Microsoft's first new mobile game in seven years is a match-3 that hands out Xbox Achievements

Microsoft has released Microsoft Jewel, a match-3 puzzle game, on iOS, Android and PC. The interesting part is not the game itself but what it is wired into: play it signed in to a Microsoft account and it awards Xbox Achievements, on a phone, against your normal Xbox profile.

What it is

The game comes from Microsoft Casual Games, the team behind the Solitaire and Minesweeper apps, and it works the way the genre always has - match three or more jewels, clear them, build a score and set off chains with power-ups. It launched on September 30 as standalone apps on the App Store, Google Play and the Microsoft Store.

Tara Tegtmeyer, a senior communications specialist at Microsoft, noted in the announcement that Jewel is the fifth mobile app from Microsoft Casual Games and the group's first new mobile launch in seven years.

Achievements and Game Pass

Signing in with a Microsoft account does two things: it syncs progress between the iOS, Android and PC versions, and it lets the game post Xbox Achievements to your profile. Microsoft frames that as building your Xbox profile across devices rather than as a separate mobile achievement set.

Game Pass gets folded in too. Xbox Game Pass on PC removes the ads and adds in-game bonuses, and Xbox Game Pass Ultimate extends the same treatment to both PC and mobile. Microsoft has not published pricing or said how the free version is monetised beyond confirming that ads are what Game Pass removes.

Taken with the Xbox mobile storefront work and the Mythic Achievements rollout, it reads as another step in Microsoft treating an Xbox account, rather than an Xbox console, as the thing you own.