That ‘gamer-first’ app store Xbox keeps talking about appears to be soft launching within its existing Android app.
In posts on X and LinkedIn, Xbox president Sarah Bond said: “The court’s ruling to open up Google’s mobile store in the US will allow more choice and flexibility. Our mission is to allow more players to play on more devices so we are thrilled to share that starting in November, players will be able to play and purchase Xbox games directly from the Xbox App on Android.”
Bond’s statement suggests that Xbox’s previously announced ‘gamer-first’ app store will be effectively soft launching on Android within the Xbox app. This follows the news from earlier this week that Google is to be forced to open out the Play store to greater competition in the US, as a result of the Epic vs Google trial.
But as ever with Xbox’s app store, there’s very little other information out there currently. We’re following up with Xbox PR and will add any further detail if we get it.
It was Xbox boss Bond who originally announced the Xbox app store back in May, during the Bloomberg Technology Summit. At the time, she said it would launch in July, and that its first party titles like Candy Crush and Minecraft would be part of the store. It would start out as a web store initially, and then would start to add third party titles after launch.
But since then, as we’ve reported previously, there’s been very little information out in the market since. Our sources suggest Xbox has a handful of publishers under NDA, but others said they have enquired about placing their games on the store but came away with nothing. And once its original July launch window had passed Xbox told us that the store was “progressing well” – but did not confirm a date or any other details.
