Epic Games Store plans to launch on the next Xbox console "on day one"

And it has no plans to discontinue its free game program any time soon.

Epic Games Store plans to be available on the next Xbox console at launch.

In an interview with Game File, Epic Games' Steve Allison said Xbox had "welcome[d]" the idea of including Epic's storefront on its hardware, adding "we're going to be there, like, on day one".

"We definitely plan to be on the new hardware for Xbox, because, unless their policy or stance on it changes, [Microsoft] are telling us they’re going to welcome that," Allison said. "And we're going be there, like, on day one. That will probably require us to build in whatever their requirements are, some sort of software to support that."

To do this, however, Epic needs to design a dedicated app for the next Xbox console, and Allison admitted, "we haven't built the apps for those that we need to build".

If this comes to pass, it'll herald a significant change in the console ecosystem, which, up until now, has been extraordinarily closed to third-party sellers.

Allison went further, confirming Epic Games Store now averaged around 67 million monthly users last year – around half of Steam's, Allison thinks – and generating a record $400 million (£294m) in revenue from the sale of third-party games.

Consequently, Epic now intends to expand into other markets, including on iOS in Japan, mobile in Brazil, add more social features (forums(!), specifically), and make it easier to switch between EGS' PC offerings and EGS on mobile. We should also expect an update to the store's game launcher later this year, too.

"We're ripping out the guts. We're replacing the guts with modern guts. That are faster, it won't have, like, a two-second lag on your refresh, it won't take as much system resources in your tray, all that stuff's underway."

In a different interview with WindowsCentral, confirming Epic Games had "been talking to the folks at Microsoft" and expected "serious growth" as it continues to build its sales business, Allison hinted that its free games program can have a significant impact on the sale of its free games on other platforms, like Steam and consoles.

"We take it very seriously," Allison said about its free games program. "The team loves to highlight games that they think are awesome, that may have been underserved or missed by players.

"We bring in 10 million new players a year through the program. It's very consistent. It's the best customer acquisition spend you can ever make, from a dollars-per-new-user standpoint," Allison added. "It's really important for our players. I would never want to see us rug pull it away from people, it's kind of part of our identity."