Microsoft looks set to launch its long-anticipated Xbox Mobile Store at any moment.
We’ve known since May that Microsoft was planning to launch its Xbox-themed mobile app store in July. Xbox President Sarah Bond confirmed as much.
It’s now the last day of July, and a new website has popped up (first spotted by X user Klobrille) for the Xbox Mobile Store. It appears to be a holding page at present, with the words “Coming Soon” featured prominently.
The rest of the blurb reads as follows: “Thank you for participating in the Xbox Insiders program. As part of our testing process, you have been placed in a holdback group and currently do not have access to this feature. Your support is invaluable to us, and we ask for your patience as we prepare for the public release. Stay connected with Xbox for further updates.”
This would seem to indicate that access will be available initially to members of the Xbox Insider Programme, which lets fans sign up to offer direct feedback on Xbox games and services. It would also tally with Bond’s assertion that the Xbox Mobile Store would launch as a web page first.
Back in March, she also revealed that the first titles offered through the store would be the company’s own games. There are more of those mobile games than you might initially think. Minecraft is the obvious one, but there’s also the considerable output of casual maestro King, which makes the Candy Crush, Farm Heroes, and Bubble Witch games. Microsoft took ownership of the developer when it acquired Activision Blizzard.
Third party content will apparently hit the Xbox Mobile Store at a later date.
Solid leaks about an Xbox-branded mobile games store emerged in 2022, when a filing with the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) around the Activision Blizzard acquisition revealed that Microsoft wanted to “create a next generation game store which operates across a range of devices, including mobile”.
Unless there’s been a setback in Microsoft’s plans, expect to hear something on its new gaming-focused app store very soon indeed.
