Microsoft to open web-based mobile game store this summer

Microsoft is set to open its web-based Xbox mobile game store in the coming couple of months.

The news comes from Xbox president Sarah Bond, who was speaking at yesterday’s Bloomberg Technology Summit.

“In July, we are going to be launching our mobile store experience,” Bond said. “We’re going to start actually by bringing our own first-party portfolio to that.” This will include games such as Candy Crush, which Microsoft now owns thanks to its acquisition of King’s parent company Activision Blizzard last year, and Minecraft.

After this initial start, the plan is then to “extend that capability to partners,” Bond said, stating this will allow others to “take advantage of it and have a true cross-platform gaming centric mobile experience.”

When Microsoft’s upcoming mobile store makes its debut this summer, it will be web-based. “We’re doing that because that really allows us to have it be an experience that’s accessible across all devices, all countries, no matter what, independent of the policies of closed ecosystem stores,” Bond explained, adding Microsoft will then extend the store from there.

While Bond was quite clear on Microsoft’s plans for its mobile storefront, the Xbox exec was less concise when the topic of Bethesda’s studio closures came up. When asked directly about the closures, Bond replied:

“It’s always extraordinarily hard when you have to make decisions like that… When we looked at those fundamental [industry] trends we feel a deep responsibility to ensure that the games we make, the devices we build, the services that we offer are there through moments. Even when the industry isn’t growing, when you’re through a time of transition.

“The news we announced earlier in the week is an outcome of that, in our commitment to make sure that the business is healthy for the long term.” Later in his response, Bond said the company’s focus is on “the people impacted and doing everything we can do to help through this hard transition.”

When the recently shut down Hi-Fi Rush developer Tango Gameworks and its success was specifically highlighted, Bond again dodged the question, giving a far from satisfactory response.

Said Bond: “You know, one of the things I really love about the games industry is that it’s a creative art form, and it means that the situation and what success is for each game and studio is also really unique. There’s no one size fits all to it for us, and so, we look at each studio, each game team, and we look at a whole variety of factors when we’re faced with sort of making decisions and tradeoffs like that. “our long-term commitment to the games we create, the devices we build, the services and ensuring that we’re setting ourselves up to be able to deliver on these promises.”

You can watch the full interview with Bond below.

Since news of Bethesda’s studio closures broke, condemnation across the industry has been fierce. Arkane Lyon boss Dinga Bakaba shared an impassioned thread soon after the news broke, calling the entire situation “a fucking gut stab.” Bethesda’s regional director Alistair Hatch added he was “Angry. Frustrated. Shocked. Furious. Speechless. Dumbfounded. Perplexed.”