>Well for that comparison to work, we'd also have to assume Microsoft disabled installing unsigned software as well.

Look no further than Xbox Store and how well you can run unsigned code on it.

Sure, you can buy a physical game copy, but there are two issues with that:

1. Diskless versions of consoles are becoming more commonplace, thus removing that option.

2. If you buy retail, it is still a cut to Microsoft, just a smaller one. Because you pay the same price for physical as you do for digital, except instead of the entire cut going to MSFT, a part of it goes to the retail establishment selling it.

And before someone says "well, this is a gaming console, not a phone/computing device", I will say that it has apps (youtube/streaming services/etc.), it has a web browser, and plenty other functionality not related to games.

So I am struggling to draw a hard line here as to why it is ok on Xbox, but not ok on smartphones (as long as there are commonplace alternatives available that would prevent it from being a monopoly, and Android is one such commonplace alternative).

EDIT: I stand corrected, apparently you can run unsigned code officially on new Xbox consoles, and I should have picked a better example. Thanks to people in the comments correcting me on this, as I genuinely had no idea you could run unsigned code on Xbox. Despite this, I believe my general argument still stands though, because the same situation with transaction cuts is happening with Sony's and Nintendo's consoles, except you cannot run unsigned code on those.