Microsoft says its Movies & TV app on both Xbox and Windows 10 will support Disney's Movies Anywhere service starting this week
Tom Warren / The Verge :
Context & Ripple Effects
Disney built Movies Anywhere as a cross-studio digital locker, and its reach widened sharply when four major Hollywood studios joined in late 2017, pooling movies bought on Amazon Video, Google Play, iTunes and Vudu into one library. Microsoft's Movies & TV app was conspicuously outside that original lineup — even though the app itself had been repositioned as a general media surface back when Windows 10's music and video apps dropped the Xbox naming in 2015.
Adding Movies Anywhere support this week turns that rebranded app into a playback window for a locker Microsoft doesn't operate, on both of its consumer screens: Xbox consoles and Windows 10 PCs.
First-order effects
- Xbox and Windows 10 users with Movies Anywhere accounts can now watch their pooled studio libraries directly inside the Movies & TV app, no separate app or browser needed.
- Microsoft's storefront shifts from selling its own video inventory to also serving as a client for a competitor-cooperative locker it has no stake in.
Second-order effects
- Every purchase made at iTunes, Amazon Video, Google Play or Vudu becomes instantly watchable on Xbox and Windows, which strengthens the locker's value proposition against any single retailer's walled library.
- Other device platforms face the same pull Microsoft just answered — a pressure that showed up next when Movies Anywhere put out its first smart TV app on LG TVs in 2020.
Third-order effects
- Digital movie ownership is consolidating around cross-studio lockers rather than individual retailer ecosystems, pushing hardware makers to compete on being the best playback surface instead of defending closed stores.
- If the pattern holds, the studios collectively regain leverage over distribution platforms: the locker, not the storefront, becomes the customer relationship that matters.
The trend: Digital video is moving from retailer-locked libraries toward interoperable cross-studio lockers, with device makers racing to become the preferred screen for them.