With US lawmakers having ruled against Google in its years-long battle with Epic Games, Microsoft isn’t wasting any time in taking advantage. So, from November, gamers will be able to both purchase and play Xbox games directly from the Xbox app on Android.
Buying Xbox Games From the Xbox App on Android
Google has been involved in a years-long battle with Epic Games over the way the Google Play Store operates. In a nutshell, the latter was unhappy at being forced to use Google’s billing system to sell anything through its Android app. And with Epic effectively winning the argument, the Google Play Store is due to get a massive shakeup.
Microsoft hasn’t wasted any time in using the court ruling to its advantage, with Xbox president Sarah Bond announcing in a post on X that this will allow the company to sell games directly from the Xbox app.
Until now, while gamers have been able to download and stream games through the Xbox app, they haven’t been able to purchase them directly. Instead, they’ve been directed to buy games from a web-based storefront accessed via a browser. So, it’s a small change, but an important one for consumer choice.
Shouldn’t Gamers Have Always Had This Option?
Now that this is happening, it feels like something that should always have been possible. We don’t quite know why Microsoft had opted not to sell Xbox games directly from the Xbox app on Android, but in the void left by Microsoft’s lack of any real explanation, we can hazard a good guess.
While it was technically possible to sell games from the Android app, it would have meant paying Google a commission on every game sold. And Microsoft was never likely to accept that as an outcome. Better instead to wait for Google to be forced to stop forcing its billing system on everyone, so that Microsoft can claim all the profit for itself.
Will this change the world for gamers? No. Many won’t even ever use the Xbox app to purchase games. But they probably should have always had the choice to do so, and that’s the point.
