After Microsoft takeover of Activision Blizzard highlight, it has come to light in the ongoing legal dispute between Google and Epic Games that Google made a $147 million offer to the latter company in exchange for Epic Games releasing its well-known game Fortnite on the Google Play store. In her evidence, Purnima Kochikar, Google's vice president of play partnerships, stated that although the agreement was offered, Epic eventually rejected it. Google justified the proposed contract by claiming that the absence of Fortnite might cause considerable income losses for both companies over a three-year period.

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Google's document states that there might be a $250 million direct income loss with Play and a $550 million to $3.6 billion downstream impact on other developers. Google just wants developers to select the Play store, Kochikar underlined.

The Epic vs. Google trial began on Monday, with Google defending its 30% cut of purchases made through the Play store. According to Google's legal representative, this fee is appropriate in comparison to other digital marketplaces such as Nintendo, Xbox, and Steam, and it is a market pricing rather than a monopoly cost. Epic Games, on the other hand, claims that the 30% fee is unusual.

Google's removal of Fortnite from the Play store sparked a legal fight between Epic and the federal and state governments on antitrust laws pertaining to Google's control over the Android smartphone app marketplace. It is anticipated that the trial would clarify the workings of the ecosystem for app distribution and the effects of big corporations like Google on developers.

Meanwhile, Google has announced the expansion of its generative AI-powered search experience to more than 120 countries, including the addition of four new languages: Spanish, Portuguese, Korean, and Indonesian. The Search Generative Experience (SGE) assists in obtaining AI-powered overviews that compile the most useful and relevant information available for search.