Epic Games Store launches on iPhones in Japan with Fortnite, Sideswipe

Japanese iPhone users can now download the Epic Games Store and boot up Fortnite and Rocket League Sideswipe from a storefront that did not exist on their phones before. Epic announced the Japan launch on April 29, 2026, and cast it as more than a software release: it is a concrete shift in where mobile games can be found and who gets to decide.

That shift rests on Japan’s Mobile Software Competition Act, formally the Act on Promotion of Competition for Specified Smartphone Software, which passed on June 12, 2024 and was promulgated on June 19, 2024. The Japan Fair Trade Commission said the law was scheduled for full enforcement on December 18, 2025, and it designated Apple, iTunes K.K., and Google as specified software operators on March 26, 2025. For Epic, the launch is a live test of whether those rules will translate into real consumer choice on iPhone.

Epic says Apple is still making third-party distribution harder than it should be. The company says Apple is charging a 5% Core Technology Fee on purchases made through apps downloaded from outside stores, and that developers must track and report transactions, including unfinished ones. Epic also says Apple has added three more screens to the install process in Japan, making the flow a nine-step slog that still stands in contrast to the six-screen version Apple later adopted in the European Union after regulatory pressure.

Epic has pointed to that European change as evidence that design matters. According to the company, the shorter EU install flow reduced user drop-off by 60 percent, an argument it uses to show that every extra tap, warning screen, and fee structure can shape whether a competing storefront survives at all. On that view, the battle is not abstract policy theater. It is about whether an iPhone owner in Japan can actually get to a game without being pushed back toward Apple’s default path.

Japan is only one stop in Epic’s wider rollout plan. The company says the Epic Games Store is already available on Android worldwide and on iPhones in the European Union, and it has Brazil slated for June 2026. What happens in Japan now matters beyond one market: if the new law produces a usable alternative store, it gives Epic a template for the next country, and it gives Apple a warning that the old gatekeeping model is no longer insulated from regulation.