At the ongoing Epic Games v. Apple trial, Microsoft has testified as a witness for Epic, explaining to the judge how Apple’s new privacy rules for its App Store blocked its xCloud gaming service, Engadget is reporting.
Microsoft’s business development head Lori Wright also detailed the company’s 30% commission on the Xbox Store apps and explained why console store rules need to be different from those on PCs or smartphones.
Wright added that Microsoft had also proposed various technical fixes and financial arrangements to make it possible for Apple to get a share of game sales. However, it eventually had to give up on getting xCloud onto the App Store and instead release an iOS web browser version in beta.
However, “the challenge is people don’t play games over browser on the iPhone. Look at the data — all the gameplay is through the App Store. People are not playing games on the browser on iPhone,” she said.
Citing critics, Apple countered that the xCloud is actually a “super-solid” and “remarkably polished” experience on Safari. However, Wright countered that it took Microsoft “a lot of work we had to go through to deliver that polish. We had to start from scratch and re-deliver.”
Wright further said that Microsoft has never made a profit on the sale of an Xbox console because it’s just one part of an end-to-end experience.
