t emerged, though. Microsoft said a web-based version was going to launch in July, but it didn’t happen. That peculiar web store is still in testing, and it’s not clear precisely why it was delayed.
The danger for Microsoft’s “Xbox everywhere” strategy is very clear from this Google court case and its mobile Xbox store struggles. Microsoft has to play by the rules of another platform holders, and the possible result of a court case can sway its full Xbox strategy and how it offers games across multiple devices. Until mobile app stores are forced open, Microsoft now has to find workarounds or lobby regulators even harder to make its Xbox imagination a reality.
The pad:
- Microsoft faces another FTC investigation and has come out fighting. The national Trade Commission is investigating Microsoft’s software licensing business, cybersecurity services, and AI offerings. First reported by Bloomberg and confirmed by The Verge, the investigation is part of a wide-ranging probe into Microsoft, making it the 5th large tech company to come under specified scrutiny in fresh years. While both the FTC and Microsoft didn’t initially comment on news of the antitrust investigation, Microsoft accused the FTC of leaking the news earlier this week. Microsoft’s corporate vice president and deputy general counsel Rima Alaily accused FTC management of violating the agency’s own ethics guidelines in a letter that made it clear Microsoft thinks Bloomberg’s origin is individual at the FTC.
- No, Microsoft isn’t utilizing your Office docs to train its AI. After social media posts accused Microsoft of utilizing Word and Excel papers to train AI systems, Microsoft has clarified that it’s not utilizing client data to train its AI models. The confusion arose from a poorly worded privacy setting in Microsoft 365 apps and even a Microsoft support document. It’s not different for Microsoft to have confusing features and support documents, and Microsoft was fast to correct the evidence in a statement.
- Samsung’s DeX app on Windows is being replaced by Microsoft’s telephone Link. Samsung is quietly killing off its dedicated DeX app on Windows with its upcoming 1 UI 7 update. The DeX app for Windows, not to be confused with the broader DeX platform that turns your telephone into a PC, lets you mirror your telephone screen to a PC and easy drag and drop files between the devices. Samsung is now recommending people control to Microsoft’s telephone Link app instead, which offers akin functionality and is an app that Samsung has closely collaborated with Microsoft on in fresh years.
- Microsoft faces a £1 billion suit in the UK over cloud pricing. The FTC isn’t Microsoft’s only headache over cloud competition concerns. Across the pond, Microsoft is now facing a £1 billion ($1.2 billion) lawsuit for what is being described as overcharges to usage alternate cloud solutions. Google filed a complaint with the EU late over akin concerns, and it looks like the force is building on Microsoft over its lucrative Azure and Windows Server licensing costs.
- Microsoft pauses Windows 11 updates for PCs with any Ubisoft games installed. The latest Windows 11 version 24H2 update has been causing issues for Star Wars Outlaws and games in the Assassin’s Creed series, with players reporting crashes after installing the Windows update. I’m amazed it has taken this long, but Microsoft has yet paused updates for PCs with any of these Ubisoft games installed, after Ubisoft promised multiple times to address the issues without success.
- Microsoft 365 had a large outage last week. I was busy hiking in the mountains last week and thought that Outlook on my telephone was bugging out due to mediocre connectivity, but it turns out that a major Microsoft 365 outage was wreaking havoc on Outlook, Microsoft Teams, and more. The all-day outage took any time to fix, but Microsoft yet got things under control late on Monday night.
- MSI has 2 fresh Windows-powered handheld gaming PCs. MSI is releasing two fresh Claw 7 AI Plus and Claw 8 AI Plus handhelds, starting at $799 for the Claw 7 and $899 for the Claw 8. MSI had any battery life and performance issues on its first effort with the first Claw last spring, so hopefully these fresh Lunar Lake-powered devices improve things this time around.
- Microsoft closes the door on Windows 11 supporting older hardware. Microsoft has poured cold water on any hopes of lower hardware requirements for Windows 11. A blog post this week makes it clear that the TPM 2.0 request is “non-negotiable” and that Microsoft won’t be lowering its Windows 11 hardware requirements ahead of the Windows 10 end of support date in October 2025. You can inactive bypass these restrictions with any workarounds or by utilizing the Windows 11 LTSC edition, but I surely wouldn’t urge workarounds, as you never know erstwhile an update could block older hardware.
- Microsoft is investigating a fresh in-game browser. Edge Game Assist is simply a new widget for the Xbox Game Bar overlay that brings up tips and guides for the game you’re playing on Windows 11. It’s fundamentally Microsoft’s equivalent of the Steam browser overlay, but it crucially uses the same profile you’re logged in to on Edge. You’ll have all your data, cookies, autofill, and favorites, so you won’t gotta log in to sites again.
- The fresh Microsoft 365 Companion apps start to appear. During Ignite last month, Microsoft surprise announced that Windows 11 is getting contacts, files, and calendar companions on the taskbar. While fewer details were shared about how these will work, Windows 11 testers started spotting the file search companion app appearing in builds last week. It looks like the apps will be web-based and float above the taskbar.
- The Microsoft store on Windows 11 is now faster with better support for Win32 apps. Microsoft has been quietly improving the Microsoft store app on Windows 11 in fresh months, reducing its start time by 25 percent and reducing the number of download hanging issues by 50 percent. I’m inactive not a large fan of this store for game downloads, but Microsoft has besides added Win32 app support to the store web installer, alongside a redesigned library page and a fresh updates and downloads page.
- Microsoft’s Copilot now has AI “Vision” to read webpages. Microsoft has started investigating its new Copilot imagination feature, which allows Microsoft’s AI companion to see what you see on an Edge webpage you’re browsing. This has the possible to be both cool and creepy, and a video demo shows how it could be useful for some. Microsoft is treading carefully here, though, limiting the Copilot imagination preview to any Copilot Pro subscribers in the US and only on certain websites. It’s looking at feedback before it rolls this out more broadly.
Thanks for subscribing and reading to the very end. Hopefully you read my email from earlier this week about Verge subscriptions, but if not, then your Notepad subscription is being rolled into a Verge subscription, so you get more benefits at a lower yearly cost. All the changes are outlined here, and if you’re experiencing any account issues or billing problems, then delight scope out to [email protected]. Thanks again for supporting my work and The Verge.
If you’ve heard about any of Microsoft’s another secret projects, you can scope me via email at [email protected] or talk to me confidentially on the Signal messaging app, where I’m tomwarren.01. I’m besides tomwarren on Telegram, if you’d like to chat there.
