Apple revised its App Store guidelines on Friday ahead of the release of iOS 14, the latest version of the iPhone operating system, which is expected later this month.
The changes on Friday include rules that directly affect game streaming services. Microsoft and Facebook have publicly said in recent months that Apple’s rules have restricted what their gaming apps can do on iPhones and iPads.
Apple says that game streaming services, like Google Stadia and Microsoft xCloud, are explicitly permitted. But there are conditions: Games offered in the service need to be downloaded directly from the App Store, not from an all-in-one app.
This sounds like a nonstarter for xCloud. Like Apple just wants to be able to say they aren’t technically banning it. But they know a configuration like what they’re suggesting will never work.
Does that mean Apple wants you to buy the game from the Apple App Store again? Because with xCloud you don’t download a game, you stream from a cloud service … Weird wording …
Yeah… this is not gonna help. Could be beneficial for Stadia… maybe? If they can include separate ‘apps’ which stream the game, only if you own the game on Stadia. For Game Pass this is gonna be a horrorshow.
No game streaming service is going to accept these terms, imagine on the app story searching for a hypothetical example destiny, you see destiny (xcloud), destiny (stadia) and destiny (geforce now/ psnow), the app store would be littered full of duplicate games due to the different services.
MS:
“This remains a bad experience for customers, gamers want to jump directly into a game from their curated catalog within one app just like they do with movies or songs, and not be forced to download over 100 apps to play individual games from the cloud. We’re committed to putting gamers at the center of everything we do, and providing a great experience is core to that mission.”
This would never work. Apple demanding they list every single game as an individual app is idiotic. It completely goes against the purpose of a streaming service, where the consumer is already used browsing a catalog and access it’s contents from a central place.
This is something that will eventually end up in court as other streaming services are not subject to this level of scrutiny. Imagine forcing Netflix to create an app for each individual movie or show? Or Spotify with music? Etc… These games are being streamed and running on MS cloud hardware. It’s an entertainment streaming service just Netflix/Hulu/Spotify etc…
