Microsoft explains where on Earth that Xbox Cloud Gaming iOS app got to

Microsoft his spilled the beans on why it hasn’t to date produced an Xbox Cloud Gaming app for iOS – and why you probably shouldn’t be holding your breath for one.

Apple finally made it possible to release cloud gaming apps onto the App Store way back in January, but you’d be forgiven for missing the rush to make up for lost time from game service developers. There hasn’t been one.

There’s still no GeForce Now app from Nvidia, and there’s still no Xbox Cloud Gaming app from Microsoft. Now a snippet of information from the latter company reveals why, and it’s a wearyingly familiar one.

The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is currently looking into mobile browsers and the distribution of cloud gaming services, which has prompted Microsoft to proffer that Apple’s changes to its App Store guidelines in January don’t go far enough. As related by The Verge, Microsoft feels that Apple continuing to charge a 30% IAP commission fee on all such subscriptions continues to “represent an obstacle to Cloud Gaming native apps”.

“Apple’s IAP commission fee is set at a level that is neither economically sustainable nor justifiable,” Microsoft claims.

Microsoft also believes that monetisation is a problem given that Apple “prevents different content, subscriptions or features (including consumables in multiplatform games) being offered to iOS users”.

It also points out that third party game makers would need to recode their games in order to comply with Apple’s requirements. And as anyone who has been following the games industry of late will know, game developers have more than enough on their plate without worrying about an at-best-gaming-agnostic platform holder.

One of the CMA’s proposed solutions to this impasse is to force Apple to allow cloud gaming apps to be “read-only”, thus stripping out any IAP or game recoding requirements. It may force both Apple Google to permit third party IAPs.

Apple states that it allows cloud gaming access on its devices through the web, but as anyone who’s used Microsoft’s Xbox Cloud Gaming on Safari or Chrome will tell you, it’s not an optimal experience. Microsoft mentions some of the limitations here, including the inability to access the kind of device hardware features that apps are allowed to.