Apple’s latest policy change is good news for Game Pass Ultimate subscribers
Game streaming services like Xbox’s Game Pass Ultimate and Nvidia’s GeForce Now will face one less restriction on Apple’s iPhone and iPad devices. App developers can now “submit a single app with the ability to stream all games offered in their catalog,” Apple reported this in a developer update on Thursday.
In practice, this means that people who stream games on iPhone and iPad have one less hoop to jump through.
Previously, Apple steered cloud gaming app developers to a browser like Chrome or Safari that allowed players to stream games. As part of the iPhone maker’s heavy restrictions on game streaming, developers were allowed to create a “catalog app” that lists all the games users can play. However, each game had to be available as a separate app downloadable from the App Store; the catalog app could only link to it.
“All games in the catalog app must link to an individual App Store product page,” the previous guidelines stated. Streaming services like Xbox Cloud Gaming (aka xCloud) and GeForce Now (and Google’s now-defunct Stadia) should also let users sign in with their Apple ID, and allow customers to pay for their subscription via a login app purchase – which of course gives Apple a cut of that revenue.
In addition to lifting other restrictions on iOS, iPadOS and Apple’s App Store, causing Epic Games’ Fortnite Back to iPhones and iPads: streaming games becomes much less of a hassle.
Whether this will lure Sony Interactive Entertainment into Apple’s ecosystem remains to be seen. Sony also planned to do that at one point is bringing its cloud-based PlayStation Now game streaming service to iOS – a plan that was only made public during Epic Games’ trial against Apple.
But with more than 2 billion active Apple devices in the world, expect more developers to pursue the cloud gaming audience directly through the App Store.
Microsoft opened up the Xbox Cloud Gaming platform to Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscribers on Apple iOS devices and Windows PCs via browsers in June 2021. Before the service launched, however, Microsoft called Apple’s restriction on game streaming apps “a bad experience for customers. ”
“Gamers want to jump straight into a game from their curated catalog from one app, just like they do with movies or songs, and not be forced to download 100+ apps to play individual games from the cloud,” the company said at the time. Soon, it looks like gamers will have that option.