Microsoft plans its own mobile games store to compete with Apple and Google

Microsoft plans its own mobile games store to compete with Apple and Google, perhaps as early as 2024, according to The Financial Times (a subscription is required to read the article).

“We want to be in a position to offer Xbox and content from both us and our third-party partners across any screen where somebody would want to play,” Microsoft Gaming chief executive Phil Spencer, the FT. “Today, we can’t do that on mobile devices but we want to build towards a world that we think will be coming where those devices are opened up … The Digital Markets Act that’s coming – those are the kinds of things that we are planning for. I think it’s a huge opportunity.”

The Digital Markets Act, published by the European Union last March, would, among other things, require firms such as Apple to offer alternatives to its App Store and payment systems.

Not surprisingly, Apple strongly opposes the DMA. The tech giant told ABC News that “it was concerned that parts of the Digital Markets Act “will create unnecessary privacy and security vulnerabilities for our users while others will prohibit us from charging for intellectual property in which we invest a great deal.”

The EU is a political and economic union of 28 member states that are located primarily in Europe. Its policies aim “to ensure the free movement of people, goods, services, and capital within the internal market, enact legislation in justice and home affairs, and maintain common policies on trade, agriculture, fisheries, and regional development.”