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Comment by EricE | Hacker News Reader

If they feel so strongly about it let Epic open a store inside the Xbox.

What? Didn’t think so.

The letter is only in regards to the Unreal Engine being blocked. It will directly impact Microsoft and other game developers not directly involved in this fight.

They did not mention Fortnite or alternate stores at all.

That's 100% at Epic's fault. First of all, they willingly put their customers at risk. Second of all, they could've put the engine business in a different entity, keeping it safe from their games business

They did put the engine business into a separate entity, a Swiss company called Epic Games International S.à r.l. Apple is threatening to cut off access for both entities.

https://cdn2.unrealengine.com/epic-pi-tro-08-23-2020-8198711...

I just read so. In that case, that should be all safe

Even if they did that... Apple would just ban, because they can/want.

I'm not fan of Epic however if the court rules Epic as right, we are about to see an important precedent to a less monopolized market.

That’s Apple’s prerogative after banning a developer who has violated their contract with them. Otherwise you could have shady developers just create numerous of legal entities to effectively brute force their way on to the store, and Apple would be unable to respond.

This case is less about monopolisation and more about inequality between two parties when settling a contract. Nothing stops Epic from making an Epic phone and doing the same.

The Xbox isn’t marketed as a general purpose computer, nor is it integral to the economy.

Everyone making this "general purpose computer" argument is disingenuously taking care to define the term specifically to rule out game consoles while covering the iPhone. The fact is that modern gaming consoles are general purpose computers complete with media center capabilities, operating systems, application stores, multitasking, networking, web browsing, streaming, etc.

Just like the case of the iPhone, the only thing that makes them appear otherwise is what software their respective owner companies choose to allow or disallow.

Why do people even feel the need to defend consoles? The fact consoles are also artificially restricted doesn't mean it's okay for the Iphone to be, it means they need to be fixed as well.

My take on it is that while both are bad, the iOS situation is far worse.

Almost no one would replace a desktop or laptop with an xbox while many people have done just that with an iPhone.

I do agree that the iOS situation is far more important.

While I do want the iOS situation fixed, I don't want the Switch or Playstation platforms to be affected in any way. Sony and Nintendo are the only publishers still making decent AAA games with the patience to sink a crazy amount of money and time into their projects. We'd all be worse off without games like Last of Us or Mario. Changing the status quo could turn them into another Ubisoft (devoid of all risk or creativity, and with a massive emphasis on microstransactions and games as a service).

And frankly, anybody bringing up consoles in this context is arguing in bad faith. The similarities are purely surface level.

> The similarities are purely surface level.

They really aren't. If you'd care to offer some reasoning behind your assertion that they are, I'm listening.

iPhone is neither a general purpose computer, nor is it integral to the economy

are you in 2007?

I have always seen iOS devices as consoles, or at least closer to consoles than PCs. Anything with a locked App Store and a locked boot loader is a console by definition. MacOS is a general purpose computer OS.

Considered as a console iOS is actually more open and capable than most.

A console that hosts an app to fight a global pandemic, is used for payment, flight tickets, banking, web browsing (for some people it's their only access to the internet), navigation, taking photos, calling an ambulance. Other than web browsing, none of the things I listed is done on gaming consoles.

You should let Apple in on that definition so they’ll stop marketing and selling the iPad as a general computing device.

Exactly. How many times has Apple said the iPad is a laptop replacement?

It is for a subset of the market that only uses the web and a few apps. Otherwise, no, and Apple knows it which is why they are sticking their ARM silicon in Macs and continuing to evolve MacOS.

That is not a subset. Running programs is what computers are for.

> Considered as a console

But it's not just a console.

Locked boot loader, locked App Store. It’s a console.

Apple's misbehavior includes locking out competitors to their own apps. This is as if Microsoft started removing Halo competitors from the Xbox (which they don't do). Just because of that the case is much, much stronger against Apple than it might be against Microsoft.

If a game deliberately bypassed paying Microsoft their cut of the in-game transactions, you think that Microsoft would be fine leaving the game in the store doing this?

Last I knew you could buy games for the Xbox from people other than Microsoft.

Best Buy, for instance

Except you can't get your game on the shelf without Microsoft's explicit (contractual) approval, and (of course) paying them a royalty for each copy sold.

What cut does Microsoft take on IAPs? I think this is the main issue at stake here— the fact that apple takes 30% from IAPs too, and that you can only use Apple's systems to receive IAP payments.

They take 30% as well.

You can’t even make an app store viewers which just links to the iOS app store but with better search/discovery since that is against app store rules.

Isn't that a different argument?

What argument is that?

If the problem is Apple doesn't allow you to sell apps without going through their approval process, Microsoft does the same.

If the problem is Apple doesn't allow you to sell apps without collecting a commission on each sale, Microsoft does the same.

I find shifting arguments fairly repulsive. I'm sorry if that offends you.

8note made the point that you could buy games from other stores. It's a narrow point. Why would you reply to that person (in particular) about a digital protection issue that has been prevalent in consoles since the NES introduced it in 1983? Why not start your own thread about that issue?

Do you expect him to support a point he did not make? Because it sounds like you are assuming his point of view on digital protection would be different than yours.

I think you've misunderstood the point. Do you think if Apple permitted apps to be physically sold in stores, but still took their 30% and required apps to be approved, that everyone would be happy?

Is it? You have to pay a Microsoft tax to sell anything that functions on the Microsoft device. Is it different because the fee is structured somewhat differently?

Please see my response to nodamage.

Ah, but Microsoft still takes a cut of that sale, it just happens at a different part of the chain. On top of that, Xbox live takes a 30% cut of all micro transactions, just like Apple.

MS, understandably, feels differently about other companies' anticompetetive behavior than its own.

Does Microsoft get a 30% cut of all subscriptions and items bought via apps on Xbox?

AFAICT yes. From what I could find, it seems they dropped the Microsoft App Store from 30% to 5%, but their % take for games is still 30%, including in-app purchases.

[0] https://9to5mac.com/2019/03/06/microsoft-store-revenue-share...

[1] https://blogs.windows.com/windowsdeveloper/2019/03/06/update...

[2] https://www.ign.com/articles/2019/10/07/report-steams-30-cut...

[3] https://query.prod.cms.rt.microsoft.com/cms/api/am/binary/RE...

30% for base level developers with little to no publisher support, anything beyond that is intentionally shrouded in industry secrets.

Rumors are some publishers get the 5% deal (or better?), at least for digital-only sales, as some of those publishers have indirectly mentioned higher profit margins on Xbox versus PlayStation, but who knows how accurate the rumors are (or if there are other confounding factors for higher margins on Xbox such Microsoft subsidies or Microsoft's increasing "economy of scale" with keeping PC and Xbox in closer API sync these days) because Xbox keeps a tight lid on publisher specific deals, unlike the rest of the App Store which tries to be much more transparent. The fact that Epic isn't complaining so much about Xbox sales seems to indicate a favorable position on Xbox as well, but again any such details are probably closed room deals we can only guess at from the outside (and probably in constant flux with Xbox marketing as Microsoft wanders between incentives based on favoring Marketing tools/projects like Xbox Play Anywhere, Xbox Game Pass, xCloud, Xbox Smart Delivery, etc).

Yes. If iPhone as appliance doesn’t stick, Xbox as appliance shouldn’t either. Both are vertically integrated and curated experiences on digital rights managed “consoles”.

Epic may have thrown Unreal Engine under the bus, but Microsoft needs the law to recognize it and Apple compete as fully integrated experiences not unbundled hardware separate from app stores.

That said, a lot of games money is going to iOS that used to funnel to consoles. So they’re of two minds.

The PR move is support Epic. The business move is keep consoles vertically integrated and own curation.

/2c

I'm not sure that Microsoft sees it that way. The direction they're going with XCloud and XBox Game Pass seems to me that they're interested in strongly diversifying on software as a service while selling XBox hardware as commodity priced entrypoints into their software ecosystem. The only reason XCloud isn't launching on iOS is because Apple denied it, not for Microsoft's lack of trying.

If xBox ever gets to the same total market size as the iPhone, in terms of raw numbers, revenue, ect then maybe it should be.

The iPhone is has 10 times a larger market than Internet Explorer did when it lost the anti trust case, for comparison.

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