Last year, Epic Games sued Apple over being kicked off the App store due to not using Apple’s payment system for microtransactions. The lawsuit is still ongoing but some documents recently filed. These documents give some pretty interesting details about Microsoft and its plan for the Xbox store.
Originally reported by the Verge, it seems that Microsoft is planning to reduce their cut on the Xbox store. Should this happen, they will only take 12% instead of the industry-standard 30%. This means that developers with products in the store will end up making more money. Despite how great this sounds, there is, as of writing, a major catch. According to the Verge, a Microsoft spokesperson told them, “We have no plans to change the revenue share for console games at this time.”
This price cut sounds great for developers but it appears there is a catch involving streaming rights. In the full document, the following quote can be found:
“There is a proposal currently under Gaming Leadership Team consideration to adopt 88 / 12 as a public PC games revenue share for all games in exchange for the grant of streaming rights to Microsoft”
One of the biggest selling points for Xbox consoles is Game Pass and its cloud streaming counterpart xCloud. Microsoft’s insistence on having the streaming rights of games in exchange for a reduction of their cut shows how serious they are about cloud streaming. It seems they’ve learned from NVIDIA’s mistake of putting games on their cloud streaming service without permission. By doing this, Microsoft is ensuring that third-party games on xCloud aren’t unexpectedly removed.
The Apple vs Epic Games case has highlighted Microsoft’s rivalry with Apple. There have been many times in the past where Apple has stopped a Microsoft app from launching on iOS. The most recent one being xCloud, which will eventually launch on the platform. They seem to be pushing for Epic Games to win this case most likely in an attempt to get Apple to lower their 30% cut. The redacted court document can be found at this link. Are you at all interested in the outcome Apple vs Epic Games case? Let us know in the comments below.
