 |
| Microsoft was unable to bring Xbox games to the App Store |
When Apple revised its guidelines last year to allow the company to offer cloud gaming services like xCloud and Stadia through iOS, Microsoft is willing to work with Apple on many of its requests.
Microsoft previously said that forcing users to download hundreds of game apps is a bad experience. But if Apple accepts his proposal, they are willing to do so.
The software giant has offered to deliver Xbox-exclusive games via iPhone. These games could have been played via xCloud and streamed from the server instead of relying on the phone's local processing power.
If the deal works out, you could theoretically buy a copy of a game like Halo Infinite from the Apple App Store and then play it like any other app.
Xbox Business Development Director Laurie Wright (Laurie Wright) has made a proposal that would allow companies to place personal game apps on the iOS Store without taking up user space.
The company has asked Apple to separately apply its streaming media technology to the Gaming Pass app.
This gives the company the ability to expand the gaming app itself to 30MB instead of 150MB when streaming technology is built into each app.
Microsoft plans to turn games into iPhone apps
Apparently, Wright also offered iOS users exclusive Xbox games to impress Apple.
"This is an opportunity for iOS users to get exclusive Xbox games and Game Pass games," she wrote.
At the same time, Microsoft has widespread concerns about integrating the Xbox game service into a single App Store app.
I mentioned the complexity of creating and dealing with hundreds of apps, how having to update each app to fix bugs, and how those app icons can wreak havoc on the iOS home screen.
"We believe the issues described here will create frustration and confusion for customers," she wrote. Compared to similar experiences on all other platforms, this resulted in a lower than average experience on Apple devices.
But last March, Microsoft suggested creating hundreds of individual apps for display in the App Store, provided they looked like shortcuts.
The company claims that this is similar to how watchOS apps work. In the case of a single stream application, its size can be about 150 MB. However, other applications will not exceed 30MB in size. If you update your media streaming technology, you don't need to update it. It is a better user experience.
Before xCloud starts in the browser, it's ready
Obviously none of that happened. Microsoft rejected Apple's new App Store guidelines in September 2020. A month later, Microsoft announced an alternative web version of xCloud. which came in April.
The software giant stated that Apple rejected the proposals because it insisted that every game must contain a complete streaming package and would not accept any other content.
The company said, “Our proposal is to offer games through a single app that complies with App Store guidelines.” Apple denied our request for a streaming technology app that supports a single game app. From a support and tech perspective, forcing every game to integrate our streaming technology suite has proven impractical.
The App Store's director of games said in late April that this may not be the only reason the two companies failed to reach an agreement, but it could also be related to funding.
And some people fear that Microsoft might not want to make in-game purchases in every game: “They want to process all in-app purchases in the legacy system while they pay us,” the App Store game manager wrote.
He cited the view that Apple should allow Microsoft games to bypass in-app purchases. He said, "They don't want to pay us, but they want to avoid a lot of API fixes."
Apple said, "Microsoft's recommended version of xCloud does not meet the App Store review guidelines. In particular, the use of in-app purchases to activate built-in functions or plug-ins."
Microsoft denied that the issue of in-app purchases was the reason for Apple's refusal. The company said: "The reasons for the rejection have nothing to do with the possibilities of in-app purchases." We are currently offering xCloud with one Xbox Game Pass app in the Google Play Store. And that without enabling in-app purchase. We do the same on the App Store if permitted.