When Microsoft announced its intention to acquire Activision Blizzard, it had several long-term strategic goals, including entering the mobile gaming market and creating an Xbox Store.

Theverge's Tom Warren shared with us a new report that Microsoft wants to create a digital game store-like model for companies like Apple and Google, which will present a new challenger for it and a new competitor for the two giants in this arena, securing the software giant a share of a lucrative market with minimal risk.

The real reasons behind the deal with Activision Blizzard

The reasons for the US$1.4 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard are still under investigation by the UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), and this after having received approval from the Saudi and Brazilian regulatory bodies, as Microsoft has confirmed on more than one occasion and in its filings with the bodies, that the reason for its acquisition The main focus of the Call of Duty developer is to help it strengthen its presence in the mobile gaming market, here are the most important things the company has mentioned:

This transaction will enhance the company’s ability to create a next-generation game store that works across a variety of devices, including mobile devices powered by the addition of Activision Blizzard content.

Building on its existing player communities, Activision Blizzard will look to expand the Xbox Store to mobile devices and attract players to the new Xbox Mobile platform. However, pulling consumers away from the Google Play Store and App Store on other mobile devices will require a major shift in consumer behavior.

Microsoft hopes that by offering popular and trending content, gamers will be more inclined to try something new.

Among the mobile games that are popular enough to encourage the company to move forward with its strategy are Call of Duty: Mobile and Candy Crush Saga published by Activision and King, and represent half of Activision Blizzard's revenue, and here the company could leverage them to help create a digital store to compete with Google Play and the App Store with the necessary expertise.

And given Apple's policies of consistently banning third-party app stores on iOS, it's hard to imagine Microsoft competing for iPhones any time soon. But that won't stop it from pursuing its ambition, and Xbox Cloud Gaming is further proof of that.

However, the CMA has barely discussed the possibility and purpose of Microsoft's entry into the mobile gaming market and as part of its investigations is focusing heavily on console gaming, which Microsoft argues is the smaller segment of the overall market.

The graph below, which was published in 2020, shows the importance and magnitude of the mobile games market, which represents 51% (85 billion dollars), while home consoles represent 20%, with a value of 33 billion dollars, in contrast to computer games drunk 24 percent, valued at US $ 40 billion.

xbox store creation solutions

Creating a competitor to the Google Play Store or the App Store will be a major challenge for the company, so Microsoft will need to recruit third-party developers to help it achieve this, as the company will allow developers' app stores to run freely on the Xbox mobile platform.

Most importantly, it offers its own “off-the-wall” payment systems to process in-app purchases, and this is not provided by Apple, as Microsoft has previously confirmed.

Epic Games was one of those companies that the CEO of Epic Games sided with in combating Apple's App Store policies, as the CEO of Epic Games welcomed Tim Sweeney With Microsoft hinting that it is “committed to closing the gap in the remaining principles over time,” Epic has asked to help argue its case in court in the case of Fortnite being blocked from iOS stores.