In a post first spotted by The Verge, Microsoft is flirting with the idea of pushing Xbox Live functionality to iOS and Android games, making it an alternative (and competitor) to Google’s Play games and Apple’s Game Center.
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Xbox Live is currently limited to Xbox consoles and Windows Phone games with one exception. As it stands, the only app available on iOS and Android which has Xbox Live features is the free-to-play word puzzle game Wordament. iOS and Android users can keep track of their achievements by logging in with their Xbox accounts.
In the job posting, Microsoft stressed that the social gaming service will be open-source and hopes to “win back game developers”. “We will create a modern framework that is open source, light-weight, extensible and scalable across various platforms including Windows Store, Windows Phone, iOS and Android,” the report read.
Why would developers integrate Xbox Live into games designed for other platforms? Even though it’s a very popular offering for Xbox console gamers, currently the service requires certification and permission from Microsoft. In the planned updated version, Xbox Live hopes to be “more friendly” for mobile developers.
Social gaming is also said to become super lucrative in the coming years yet Microsoft has been struggling to lure developers to its mobile platform and has a rather limited availability of games. With this suspected move, Microsoft will be able to get a slice of the game monetisation pie without having to rely solely on its own platform’s offering.
