Microsoft says Apple's App Store changes still create a bad experience for gamers, who want a catalog app and not to “be forced to download over 100 apps”
Apple is changing its App Store rules to allow game streaming services, which let people play video games over the internet …
Context & Ripple Effects
Apple spent months holding that xCloud and Stadia could not run on iOS at all because it cannot review each streamed game, after earlier App Store rules locked Microsoft, Google, and Nvidia out of iOS cloud gaming entirely. Its revised guidelines now permit streaming apps — but only if every game is also offered as an individual App Store download.
Microsoft's response is immediate rejection: without a single catalog app, subscribers would juggle over 100 separate installs. The company carries this same complaint into its [[a:874277|later comments to the UK CMA arguing the guideline changes still don't allow a native Xbox Cloud Gaming app]], making this the opening move in a multi-year dispute.
First-order effects
- Microsoft cannot ship xCloud on iOS as the catalog experience it designed — the individual-download requirement forces either a fragmented install flow or no launch at all.
- iPhone gamers who want subscription-style access to a game library stay limited to whatever fits Apple's per-title model.
Second-order effects
- Google and Nvidia face the identical constraint, so the entire cloud gaming category competes on iOS under terms set by one company's review process rather than by service quality or price.
- Microsoft channels its grievance into regulatory venues like the UK CMA, converting a distribution dispute into antitrust evidence about how App Store rules gate rival services.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, whether subscription gaming reaches Apple devices is decided by guideline drafting and regulators rather than technical capability — a structural test of how much control a gatekeeper can retain while formally 'allowing' competitors.
- The catalog-app standoff becomes a template case in the broader push to define when platform review requirements amount to exclusion of rival business models.
The trend: Cloud gaming's availability on iOS is increasingly determined by App Store rule design and regulatory pressure rather than by what the services are technically able to deliver.