Microsoft’s Xbox Cloud allows iPhone users to play Fortnite again

Microsoft Corp Fortnite returned the video game hit on iOS devices two years after Apple Inc. removed from your App Store. Fortnite, produced by Epic Games Inc., is one of the most popular video games of all time. But it wasn’t in Apple’s App Store and Google Play after Epic tried to tighten stores controlled by technology giants by forcing in-app purchases directly on their websites. The move effectively created a solution for paying commissions to app stores and violating their instructions.

Epic sued Apple and Alphabet Inc. in 2020. In September 2021, a federal judge ordered Apple to make a major change in the way the App Store monetized and reduce its control of the $ 100 billion mobile gaming market. But the company says it will keep Fortnite on the App Store until all appeals have been exhausted. Epic CEO Tim Sweeney says it can take up to five years.

Fortnite re-releases a browser-enabled device with Microsoft’s Xbox Cloud Gaming today, according to Microsoft’s statement Monday. Anyone with a Microsoft account and an iOS device, an Android phone or tablet, or a Windows computer with Internet access can download the game for free using the Xbox Cloud Gaming beta. “This is an important step in adding a free title to the cloud game catalog as we continue our journey in the cloud,” Microsoft said. “We started with Fortnite and in the future we want to bring more free games that people want.”

Microsoft has also pushed for regulation of the application business as it seeks to evade regulatory control of the acquisition of Activision Blizzard Inc. for $ 69 billion, which was announced earlier this year. Microsoft has outlined new data collection, competition, and payment policies for its Xbox and Windows software stores, which reportedly address regulators’ broader concerns about enemy application stores.

Apple has already blocked Microsoft’s Xbox Cloud Gaming service from the app store, but Sweeney said it did not block the site, “at least not yet.”

Fortnite was previously unavailable for Xbox Cloud Gaming because Epic’s vice president of business development said the service would compete with Epic’s PC offering.