While in pc gaming, small indie studios can create entire new genres, like Factorio did, some which go on to grow and become giants themselves, like Minecraft.
www.xbox.com
The iPhone is largely a game machine as well, as some 70% of Apple's revenue from the App Store is from games.
I use my phone much more than my computer. Pretty much everything I used to do on computer I now do on my phone.
Tying that choice to the choice of hardware and operating system is anti-competitive.
Except you've just invented that arbitrary distinction.
You can't seriously suggest that a Microwave, Treadmill, Car, Calculator, Thermometer etc would all need to invest the ridiculous amounts of time/money in supporting users wishing to install alternate operating systems.
It just blows my mind a little when I imagine the walled garden approach being applied more broadly and earlier. E.g. if the creators of web browsers and search engines had all decided they want a cut of sales from websites. (I mean a cut of sales from organic search, not just ads. And all sales made using the browser.)
Those “what might have been” scenarios tend to make me less comfortable with my iPad and my Android phone. But I still have them because I like them.
Yes. Maybe even more so.
Because Apple has shown that having a safe, secure and profitable platform results in consumers choosing to spend more.
There was an 80s home computer like that: the TI 99/4A. Though even it didn't try to restrict BASIC programs.
Sometimes I wonder what today’s computers would be like if Microsoft had exerted that level of control over DOS and Windows. Forget downloading some random exe you found online, only approved programs can be installed. Would there have been a booming software industry? Would there be so much malware? Would Microsoft have allowed things like the first web browsers?
No comment on the merits of operating systems as walled gardens. I just find it fascinating (and difficult) to imagine how things might have been.