Adam Kos Microsoft had to abandon its project to launch the xCloud game streaming platform on iOS last year. This, of course, is due to the strict rules of the App Store. Now emails from Microsoft have revealed that the company tried to negotiate with Apple nonetheless. Sony was in a similar situation before.
Yesterday we brought you an article discussing AAA games in the App Store and Apple Arcade. Sure, you'll find quality titles in both, but they can't match the console ones. And here is an elegant solution that can bring any popular, and above all, full-fledged adult title to the displays of iPhones and iPads. Of course, we're talking about game streaming here, which also doesn't care about the performance of your mobile phone or tablet.
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Nice effort by Microsoft
The Verge stated that Microsoft has indeed tried various ways to bring its games to the App Store. The company started testing its xCloud for iOS already in February 2020, but ended the development of a separate application in August after Apple simply announced that such a service would simply not be allowed in its App Store. The point of streaming games is that they run on the server of the provider, in this case Microsoft. But Apple says here that applications acting as any App Store alternatives are prohibited. It only allows streaming of games if they are released as standalone apps, and they wouldn't be here as they would be part of the xCloud app.
Gallery
Emails between Xbox head of business development Lori Wright and several members of the App Store team mention that Microsoft expressed considerable concern in this regard, how releasing games as standalone apps would be impractical not only due to technical issues, but also because it would frustrate player. At one point, Microsoft even considered releasing games in the App Store as a form of link. Such a game would be downloaded from the App Store (practically it would only be a link), but it would contain its own description as well as images and other essentials, but its operation would be streamed from the server.
Here, too, Microsoft stumbled. Since the game would be free and players would log into it with their Xbox Game Pass, Apple would lose money, which it does not want to allow. So it is not surprising that Apple did not allow this either. The solution could be passed in the event that the game would be paid directly in the App Store, thanks to which Apple would receive a percentage of the payment made, but this raises the question of how it would be with the subscription. Arguments that this move would give the iPhone and iPad a large number of truly full-fledged AAA games, which the App Store simply lacks, did not help either.
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Sony and Playstation Now
The Redmond company wasn't the only one trying to bring game streaming to the iOS and iPadOS platforms. Sure she showed effort and Sony with its PlayStation Now platform. This information resulted from the Epic Games case, which declassified the company's plans to introduce a similar service to the App Store even as early as 2017.
PS5
At the time, Playstation Now was available on PS3, PS Vita and Plastation TV, as well as supported TVs and Blue-ray players. Subsequently, however, it switched only and only to PS4 and PC. Even Sony didn't succeed at the time, although it was said to be because Apple was already preparing Apple Arcade, which it introduced two years later.
The solution is simple
Whether it is Microsoft xCloud or Google Stadia and others, at least these providers have figured out how to legally bypass Apple's restrictions. All they need is Safari. In it, you log in to the appropriate services with your data, and the environment practically replaces an application that, however, would not be accepted in the App Store. It's less user-friendly, but it works. Players can therefore be satisfied in the end, because they already have the option of playing triple-A titles so easily on iPhones and iPads. Just without any input from Apple. In the text of the classic saying, it can be said that the providers and the players ate each other, but Apple remained hungry, because it does not make a dollar from this solution and is actually just a fool.
This is again misleading nonsense, GFN in Safari etc. definitely did not come about without Apple's contribution, it was necessary to add a lot of technologies to Safari that Apple voluntarily added... So the statement that they messed with Apple is wrong..
Unfortunately, the user-friendliness is really worse through Safari. Especially when I keep looking at the battery status at the top while playing, the white line for the home screen gesture at the bottom and stuff like that. It's on ... but you know:) Anyway, Apple proves again that it just doesn't measure everyone the same, because Netflix now has games in App Sotra and you just have to log in to them with a subscription, so Apple doesn't get a penny from it. It's just stupid to block this. Also, everything works fine on the Mac, even though MS doesn't have its application there anyway and the user has to run it through Safari, where the response is really terrible.