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PUBG Mobile could return to India on Microsoft's Azure cloud services

With India's banning of various Chinese publishers in the country, PUBG Mobile has remained banned, but it could return to the country on Microsoft Azure's Cloud.

TJ Denzer

November 9, 2020 12:50 PM

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As the political and military situation between India and China has remained intense, so too has India’s stance on the banning of Chinese publishers from the nation, which included the banning of PUBG Mobile due to its publishing by Tencent in the country. The PUBG Corporation has has worked to create a solution to the situation, but it may be Microsoft that aids in a return of the game to the region. PUBG Corporation is in talks to move PUBG Mobile back into India via the Azure cloud architecture.

Reports of PUBG Mobile coming back to India via the Microsoft Azure cloud service surfaced recently, as reported by Business Insider. PUBG’s parent company Krafton Inc recently signed a deal with Microsoft that would allow PUBG Mobile to run on the Azure cloud service. This would allow PUBG Mobile to be streamed without the underlying data collection issues that pushed India to ban publishers like Tencent and NetEase in the first place. It’s on this model and the goodwill of Microsoft that the PUBG Corporation hopes to reintroduce PUBG Mobile into India.

Getting PUBG Mobile back into India has been a prime concern of the developer and publisher behind it for a while. It has previously prompted efforts up to and including removing Tencent from publishing duties on the game as it pertains to India, which wasn’t enough to get it back into the nation. With Microsoft’s Azure cloud streaming service carrying the software in way that doesn’t require players to have it loaded directly on their platforms, it may be exactly what PUBG Mobile needs in order to be restored for players looking to return to the battle royale.

There’s still no telling if the Indian Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology will see these efforts will be enough to bypass its concerns about PUBG’s data collection.

TJ Denzer

Senior News Editor

TJ Denzer is a player and writer with a passion for games that has dominated a lifetime. He found his way to the Shacknews roster in late 2019 and has worked his way to Senior News Editor since. Between news coverage, he also aides notably in livestream projects like the indie game-focused Indie-licious, the Shacknews Stimulus Games, and the Shacknews Dump. You can reach him at tj.denzer@shacknews.com and also find him on Twitter @JohnnyChugs.