Phil Spencer: "We're committed to bringing Game Pass to Apple phones. I'm sure we'll be able to get to some resolution."

digitalrelic · Sep 21, 2020

Couldn't fit the whole quote in the thread title, but it was "We're committed to bringing Game Pass to all mobile phones out there, including Apple phones. We'll continue the conversations and I'm sure we'll be able to get to some resolution".

Video here (quote is at 1:19):

To me, that sounds like a pretty confident statement on the future of xCloud on iPhone.

Kaeden · Sep 21, 2020

CNBC Video Interview: Xbox head Phil Spencer on the $7.5 billion deal to buy Bethesda parent ZeniMax [4:40]

Phil Spencer, head of Xbox at Microsoft, joins "Squawk Alley" to discuss the company's acquisition of ZeniMax, the parent of popular video game publisher Bethesda.

www.resetera.com

edit: okay my bad on rushing to show the video was already posted, it's different enough.

Bovandy · Sep 21, 2020

Eh. What's he gonna say? "No we're done with Apple."

digitalrelic · Sep 21, 2020

Kadin said:
CNBC Video Interview: Xbox head Phil Spencer on the $7.5 billion deal to buy Bethesda parent ZeniMax [4:40]

Phil Spencer, head of Xbox at Microsoft, joins "Squawk Alley" to discuss the company's acquisition of ZeniMax, the parent of popular video game publisher Bethesda.

www.resetera.com

That thread has an entirely different focus though.

Puroresu_kid · Sep 21, 2020

Can't see it happening unless Apple make some big changes.

digitalrelic · Sep 21, 2020

Bovandy said:
Eh. What's he gonna say? "No we're done with Apple."

He could say a lot of things. "We'd love to have Game Pass on all devices, but we have nothing to share at this time.". "Fortunately you can play Game Pass on a wide variety of Android devices, and our Windows platforms in the near future.". etc.. etc.. etc..

Instead, he said that he's sure they'll reach a resolution.

Mcfrank · Sep 21, 2020

Apple's position on this makes no sense. It is no different than Netflix. Just make sure people cant sign up in app and there is no reason for Apple to block this.

LeMillion · Sep 21, 2020

I hope that they can come to some kind of agreement. Having access to XCloud would pretty much lock me into Microsoft's ecosystem until the end of time. I'm just not going to switch to Android to make that happen.

gifyku · Sep 21, 2020

I mentioned this in another thread but if Nadella is willing to give 7.5B to Xbox for Zenimax, I imagine maybe he is willing to hold Office back from going native ARM when the ARM macbooks launch later this year? Office and Adobe are the apps Apple need for that transition to work

RedShift_ · Sep 21, 2020

Sho_Nuff82 · Sep 21, 2020

I could see them offering Apple a one time fee to make an exception, or a cut of subs (based on app store usage) to make it happen

Theorry · Sep 21, 2020

Hope the resolution is 4K

Tmespe · Sep 21, 2020

gifyku said:
I mentioned this in another thread but if Nadella is willing to give 7.5B to Xbox for Zenimax, I imagine maybe he is willing to hold Office back from going native ARM when the ARM macbooks launch later this year? Office and Adobe are the apps Apple need for that transition to work

No way. Office is way more important to Microsoft than Xbox.

Wil Grieve · Sep 21, 2020

Mcfrank said:
Apple's position on this makes no sense. It is no different than Netflix. Just make sure people cant sign up in app and there is no reason for Apple to block this.

It's because of their militant desire to ensure every product and service they provide is mediocre.

Berordn · Sep 21, 2020

Mcfrank said:
Apple's position on this makes no sense. It is no different than Netflix. Just make sure people cant sign up in app and there is no reason for Apple to block this.

apple's position makes sense, even if their reasoning doesn't. they clearly see game pass streaming as a competitor to apple arcade, even if they don't want to admit it outright. they don't want to have to compete with other services on their platform and they're doing what they can to choke out others, but at some point it just starts looking bad on them.

digitalrelic · Sep 21, 2020

Tmespe said:
No way. Office is way more important to Microsoft that Xbox.

Office is also way more important to Apple than some arbitrary App Store restrictions that disallow Game Pass streaming.

gifyku · Sep 21, 2020

Tmespe said:
No way. Office is way more important to Microsoft that Xbox.

Office will still work. As an emulated Rosetta app. Apple just wont get its shiny "see how fast this app is on native ARM" moment.

Kromis · Sep 21, 2020

gifyku said:
I mentioned this in another thread but if Nadella is willing to give 7.5B to Xbox for Zenimax, I imagine maybe he is willing to hold Office back from going native ARM when the ARM macbooks launch later this year? Office and Adobe are the apps Apple need for that transition to work

There's a cloud version of Office 365 though. That can always be an alternative unless you mean for them to support legacy Office products on ARM

Duxxy3 · Sep 21, 2020

I'm sure they'll come up with something for Microsoft.

Mcfrank · Sep 21, 2020

Berordn said:
apple's position makes sense, even if their reasoning doesn't. they clearly see game pass streaming as a competitor to apple arcade, even if they don't want to admit it outright. they don't want to have to compete with other services on their platform and they're doing what they can to choke out others, but at some point it just starts looking bad on them.

But again, they allow Netflix which is a competitor to Apple TV+.

gnexus · Sep 21, 2020

I'm guessing they'll back a dump truck of money into Cupertino. Maybe agree on some cash percentage dependent on hours streamed on iOS

Berordn · Sep 21, 2020

Mcfrank said:
But again, they allow Netflix which is a competitor to Apple TV+.

netflix had the advantage of existing prior to TV+, game pass is coming onto the platform after arcade. their play is pretty transparent

that said, i'm sure with the pressure from all sides apple will eventually make a closed door deal to allow select services on in exchange for some other benefit

Deleted member 13101 · Sep 21, 2020

Did he just make a pun?

blame space · Sep 21, 2020

i don't understand how this is fundamentally different than netflix or hulu or whatever. just because they came first?

MattD · Sep 21, 2020

Hopefully they work things out soon-ish. I'm willing to buy a series s for game pass if I have to, but really I'd prefer to just use my iPad that I already have.

CountAntonio · Sep 21, 2020

Not happy with Apple about this and feel they should get more shit for it on here.

MJForum Poster · Sep 21, 2020

gifyku said:
I mentioned this in another thread but if Nadella is willing to give 7.5B to Xbox for Zenimax, I imagine maybe he is willing to hold Office back from going native ARM when the ARM macbooks launch later this year? Office and Adobe are the apps Apple need for that transition to work

You could just emulate the old version of Office then with their Roestta 2 layer. Microsoft needs to be on Apple devices more than Apple needs Microsoft to port their stuff

digitalrelic · Sep 21, 2020

blame space said:
i don't understand how this is fundamentally different than netflix or hulu or whatever. just because they came first?

It isn't different at all. Apple's stance here is ludicrous, to be frank.

Liquid Plejades · Sep 21, 2020

Would be very happy if this happens.

Diarrhea Day-Lewis · Sep 21, 2020

After Apple what is next? Roku? Amazon Fire? And, of course other consoles?

gifyku · Sep 21, 2020

MJForum Poster said:
You could just emulate the old version of Office then with their Roestta 2 layer. Microsoft needs to be on Apple devices more than Apple needs Microsoft to port their stuff

This is not really true. I have a company issued Macbook and trust me, the only reason the company allows me to have a Macbook is because Office is on it. Otherwise, I have to use a Dell or whatever else.

The Office lockin in enterprises dictates everything from OS updates to hardware purchases.

gifyku · Sep 21, 2020

gifyku said:
This is not really true. I have a company issued Macbook and trust me, the only reason the company allows me to have a Macbook is because Office is on it. Otherwise, I have to use a Dell or whatever else.

The Office lockin in enterprises dictates everything from OS updates to hardware purchases.

MJForum Poster said:
You could just emulate the old version of Office then with their Roestta 2 layer. Microsoft needs to be on Apple devices more than Apple needs Microsoft to port their stuff

Also I agree that Rosetta 2 would still make these things work. It is just removing Apple's ability to market native Office support for ARM.

Kaeden · Sep 21, 2020

digitalrelic said:
That thread has an entirely different focus though.

Yeah apologies, I think since we were already discussing this in there that I felt it was a duplicate but a thread on its own does seem justified. Just ignore me.

Waffle · Sep 21, 2020

I found it amusing that he kept going back to that and kept avoiding the 30% cut aspect of the question.

PachaelD · Sep 21, 2020

Tmespe said:
No way. Office is way more important to Microsoft than Xbox.

Definitely, though these days they have subscriptions that Microsoft seem happy to offer (Office 365, GamePass)

digitalrelic said:
It isn't different at all. Apple's stance here is ludicrous, to be frank.

I thought the sticking point was similar to when EA left Steam due to a disagreement (to put it lightly) on how the DLC/microtransaction cut went

AntiMacro · Sep 21, 2020

Mcfrank said:
Apple's position on this makes no sense. It is no different than Netflix. Just make sure people cant sign up in app and there is no reason for Apple to block this.

People can buy things in the games. Apple wants their cut of that transaction.

digitalrelic · Sep 21, 2020

Waffle said:
I found it amusing that he kept going back to that and kept avoiding the 30% cut aspect of the question.

That's because that frankly hasn't been Microsoft's real beef with Apple, so the question wasn't really relevant.

blame space · Sep 21, 2020

people can buy mulan in disney+

Apath · Sep 21, 2020

digitalrelic · Sep 21, 2020

AntiMacro said:
People can buy things in the games. Apple wants their cut of that transaction.

I may be mistaken, but I thought that you currently couldn't buy things in-game when using xCloud.

Chamon · Sep 21, 2020

Maybe they could split the earnings 🤷‍♂️

antispin · Sep 21, 2020

Theorry said:
Hope the resolution is 4K

Sensible chuckle.gif

Scottoest · Sep 21, 2020

Tmespe said:
No way. Office is way more important to Microsoft than Xbox.

And iOS is very important to Apple, but it didn't stop them from paying hardball over game streaming apps.

Apath · Sep 21, 2020

Bunkles · Sep 21, 2020

blame space said:
i don't understand how this is fundamentally different than netflix or hulu or whatever. just because they came first?

Apple loses control of the apps that MS puts on their store. Games are much more involved, technically, than a TV show or movie.

If Apple allows MS to put any game it wants on the iOS store through Game Pass, what's to stop the big App Store publishers from making the same type of application to bypass the game approval system?

This isn't even getting into how would Apple possibly control the DLC / MTX situation on these streaming services.

Note that I'm completely for xcloud getting on iOS and think it should happen but I can see why Apple hesitates as it could open all sorts of floodgates.

Waffle · Sep 21, 2020

digitalrelic said:
I may be mistaken, but I thought that you currently couldn't buy things in-game when using xCloud.

That's fair. I just found it amusing because it looked like the guy was really trying to get him to talk about it.

Apath · Sep 21, 2020

bruhaha · Sep 21, 2020

blame space said:
i don't understand how this is fundamentally different than netflix or hulu or whatever. just because they came first?

Apple's stance is that games are interactive and they are concerned that interactive apps they had no approval process over will do bad things on their platform, such as show a iCloud password prompt rendered server-side that looks exactly like a native prompt, or bypass parental controls, etc.

Of course the more important reason that they don't talk about is that they can't easily lock down in game purchases for which they get a cut of the money.

rntongo · Sep 21, 2020

gifyku said:
I mentioned this in another thread but if Nadella is willing to give 7.5B to Xbox for Zenimax, I imagine maybe he is willing to hold Office back from going native ARM when the ARM macbooks launch later this year? Office and Adobe are the apps Apple need for that transition to work

Apple can run them in an emulator. And if you know the history of Office you know they can never not release MAC versions.

KillingJoke · Sep 21, 2020

Apple will only let it happen if they were able to get a % of every game purchased. Which means its never going to happen.

Phil Spencer: "We're committed to bringing Game Pass to Apple phones. I'm sure we'll be able to get to some resolution."

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