People should be careful drawing too many comparisons to consoles, because as someone who owns rooted consoles that run homebrew mods, I can attest that it's actually awesome and improves the user experience in about a dozen ways.

My 3DS supports savestates & backups for games like Animal Crossing that let me maintain multiple towns at the same time, custom emulators that run my old Gameboy cartridge backups that I made, really amazing mods like Project Restoration for Majora's Mask, plus custom themes and easier storage management for things like pictures and songs. By comparison, an unhacked Switch still can't even back up all of its save games to the cloud.

If you don't want us to go after consoles as well, maybe don't tempt us? I'm sympathetic to the argument that being loss leaders makes consoles unique and special and different from a smartphone, but if the general consensus here is that they're exactly the same...

If you're arguing that this case is a slippery slope, try to come up with some consequences farther down the slope that don't sound kind of nice.

I think any business model that relies on loss-leaders followed by lock-in is a bad business model. I hate it in printers, I hate it in phones, I hate it in computers. I'm not that big into consoles, but I suspect I'd hate it there too.

The consequence isn't that your 3DS would have been better upon releasing, its that it wouldn't have released if the console market had been required to operate this way.

And again, I'm sympathetic to that argument. But then don't argue that the iPhone is exactly the same.

I don't think anyone can reasonably argue that Apple would stop producing the iPhone if sideloading was allowed. The smartphone market doesn't operate the same way as the console market.

I wonder if they could just make that an option on purchase? “Do you want us to enforce security and privacy or do you want to take that on yourself?”. I for one would opt for handling my own privacy on some of my own devices, but would definitely lock my kids down with Apple approved only option.

The more reasonable thing for Apple to do is to separate the code-signing services (platform security and privacy) with the App Store services (advertising and distribution). From my vantage point that would solve all these problems.

At that point the code signing service would become the thing that Epic objects to the most because it's money they're paying Apple for all their games running on Apple products.

I assume that service would only cost ~$10/month, because that's what Apple currently charges for Developer accounts.

The 30% per transaction only really makes sense for apps for which Apple has provided the advertising, distribution and processing -- the App Store.

I'd love to just provide a direct download for my customers who also happen to be Apple (device) customers.

The point is that people would follow YouTube videos that promise CRACKED SPOTIFY to change that choice so that they can download a copy of a cracked version of Spotify filled with malware. That in turns reflects badly with Apple because it would be assumed that the platform is not secured and cannot be trusted with private / sensitive data (both in B2C and B2B settings). If anything, I think we should at least agree that it’s Apple’s choice whether run this risk or not on their own product.

> I think we should at least agree that it’s Apple’s choice whether run this risk or not on their own product

It's not "their" product. It's mine, I purchased a license to use their software on my hardware. I'm not beholden to continue using their software

It is your iPhone. And you can sideload apps onto the iPhone, for free, using a number of different non-jailbreak but still PITA options.

The App Store, however, is their store.

The comparison is the they are both devices that limit installation of software. They're rather similar in that regard. I'm not sure that "This product can only exist if you allow us to have a monopoly" is justification for allowing a monopoly when it comes to video games consoles.

There is some public good in selling consoles as loss leaders; it allows disadvantaged people to participate. Video games are becoming a big part of our culture, and it sucks that participating in that culture requires spending a bunch of money on hardware every generation.

I also think there are more substantial differences. The most major being the difficulty in switching. Switching consoles means losing my data most of the time, but they're just save games, achievements and friends list. If my console melted down tomorrow, it'd be fine. Switching phone OS is a lot harder. Contacts and calendars are relatively easy to switch, but it gets hard after that. How do I get all my data off the old phone? Am I sure I exported my 2FA keys right? If my phone melts down and takes the cloud backups with it, my life is in a world of hurt.

I am also curious how first-party software will be handled. Is it okay to have a closed marketplace on your own software if that marketplace only serves your software? Just as an example, if I get an LG smart fridge that has a marketplace to download new widgets for the display, and LG only allows the sale of LG apps there, is that okay? I'm wondering if app stores won't just shift their model. Instead of "you upload an app, and we'll pay you what users pay us for it minus our cut" it will become "You grant us a perpetual license to distribute your application, and we will pay you 70% royalties on the money we earn". I wonder if that shifts any liability around

>Switching consoles means losing my data most of the time, but they're just save games, achievements and friends list

And an inability to play every game you've purchased. Even if you didn't buy the games digitally, it'd be amazingly difficult to resell your games to buy the same ones for a different platform. Heck, just look at all the groaning online about Epic store exclusive games because people didn't want to have to deal with Steam AND Epic launchers.

>I am also curious how first-party software will be handled. Is it okay to have a closed marketplace on your own software if that marketplace only serves your software?

Similarly, why should only Epic be able to sell skins for Fortnite?

>And an inability to play every game you've purchased

Emulators exists (unlike Apple which bans any virtualization of MacOS under non-macs).

>it'd be amazingly difficult to resell your games to buy the same ones for a different platform

Selling is easy. 'Buying the same game' is often a nonfactor due to how the games market works (many games become outdated quickly, multiplayer servers go offline, etc.).

>>Is it okay to have a closed marketplace on your own software if that marketplace only serves your software?

>Similarly, why should only Epic be able to sell skins for Fortnite?

There's no duty to have a open marketplace, that is open to 3rd parties. Not having it is no different than offering different paid versions of the main software (imagine Fortnite Premium Edition with X skins, or iPhone only with Apple apps). However, once the marketplace is open to 3rd parties, there's a duty to allow fair competition, and that does limit Apple.

Minor point: sideloading is allowed, but requires you pay Apple their yearly developer tax.

> sideloading is allowed, but requires you pay Apple their yearly developer tax.

You can sideload apps with a free dev account for several years now. The only condition is that you have to resign the binary every seven days. There are even desktop apps that automate it.

Oh, didn’t know about the automation. Any examples? I was sideloading a few apps for awhile, but got sick of resigning.

AltStore/Altserver - https://altstore.io/

> AltStore will periodically attempt to refresh your apps in the background, and you can always manually refresh your apps from within AltStore.

I think you can do it without. See AltStore.

I think companies would adapt. And the 3ds has novel enough hardware that you couldn't just replace it with a phone/laptop/whatever. Consoles could also still work out exclusivity deals with publishers, and have a marketplace that is screened, they'd just also need a way to sideload apps.

Consoles that have had easy access to that have historically not done well.

doesn't the xbox have a way to sideload apps?

It allows to sideload UWP apps, however that just basically means you are running WinRT in a lightweight version of Windows on XBox hypervisor.

This is not how XBox games developed with XDK are actually developed and they can see all the hardware, instead of being into a UWP sandbox.

It is more to cater to indie devs as means to get something into the XBox similar to XNA used to allow, it is not meant for proper XBox games as such.

Also it hasn't been updated for a while.

Xbox's Dev Mode is a bit complicated and limits a lot of functionality of the console. I think there's a good argument that it's actually easier and less limiting to side load an app using Cydia Impactor, Xcode or AltStore with an iPhone.

Against locked-down ones. Which is why those need to be banned.

This stunt by Epic is absolutely about going after consoles too. Epic wants to have their store on every platform, with Epic taking a cut out of the games published on their store, leaving nothing to the host platform.

Eventually the console makers will die due to lack of funding, and Epic will release their own console which will be more locked down than an Apple iPhone.

Your conclusion cracked me up. I guess you either die a hero...

Unlike Apple, larger developers can use their market leverage to negotiate better rates, and many have, which is why you don't hear Epic or Rockstar complaining about MS or Sony. This point is key to the difference, since antitrust is about market interference. If market participants can use their own leverage to push back against another participant's market activities, then you don't have an antitrust violation. Apple does not allow negotiation. It's take it-or-leave it.

Microsoft and Playstation also allow for cross-platform play, and crucially unlike Apple, actually provide a significant amount of services to developers for their cuts, including but not limited to QA services, SDK and hardware support from actual MS/Sony employees, and marketing spend.

Additionally, while MS and Sony require all developers to use their stores or APIs for IAP, they allow developers (at least large ones) to heavily customize those storefronts, and charge significantly less than 30% for the enforced privilege of using their IAP APIs; the exact rates being a matter of negotiation.

> Microsoft and Playstation also allow for cross-platform play

Sony explicitly didn't allow for cross-play until 2 years ago [https://kotaku.com/sony-is-finally-allowing-cross-play-on-th...], even though it was technically possible before then [https://www.engadget.com/2017-06-24-rocket-league-cross-netw...]. In fact, the only reason Sony opened up to cross-play is due to pressure to stay competitive with rival platform Xbox. This was a take-it-or-leave it situation, but Sony was too big to leave. Nothing changed until Sony caved to social pressure.

If the argument is that Apple is a unique kind of device that Apple has a monopoly over, it would hard to argue that Sony and Microsoft don't enjoy the same monopoly powers. On the other hand, if argument is that it's easy enough to switch from Playstation to Xbox, then how is that different from buying a new phone?

In fact, I would bet that Epic sued Apple not because it's more monopolistic, but because they want to set a legal precedent that they can then apply to Playstation, Xbox and Switch, without threatening Epic's core business on consoles.

> On the other hand, if argument is that it's easy enough to switch from Playstation to Xbox, then how is that different from buying a new phone?

Would you be willing to agree that the relative importance of a smartphone in 2020 is far greater than the relative importance of a video game console in virtually everyone’s lives?

As we are talking about a first person shooter game and not some “relative important” app, no I would not.

Any kind of smartphone, yes, the iPhone in particular, definitely not.

Nor does Fortnite.

> On the other hand, if argument is that it's easy enough to switch from Playstation to Xbox, then how is that different from buying a new phone?

Rather easily: players can own two consoles with nothing more than the hardware investment, and there's a long social experience of dedicated gamers doing just this. Owning two phones, however, requires two separate cell/data plans and duplication of every other regular-use app (productivity, e-mail, etc.)

The core distinction is that a console is a device, whereas iOS/Android is a platform.

> Rather easily: players can own two consoles with nothing more than the hardware investment, and there's a long social experience of dedicated gamers doing just this. Owning two phones, however, requires two separate cell/data plans and duplication of every other regular-use app (productivity, e-mail, etc.)

multiple console platforms require multiple accounts with separate friends lists, paid online access, save games, etc. with WiFi calling, separate cell/data plans are not necessary. [1]

> The core distinction is that a console is a device, whereas iOS/Android is a platform.

a console gaming platform certainly seems like a platform. games, friends list with chat, applications such as video streaming, etc.

[1] https://thedroidguy.com/trick-drop-cell-phone-plan-completel...

> Owning two phones, however, requires two separate cell/data plans and duplication of every other regular-use app (productivity, e-mail, etc.)

I can't run my Switch copy of Warframe on my PS4. I have to install Warframe for PS4 on the PS4, and then I'll be playing only with other Warframe-on-PS4 players.

Similarly for every paid title I have on the PS4 if I move to Switch I have to buy those titles again, assuming they're available on the Switch. Many of the titles I have on Switch require a Nintendo Online account which is a paid service.

So I'm not sure what you think you're addressing with that comparison, other than desperately trying to find evidence to support your assertion that iPhone is somehow different to a gaming console in terms of being a platform or device.

Negotiating power seems slightly tangential to the main issue, I don't think that take-it-or-leave-it negotiating tactics are inherently bad. When you buy food from the supermarket, you either pay the price they are charging or you leave - there's no negotiation.

But in that scenario, you can always walk out and walk into a competing grocery store and try to find a better price. The fact that you can walk is what makes it a competitive scenario, and not an anti-trust one. The question here is, is being able to walk away and use an Android (or other smartphone) product an equivalent (thus fair competition) - or is software in the iOS ecosystem unique enough that not being allowed to participate unless you follow arcane rules is unfair abuse of a monopoly.

“ Microsoft and Playstation also allow for cross-platform play, and crucially unlike Apple, actually provide a significant amount of services to developers for their cuts, including but not limited to QA services, SDK and hardware support from actual MS/Sony employees, and marketing spend”

I don’t understand how this is materially different from apples investments into Xcode, discoverability & promotion in the App Store/“marketing spend”, etc. Apple does tons of stuff with the big players behind closed doors, they highlight it every keynote and that’s just the ones they talk about on the “real human being” front.

A monopoly in a legal sense is different from one someone with deep pockets willing to litigate over. The little people are not equal in the US legal system.

That's too bad. I would rather MS and Sony charge treat all developers equally to allow fair competition on the platform. This kind of preferential treatment creates a bigger divide between existing winners and those wanting to become winners.

That large companies can get use their clout to get a better deal from console stores isn't a particularly compelling defense.

> Microsoft and Playstation also allow for cross-platform play

Don't some games allow iOS / PC cross-platform play? Epic's Fortnite did, didn't it?

Yes, iOS has no crossplay restrictions.

MS doesn't require Xbox developers to use their IAP API. Most do, but that's just because it's so convenient for the players.

quote: Microsoft’s App Developer Agreement states that “[n]ew App and in-App Product submissions to the Store are required to use Microsoft’s commerce engine to support purchase of any In-App Product(s) that are or can be consumed or used within [the] app.”

Appendix A1 (page 16) here https://www.analysisgroup.com/globalassets/insights/publishi...

As a non-console owner, this news is certainly new to me.

It seems to run counter to everything I've heard when people compare the iOS ecosystem to consoles. Where can I learn more?

> Either you destroy the console ecosystem by forcing them all to open up, or classify iOS as somehow different.

Console ecosystems are already open-by-law, based on past cases from the 80s and 90s. You can already publish a game to a Switch or PlayStation without ever going through Nintendo or Sony (so long as you don't steal any copywritten assets to do so). You can even publish your own software, that modifies anyone elses software (again, so long as you don't break copyright to do so).

Their eShop/online stores are not yet open, but the devices main software sources are open by law (things like the BluRay drive on a PS4, or the Cartridge slot on a Switch). This is how things like "unauthorized games" were legally published, as well as software editors/debuggers like GameShark, all existed 100% legally as far back as the 90's.

Apple is actually attempting to overturn precedent here, they're trying to claim their TOS is somehow more legally binding than everyone elses is, and trying to reverse battles already fought and lost by Atari / Nintendo / Sega, because companies didn't have easy way to retroactively punish users for fair use back then, like Apple can and does do today.

Their online stores are 100% closed, walled gardens.

As far as I know, the courts didn't require that Nintendo, Sega or Sony make the consoles open - they just didn't make it illegal to reverse engineer the protections.

There are also online-only versions of consoles that don’t have a physical disk drive and have to go through the locked down online store, like the recently announced Xbox Series S.

> Console ecosystems are already open-by-law, based on past cases from the 80s and 90s.

I'm curious what cases you think actually established this precedent? Keep in mind that a court saying "reverse engineering is not copyright infringement" is not the same thing as a court saying "a hardware manufacturer is legally obligated to permit the distribution of third-party software on its hardware".

> You can already publish a game to a Switch or PlayStation without ever going through Nintendo or Sony (so long as you don't steal any copywritten assets to do so).

I don't believe this is accurate, at least not in the sense of commercially publishing a game in a physical store or on Nintendo or Sony's digital storefronts. I'm certainly not aware of any games that have been published in physical stores without the publisher having signed a publishing agreement with Nintendo or Sony.

> I'm certainly not aware of any games that have been published in physical stores without the publisher having signed a publishing agreement with Nintendo or Sony.

They did put commercial unlicensed software into US retailers, without any agreement from Nintendo or Sony.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sega_v._Accolade (1992) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Galoob_Toys,_Inc._v._Nin.... (1992)

(TL/DR: you are allowed to build and publish and sell unlicensed software for a console. You are allowed to break DRM to do this, so long as it's a clean-room reverse engineer (don't pull a TENGEN). You are allowed to do this for your own uses (sell your own games) and are allowed to do this even if that software edits other people's legally-purchased software (cheat engines / debuggers / mods / etc). You can legally do this without any license agreement from Nintendo or Sony)

This is how GameSharks/ActionReplays/etc were legally sold in every Wal*Mart / Target / Meijer / GameStop / etc in the US for a decade or more. Their boot screens all contain boot messages saying "this product is NOT licensed by Nintendo/Sega/Sony/etc" for this reason - https://nerdbacon.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/GS3.jpg

These are still sold, legally at retail stores like GameStop and WalMart, even today: https://www.codejunkies.com/Products/PowerSaves-Pro__EF00111... (again, still 100% unlicensed from Nintendo)

As I previously said, those cases are about whether reverse engineering constitutes copyright infringement, which the courts have ruled it does not.

But it doesn't mean those platforms are "open", otherwise under that definition the iOS platform is "open" too because you can legally jailbreak your phone and distribute jailbroken apps. I don't think that's what people mean when they say a platform is "open".

> This is how GameSharks/ActionReplays/etc were legally sold

I was more curious if any actual games had been sold this way.

> copywritten

copyrighted

What are the chances that you can clean room reverse engineer all of the software that has to be included with your game to allow it to run on any console? Besides that, most games - especially Fortnite - have an online component and live and die by being able to apply online.

> What are the chances that you can clean room reverse engineer all of the software that has to be included with your game to allow it to run on any console?

I am not a lawyer, but my understanding is that you don't actually need to do that to be legal. You just have to clean room reverse engineer the DRM. After that, anything you have legal access to, you can legally use.

You could just get past the DRM on the BluRay drive or SD card slot or whatever, and then assuming you have legal rights to use it, load up a full set of Unreal/Unity/Renderware/whatever middleware you want and be off to the races.

Again: This caselaw pre-dates always-on-DRM and Apple-angry-tantrum-responses stuff. So this stuff was 100% legal and clear in the PS2 / Xbox / GameCube days, when there was a clear separation between the two. Now that Apple has tried to muddy the water by pretending their DRM is a "platform" that "provides value", I suspect it will be easier to confuse folks

It wasn’t just the DRM, you had to have a certain amount of “operating system” software bundled with your game for it to run. If you didn’t have the code with your game, it wouldn’t run.

> destroy the console ecosystem by forcing them all to open up

I'm not convinced that the console ecosystem would be destroyed if you forced them all to open up. Quite the contrary: I'd happily invest in consoles if I could build it myself with open hardware.

We already have an open console market. It's called the PC market. Consoles are nothing but closed PCs.

Did opening up destroy the PC market? No. But opening up another console market probably would destroy it; there's no reason to separate a hypothetical new PC market from the old PC market. So if you have a PC market and a PS4 market, and then you open the PS4, you have a PC market and another PC market, and then you just have the PC market.

> It's called the PC market. Consoles are nothing but closed PCs.

Eh.. no, I think this is reductive.

In addition to being closed PCs, consoles are also an OS and collection of services that make playing games easier and make the process of configuring the device easy.

They also often come with unique hardware (3DS, Wii U, Switch, Vita) that offer dedicated features that don't make sense on PCs.

Most importantly, consoles are standardized PCs. It's not that they're closed, it's that if a game says it works on the Switch, and you have a Switch, that's it. That's all you need to know. PCs offer a lot more complication because there are multiple hardware variations and because the OS isn't specially designed to provide a lot of dedicated frameworks and interfaces to make running games and taking advantage of the hardware easy.

I don't think any of those benefits would go away if 3rd-parties were allowed to make compatible games without asking permission.

It would be a lot harder to loss-lead the hardware, sure. And it would maybe have some implications for quality-control if anyone could start selling unplayable games at Walmart. I'm sympathetic to those arguments.

But I think it's reductive to say that the only reason anyone would ever buy a console is because it's a closed market.

> Most importantly, consoles are standardized PCs. It's not that they're closed, it's that if a game says it works on the Switch, and you have a Switch, that's it. That's all you need to know. PCs offer a lot more complication because there are multiple hardware variations and because the OS isn't specially designed to provide a lot of dedicated frameworks and interfaces to make running games and taking advantage of the hardware easy.

Yes, I'm familiar with the economic reasons for the existence of consoles. But look at the parent comment:

>>> I'd happily invest in consoles if I could build it myself with open hardware.

And poof, all the benefits of standardization are gone. This is just an ordinary PC. You put in the parts you want. And developers suddenly have to support every part anyone might want.

> I don't think any of those benefits would go away if 3rd-parties were allowed to make compatible games without asking permission.

As I read inetknght, he's talking about making the hardware open, not letting people sell games for it.

> As I read inetknght, he's talking about making the hardware open, not letting people sell games for it.

My apologies, I misread inetknght's comment.

Agreed, a user-built console without any standardization is just a PC, maybe with a different OS.

> They also often come with unique hardware (3DS, Wii U, Switch, Vita) that offer dedicated features that don't make sense on PCs.

I disagree about unique hardware not making sense on PCs. Can you provide examples? 3DS and Vita are about the size of a raspberry pi and with some added sensors and controllers. The Wii's controller is pretty similar to the HTC Vive's wand which connects to a PC just fine.

> consoles are standardized PCs. It's not that they're closed, it's that if a game says it works on the Switch, and you have a Switch, that's it. That's all you need to know.

PC games often provide minimum/recommended requirements. PC games often compiled for the x86 or x86_64 architecture just the same as most modern consoles use. Rendering APIs, hardware controllers, and sensors are all standardized. What more do you need?

> PCs offer a lot more complication because there are multiple hardware variations and because the OS isn't specially designed to provide a lot of dedicated frameworks and interfaces to make running games and taking advantage of the hardware easy.

No; I absolutely and fully disagree. The OS provides an operating system. Consumer operating systems are specifically designed to provide a lot of dedicated frameworks and interfaces to make running any software and take advantage of any hardware.

Xbox uses x86 based hardware. The same goes for PS4. Modern controllers are well known to be just simply USB or bluetooth, both of which have PC interfaces. The only thing that ties games to a console is the proprietary vendor-locked API.

You already have them, for example,

http://www.ic0nstrux.com/

https://www.hardkernel.com/shop/odroid-go/

https://www.openpandora.org/

The fact is that besides some enthusiasts no one into games for money cares that they exist.

> 3DS and Vita are about the size of a raspberry pi and with some added sensors and controllers.

Sure, you could create these things in a PC format, but what I'm getting at is that nobody has. They don't make sense in the current PC market. Selling games that need special non-universal peripherals is really hard. Not impossible (Guitar hero pulled it off), but very difficult.

The HTC Vive is a good example of that. It's about as close to a general peripheral as you can get on the current market (and even it strays irritatingly close to "platform" status). But VR is a wildly niche market. It's nowhere near the market penetration of the 3DS or Wii.

I don't mean that those peripherals can't be built for PC, I mean that we don't have compelling evidence that it makes sense to build them primarily targeting PCs.

> to make running any software and take advantage of any hardware.

You can tune a game way more if you're not targeting 'any' hardware -- it's a lot easier if you're targeting one piece of hardware that works one way.

Take a look at the incredible work that emulators like Citra and Dolphin are doing right now. Reverse engineering the API is only one piece of that puzzle, another big challenge is dealing with the games that are designed to take advantage of hardware quirks and undocumented behaviors.

It's a huge simplification to say that those emulators/games are just based on the API and nothing else. They're often emulating wildly specific behaviors that wouldn't be standardized across multiple implementations of the same API on multiple pieces of hardware. That's why its a such a huge engineering challenge to build an emulator in the first place -- you're constantly balancing accuracy and performance, figuring out when you need to load and emulate specific hardware features.

> Rendering APIs, hardware controllers, and sensors are all standardized. What more do you need?

If you make a game for Switch today, you need to target one aspect ratio at two resolutions, and a very small, finite set of controller layouts. If you tried to release a PC game with those kinds of restrictions, you'd be laughed out of the market.

As someone who's currently working on supporting multiple controllers for a PC game, it's really stinking annoying. Even aftermarket XBox controllers will occasionally just report entirely separate button layouts depending on the OS they're being used with. I can't even just read the hardware codes and base the layout on that, I have controllers that map buttons differently depending on whether I'm in Ubuntu or Manjaro. Libraries like SDL2 help a bit with that, but even then the situation isn't perfect and you often end up making multiple control schemes that degrade gracefully when features are missing.

And from a consumer perspective, minimum requirements for PCs aren't really a scientific thing. People don't know what their GPUs are, they don't have that information in front of them when they go to a store. They buy games as gifts for other people who's PCs they've never seen.

Compare all that to, "does Billy have the Wii U? Cool, then Smash Bros will just work on it."

You could have something like that in the PC space if everybody got together and we had industry-wide standardization on certain requirements or parts for PCs, I can imagine that existing. But it doesn't exist right now, and it's not clear to me that most PC game developers would want that (I wouldn't), and it's not clear to me that current PC-gamers want that (I don't).

It's not a propriety vs Open thing. If someone wants to make a console that has all of its specs completely open and uses off the shelf parts, then fine. Consumers won't care either way. Consumers care about being able to look at exactly one logo on a game disk that indicates the game will play perfectly on every device that shares that logo.

The PC market is not even close to that goal, you're greatly overestimating how standardized even the average Windows install is, and that gets even worse once we start talking about more freedom-friendly OSes like Linux.

The console market has been slowly dying for the last decade. If anything, opening the console market could help rejuvenate it by turning consoles into general purpose entertainment devices.

And the claim that consoles are just closed down PCs is absurd. Consoles can play AAA games at a fraction of the cost of your average PC. The hardware that goes into building a console is significantly different than a PC.

>> The console market has been slowly dying for the last decade. If anything, opening the console market could help rejuvenate it by turning consoles into general purpose entertainment devices <<

there was a time when consoles didnt require internet tethering, were media capable, and could be used for common PC tasks.

> were media capable

Still are. I watch nearly all my TV through my PS4.

Console hardware isn't significantly different. It's just a highly customized APU from AMD with GDDR5 memory as main memory to make the iGPU fast. A PC might cost more but it also performs better than the console.

But the current ecosystem depends on selling the hardware at a loss. We would still have consoles, but the ecosystem would necessarily change.

If consoles were not price subsidized like now, their prices would go up and sales would be affected. Presumably there'd just be fewer people who could afford to buy the latest one. You might see lower or higher specs in consoles since the market would be a little more niche. Xbox might merge fully into Windows 10 and the line between console and gamer PC may disappear.

At the very least, I think we can all agree that the console ecosystem would change. Maybe "destroy" is too strong, but maybe not.

Nintendo hardly sells hardware at a loss, hence why they focus on game experience and not on ultimate graphics experience.

Just like the flocks of people building Hackintoshes instead of buying Macs.

I’m not sure how you can compare a closed ecosystem with essential services - phone, email, text, 2FA, emergency warnings, heart monitoring, medicine tracking, banking, etc. - with a closed ecosystem that runs games.

Mobile phones are how many individuals interface with the rest of the world.

Not to mention your case gets worse when there are way less restrictions on releasing games on Xbox/PlayStation/Switch than on iOS.

The closed ecosystem with essential services is also a closed ecosystem that runs games. It's also millions or billions of peoples' primary gaming device. iPod Touch exists almost solely to play games on.

yes, but the comparison doesn't go the other way: a game console isn't a general purpose device, nor as important of a utility for the average person as a modern smartphone is.

The only reason for that is that console makers haven't pushed into those personal utility applications.

Sure it is, I can run Skype and Web applications on the XBox, alongside plenty of other stuff on the store.

I'm pretty sure you didn't know that, but Xbox doesn't have any restrictions on tools and payment methods. You can literally just download their SDK, build a game, and monetize it however you want.

In other words, Xbox is already more open than iOS. I believe they opened it up with the Xbox 360 around 2007. https://www.xbox.com/en-US/developers#developerprograms

I've worked on a top free cross-platform game for Xbox One and our experience was absolutely not "build a game, and monetize it however you want."

It took months of back and forth and the Xbox team had plenty of input from UX, to monetization, particularly when it came to users buying stuff on other platforms and using them on Xbox.

Sure, MS let us do what Sony and Nintendo would not, so I guess they're the most "open", but make no mistake, it's Microsoft's platform.

How has the XDK become suddenly available for free?

There's a bit of a difference since you can easily have multiple consoles as well as a PC, but you can't easily have multiple mobile phones, since it's very inconvenient to carry them, charge them, pay for multiple data plans, sync data, etc.

Consoles should also be forced to open up though, and there's no reason why that would "destroy the console ecosystem". They might have to raise the prices of the consoles, but everyone has to do it so it won't matter, and the consoles can also either be financed or monthly fees for online play can be increased.

How would opening up consoles destroy their ecosystem?

It obviously wouldn't. Windows PCs are open (relative to consoles) and have a more vibrant and diverse set of games available.

> you destroy the console ecosystem by forcing them all to open up

Consoles opening up would be a good thing. I'm not sure why you say it would destroy their ecosystem.

1983 calls back.

Microsoft has allowed sideloading and community developed games and apps on Xbox for a while now.

I don't think regulators will really see a difference when it comes to the actual market forces at play. If MS doesn't bless your game it's dead regardless of if it's technically possible to get it to run.

I think regulators will see the difference between Apple kicking out developers, and Microsoft letting them in while not promoting them.

Well, Apple crossed that bridge, Microsoft hasn't. I can't for the life of me care what Xbox does when they're not kicking publishers off the store and obviously Epic has their games on Xbox and Playstation so something is different/better in that relationship.

Truth is Xbox does have independent developer programs and you can sideload games.

The games that you are allowed to sideload are written with UWP, which is not what official XBox games use.

UWP runs in a sandbox castrated XBox environment.

> For games development, Xbox One, like other games consoles, is a specialized piece of hardware that requires a specific hardware-based development kit to access its full potential. If you are working on a game that requires access to the maximum potential of the Xbox One hardware, consider registering with the ID@Xbox program to get access to an Xbox One development kit.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/uwp/xbox-apps/syste...

> Truth is Xbox does have independent developer programs and you can sideload games.

Truth is, iOS has the same. You have been able to sideload apps on iOS, without paying for a developer account, for years.

I wouldn't count `you need to connect to the mac and install the apps every 7 days unless you have a development program that cost $100 a year` as `You have been able to sideload apps on iOS`.

It need to at least be persistent or it didn't count.

> you need to connect to the mac and install the apps every 7 days

Except you don’t! I really recommend looking at AltStore before judging the convenience based on how things were years ago when you last had the whim to look.

Isn't is literally show the `7 Days` on their home page? Except this time, they bypass the physical connect requirement with wifi.

The AltStore app refreshes automatically in the background, so as long as your phone is on the same wifi once per seven days, that’s it. You don’t need to do anything else. Try reading past the fold and you’ll find direct quotes like this:

> AltStore will periodically attempt to refresh your apps in the background, and you can always manually refresh your apps from within AltStore.

I honestly though "you can keep the app as long as you connect the wifi" and "safari won't wipe your data a long as you enter the site one time in every several days" the same kind of bs.

It's not solution, it is workaround for the apple's creepy behavior.

> It's not solution

Because you don’t want solutions, you just want to complain about Apple not doing exactly what you want when you want. Apple’s not your company if you expect them to cater to your whims, that’s never been their MO (for better or for worse).

> apple's creepy behavior

Really?

> Either you destroy the console ecosystem by forcing them all to open up

How is this true? Consoles predate app stores by many decades.

Consoles were and still are app stores in their entirety. Just because the technical sophistication to lock them down tight wasn't there at the beginning and they could be "hacked" didn't mean the same rules didn't apply. If you want to release a game on Xbox, PlayStation, or GameBoy, you did so at the will of Microsoft, Sony, or Nintendo. They did, and still do, tightly control the content that's allowed on their consoles.

I've seen this comment specifically from you come up a lot in all the apple vs epic conversations.

This is whataboutism for sure.

It moves the discussion to a less constructive, more re-hashed place.

Consoles are different because they're not sold as general purpose computing devices and do not have the market penetration size that iOS does.

There is a great argument for allowing all consumers to install whatever software they want on all devices they purchased - including consoles - by law. I'd like to see this - for over a decade, a lot of tech communities have pushed for this - but this isn't the conversation we're having today.

What market penetration?

iOS is only 20% of the global smartphone market, PS 4 outperforms it on world market share.

Video game consoles (in terms of XBox and PS) are nothing more than same spec’d computers. They both (PS4 and up and XB1 and up) run on x86-64 for crying out loud. They just don’t look like a computer (in terms of openness), but the homebrew community has shown that they can be.

So the comparison is pretty apt; Some are claiming phones are computers now, so why aren’t actual computers that have been walled up any different?

What are you saying here exactly? arm64 CPUs aren't real CPUs?

No, I’m saying that video game consoles are a very apt comparison because they’re x86. I made no mention of ARM or whether Apple is right or wrong.

I don't disagree with you. I'm looking at it from a professional standpoint. Because seriously, who cares about video game consoles? In 99% of cases they are nothing more than a leisure activity with no real world consequences other than wasting time. Smartphones on the otherhand, like PCs and laptops, are used for Serious Business™ and should be open platforms because what enterprise in their right mind would give their employees hardware that is controlled by one megacorp to such an extent?

> Microsoft’s Xbox, Sony’s PlayStation or Nintendo’s Switch.

I don't believe any of those vendors take anything close to 30% of in-game revenue. And the reason is they compete with each other, quite vigorously, for the same set of users looking for the same set of products (consoles and games).

> or classify iOS as somehow different...

Right, because Apple is leveraging their dominance of an external market (high end mobile phones) to control pricing in the game market that "should" be more akin to consoles. But it demonstrably isn't. And that is a problem.

If you want to argue here, the proper argument is that iOS isn't a monopoly (and that Google charges similar fees). But don't argue that it's the same as a console, that just doesn't make sense.

> I don't believe any of those vendors take anything close to 30% of in-game revenue.

Worked for one of the worlds largest video games publishers for 6+ years. Now I work for the largest games publisher in the world, so, if anyone would get a discount for being big it would be us.

It’s 30% platform fee for sales on the PlayStation or xbox platforms, 70k eur/y developer fee (and you still have to buy hardware which is double sometimes triple price from the consumer stuff).

Valve has the same 30% and the same “non-compete” w.r.t discounts on other platforms.

This is pretty standard, and is one of the reasons why people tend to release on epic or steam and not both.

That was a while ago, then, or your games sold horribly for an AAA game. Steam's cut goes down to 20%.

The Microsoft store takes a mere 5%.

The Epic Games Store is at... 12% I believe. There's also no exclusivity from either Steam or EGS. The only condition is not using Steam to promote a game that will release first on EGS.

Well, that's interesting. for context I worked for Ubisoft and I left approx. 1month ago (August 12th) to work for Tencent.

Although, while we had good relationships with Microsoft at Ubisoft on a technical basis- I'm not sure about the business arrangement. If Valve is any indication then it was likely incredibly hostile.

Epic does only take 12%, it's an outlier, and is gaining traction because of it.

Unless you're a high level executive (which you may be, so apologies in advance!), I don't think you would ever know if a special deal was cut for your company.

For publishers/developers getting a special deal, there's just no upside to sharing that information, even internally.

I helped build the PNL for my projects, company doesn’t (can’t) hide finances from the project.

Since I can see total unit sales and total income and it’s broken down on SKU- then it would have been easy for me to see a discrepancy from what I was told our deals were by my masters at HQ but there never was one.

I think you assume too much of executives, they are consumers of our work, they don’t create any reports or such themselves.

I am not saying I agree with the restrictions imposed by the console manufacturers but that case is different.

A console is designed for a specific task (playing games and similar software), the market is somewhat competitive and you are free to buy a PC/Mac/Linux and get 99% of the functionality (minus a few exclusive titles). In fact consoles nowadays are just PCs running a custom build of a general-purpose OS.

The mobile market is different. There are only 2 dominant players (Apple and Google), they both have similar anti-competitive restrictions (side-loading on Android is a non-starter given the various security warnings, and even then the lack of officially-supported root access on Android means there are things official Google software can do that you can't do without resorting to exploits, plus Android requires you to accept Google's terms & privacy policy which does not comply with the GDPR). There are no other players; the open-source alternatives such as Pinephone are not viable alternatives as they cut you off from the vast majority of apps out there. Let's take a period-correct example, are there any Covid contact-tracing clients available for platforms besides iOS and Android?

You don't need to root an Android device to load applications from outside the Play store. The security warning is pretty accurate and useful for most people but if you want to load apps from outside the store then you aren't most people so it shouldn't matter.

There's a reason alternatives to iOS and Android haven't picked up, some of those reasons are because for those that care to side load apps they can already do it on Android (or can go further and replace their OS) so not much incentive for a third mobile OS. If there was a strong enough need for an alternative then that would exist already.

In future versions of Android, you will need to enable developer mode on Android to install applications outside of the Play Store.

Google has hindered Android so that it doesn't allow third party app stores to install apps in the background, upgrade apps or batch install apps like the Play Store can.