Microsoft opens up Battle.net – will it be the next Steam rival?

TVS News AI, editorially supervised, presents Microsoft opens up Battle.net – will it be the next Steam rival.

Microsoft wants to expand Blizzard's gaming platform Battle.net into an open PC gaming platform – and thereby enter into direct competition with Valve's Steam. Golem.de reports, citing Xbox chief Asha Sharma.

If you buy a game as a PC player today, you usually end up on Steam. You know Battle.net primarily as a launcher for Blizzard titles. This is exactly the divide Microsoft apparently wants to break up.

According to Golem.de, Asha Sharma sees "major potential" in Battle.net and wants to open the platform to additional publishers. What this concretely means for you – which studios will join, when the rollout will start, and whether existing features like cross-game chat or the shared inventory will be adjusted – is not yet public.

Why the move makes sense for Microsoft

The PC gaming market has been dominated by Steam for years. The Epic Games Store and GOG are trying to compete with Valve, but so far with limited success. Microsoft has a different kind of weight with the Xbox ecosystem, Game Pass, and millions of active users – and could position Battle.net as a showcase for PC games that today go the Steam route.

What remains open so far

The official announcement with a timeline, conditions for publishers, and concrete partners is still pending. How Microsoft plans to balance its own first-party titles with third-party offerings is also unclear. The only thing that's clear is the direction: Battle.net is meant to evolve from the Blizzard ecosystem into an open platform.