You really think Sony would be investing the money they currently invest in first party without the walled garden? First party is a Trojan horse to get you in the walled garden. And whilst you're in that walled garden not only does Sony get a cut on literally everything, but they also enjoy the revenue from your PSN, PS Now and Vue subscriptions.
Yes but, still not the same, apple is not offering a service, the whole medium (Os and devices) is theirs, so they can choose how people would get thinkgs in it (appa) legally (cause there is always jailbreaking/ hacking option but that is beyond the point).
Yep, this "walled garden" on consoles since then has been because of third parties accepting it, not because they're legally forced. Unlicensed console games continued to exist for years. In the current internet connected console age, a first-party can just update the firmware to keep unlicensed games out anyway.
Supermarkets purchase their goods on the wholesale level to sell to their customers, completely different model of sales
how it is it anything like a supermarket? this is an antitrust suit. the allegation isn't that running a store is illegal, it's that the app store is an illegal monopoly.
If that's the case then Sony and MS will respond by removing those features from their consoles. Which would be overall a net negative for the consumers.
Generally, I struggle to find where some costs are being passed on to the consumer. Most games on iOS and Android are incredibly cheap or free to play, because you kind of have to be in order to be competitive or even be considered. A result of the race to the bottom mentality many companies instilled in their customers (Apple included). We more usually see the price of a game that was on iOS and Android go up a bit when ported to consoles and PC.
Laptop producers are doing fine without forcing people to download apps from the Lenovo/Dell/Asus app store.
Actually it's still going unless I'm misunderstanding you. You can get Cydia impactor (does it in the same way as XCode) on Windows or Mac and sideload any app you want at all on an iOS device, for 7 days. It's supposed to be used for devs so they can test their apps out on their devices with XCode. That's also how jailbreaking works today, sideload an app and then that allows unsigned code to run through exploits.
Yeah that's true. Can't argue with that as it's near death. Just saying it's still technically possible :P
They don't. IIRC, 85% of their software revenue was their own software.
Valve doesn't force you to use the steam launcher or overlay - you can disable it on a per-game level. Steam keys bought through Steam/Valve are treated the same as keys bought through 3rd party sellers. They provide Steam key generation for free, in fact.
Is this something that's been voiced in the judicial opinions?
Fortnite on Android must be downloaded from Epic's website.
No. EA Access is not a separate service from PSN or Live, it's a product offered by them. It just activates a time limited license to let you play EA games using the console's own DRM and lets your PSN/Xbox account buy select stuff for 10% off on PS Store and Xbox store.
Laptops are also expensive because Lenovo's business model is to make the bulk of their money on hardware, unlike Nintendo.
No, it won't impact those stores. The platform isn't a monopoly. The PC platform is open and develoeprs can release their titles on the hardware through any means they decide.
???
I like how you took a meme about loss leading to conflate that with whether or not the bulk of profits are software or hardware. Total revenues for Switch are almost equal between hardware and software (software being a bit higher). What do you think has a higher profit margin, hardware or software? Compare that with Lenovo.
Console makers still get a cut from retail sales similar to how they get a cut from digital sales. You can't sideload a game onto Switch that hasn't been approved by Nintendo and with portion of the sale gone to Nintendo, like you can android where you can find some random APK made by whoever and just install it directly.
Yes, you are correct.
