Apple will allow Xbox Cloud Gaming and other game streaming services into the App Store

If you're an iPhone gamer you're no doubt familiar with the idea of downloading games from the App Store and Apple Arcade, but game streaming services are also another option. Services like Xbox Cloud Gaming and NVIDIA GeForce Now are two such game streaming services, but they have never been allowed into the App Store for various reasons. Instead, Apple forced Microsoft and NVIDIA to launch web apps that allowed people to visit a website in Safari and then access the streaming services that way. That is now changing.

As part of a larger set of changes to the App Store and the way that the iPhone is going to be used by millions, Apple has now confirmed that it is going to allow game-streaming apps into the App Store for the very first time. The change will allow companies like Microsoft and NVIDIA to ditch their web apps in favor of a real app that can be downloaded via the App Store.

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While it isn't yet clear whether those companies and others intend to go that route, there are reasons why they might want to. For example, having an app in the App Store instantly makes it more visible to iPhone users and definitely easier for people to use if they are not familiar with the way web apps work.

Apple's developer guidelines explain that game streaming apps will have the age rating of the highest rating one of their streamed games would have, which means that most apps will likely be rated as 12+ or 17+ to cover the more gruesome games available via their respective services.