In October, Microsoft announced that it would finally be able to start selling Xbox games through its app for Android devices in November. This is how Edge emphasizeshasn’t happened yet. Now Xbox CEO Sarah Bond has taken to social media to blame the delay on Google.
A year ago Epic scored a huge and surprising victory over Google in their ongoing lawsuit. Currently, all purchases on Android devices must go through Google’s payment system, which the search company charges a 30 percent fee. Epic that wants to be able to sell Fortnite game elements, without giving Google a third of the money, went to court, arguing that it was anti-competitive. Epic victory and then quite excitable comments from the judge AND final ruling in October 2024 meant that Google would have to end its dominance and enable alternative shopping methods on its devices for which it would not receive a cut.
Yes, “it would have been,” because of course it didn’t happen. Microsoft may have gone a bit overboard in announcing its plans based on the ruling, given the December 20, 2010 ruling course Google appealed and was granted an “administrative restraining order” to prevent such significant changes.
Yesterday on BlueSky, Sarah Bond explained the reasons for the delay from her perspective. “I recently shared our ambition to first unlock these features in the Google Play Store on Android devices in the US while other app stores adapt to consumer needs,” she wrote in the thread. “Due to the temporary administrative stay recently granted by the courts, we are currently unable to launch these features as planned.”
Bond goes on to claim that Microsoft has the functionality “built in and ready to deploy,” but is waiting for court approval.
This all gains an extra layer of irony considering Microsoft’s novel “This is an Xbox” ad campaign, which relies on the idea that any device can be an Xbox thanks to streaming. The same goes for an Android phone via a browser, of course, but Microsoft is clearly looking for a closed system where it can sell games via Android and then allow them to be played within the same app.
Google has long argued that for the safety of its customers it must continue to take a third of all money because its own Play Store prevents bad actors from abusing the system. “Microsoft, like Epic, is ignoring these very real security concerns,” the company said in a statement to Edge.
There’s also a lot of confusion that Microsoft doesn’t want to clear up, given that Sony allows you to buy games through the PlayStation app, as does Steam, although of course neither of them allows you to play games through that app. It’s not immediately clear whether Sony or Valve pay the 30 percent or avoid it due to triggering payments through websites loading in their apps, but either way, Microsoft apparently has no intention of doing so any time soon.
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