Mike Peterson
In an interview on CNBC, Microsoft's Xbox lead Phil Spencer said it remains committed to bringing Xbox Game Pass to a variety of platforms, including Apple's iPhone.
In August, Microsoft ended its Project xCloud testing on iOS, citing Apple's restrictive rules on cloud gaming systems. But, at the time, the company said it would still look for a way to bring Xbox Game Cloud to the App Store.
During a CNBC interview On Monday concerning Microsoft's acquisition of Bethesda Softworks, Spencer reiterated that commitment to bring the cloud service to Apple devices.
"We're committed to bringing Game Pass to all mobile phones out there, including Apple phones," Spencer said. "We'll continue the conversations and I'm sure we'll be able to get to some resolution."
When asked about why Microsoft has spoken out against Apple's policies, Spencer said that it wasn't a financial issue related to Apple's 30% of in-app purchases. Instead, the Xbox chief said it was because Game Pass — and cloud gaming services as a whole — aren't allowed on Apple's mobile devices in their current form.
The comments come a few days after Microsoft released a similar statement to French newspaper Le Figaro. "I'm determined to find a solution. We talk to them a lot. It won't be today, probably not tomorrow, but we will manage to bring Game Pass to iPhone," Spencer told the publication.
It seems that Spencer was referring to the Xcloud aspect of Game Pass, rather than native ports. Microsoft's Xcloud is a server-based game solution, where the heavy lifting and graphically intensive calculations are performed on Microsoft-provided servers, with the game video stream being send to the phone, and user input returned to the game server.
Microsoft originally killed its plans to bring Xbox Game Pass to the iPhone due to Apple restrictions barring apps from streaming content from the cloud and requiring individual games to have their own app store listings, among other rules. Apple's own Apple Arcade service follows those guidelines.
Earlier in September, Apple loosened existing cloud gaming rules. Among the changes were new guidelines permitting "catalog apps" to help users sign up for cloud gaming services. Apple maintained its requirement for each game to have an App Store listing.
Microsoft was quick to criticize those changes for not going far enough, claiming that they still made for a "bad experience."
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Now that Microsoft is buying Zenimax, presumably that includes Bethesda Game Studios, which means that Microsoft will own all of BGS' IP, including Fallout. So maybe they could transfer the Fallout IP to Obsidian. 🤣
Note that unlike Stadia and GeForce Now - both of which I access on my Chromebooks from time to time - xCloud is not yet available on browser or PC. So this looks like a staged release to get a product in the wild in time for preorders for XBox X and XBox S (which launch tomorrow). So the mobile app was only stage 1, and in fact the Game Pass web site still declares the service to be in a beta state.
Bringing the cloud service to existing Game Pass PC customers - who already have a Windows 10 app - will come in early 2021 and be stage 2. Meaning that the final stage will likely be browser support.
If Apple doesn't decide to just go ahead and treat a "Netflix or iTunes for games" service like a, well, Netflix or iTunes for games service, then browser support is how xCloud will get onto Apple devices. On macOS, obviously. As for iOS and iPadOS, it depends upon whether the mobile version of Safari can support video game streaming. Honestly, I seriously doubt it. However, that "may" be an area where Microsoft and Apple could collaborate on ... updating iOS Safari in a way that gives it game streaming capability. I could see Nvidia taking advantage of that with GeForce Now also, as well as the Amazon and PlayStation services when they launch. Stadia? If it is still in existence by then - because honestly having played all 3 services (Stadia and GeForce Now both have free tiers and the initial month of xCloud is only $1) and it is clearly the worst in UI/UX and game selection - it is 50/50 at best, as they have so much invested in leveraging Chrome.
I would be curious - since they are the only ones that are not an Apple competitor - does Nvidia have a plan for getting on iOS and iPadOS? That would be intriguing to know.
For anyone interested, here's a real world example of what users can expect. I chose this video specifically because the youtuber has below average-to-average internet service. It's probably similar to a large swath of the populace. Judging the service on someone streaming on a Gigabit connection seems it would be a best case scenario instead of a realistic representation. For reference, he's streaming Forza Horizon 4. 63GB base game, over 100GB with DLC content. Also a tidbit of Sea of Thieves, and a sad attempt at using mobile data.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UJVNTEZJZ0