Microsoft Nearly Turned Its Exclusives Into iOS Apps - Report

Last year, Microsoft made a big deal about how Apple's insistence that each of its games needed to be an individual app was behind the reason for its streaming service, Xbox Cloud Gaming, from appearing on iOS. That hasn't changed since, but it seems Microsoft was actually ready to concede behind-the-scenes.

In new emails obtained by The Verge as part of the Epic vs. Apple trial, it's been revealed that there was a lot of discussion between Microsoft and Apple over bringing Xbox games to the App Store. Microsoft seemingly went as far as offering to make each game available on its own if it could have a central app to host all the cloud gaming technology--a proposal which Apple ultimately denied.

Even more curiously, Microsoft was willing to sweeten the deal with Apple by reportedly developing Xbox AAA exclusives for iOS, which would then be sold exclusively on the App Store. "This would be an incredibly exciting opportunity for iOS users to get access to these exclusive AAA titles in addition to the Game Pass games," wrote Lori Wright, head of Xbox business development.

Microsoft did, however, not seem to want to concede on the issue on in-app purchases, which would effectively give Apple a 30% cut of each of their sales on the App Store. Microsoft wanted a different deal exclusive to them (which isn't out of the norm for Apple), but the company refused to budge. The Verge notes that this wasn't the breakdown of the deal, but that it certainly contributed.

"The reasons for rejection were unrelated to in-app purchase capabilities; we currently provide Xbox Cloud Gaming through a singular Xbox Game Pass app in the Google Play Store without IAP enabled, for example, and we would do the same through the App Store if allowed," states Microsoft's Xbox Cloud Gaming CVP, Kareem Choudhry.

Ultimately, Apple announced its new App Store guidelines in September 2020, to which Microsoft immediately spoke against as it prevented it from putting any streaming service for games on the App Store at all. Instead, Microsoft released support for Xbox Cloud Gaming via the browser, circumventing the App Store but making the process a little clumsier for users in the process. There's no indication that either party is going to change their respective approach any time soon, either.