I hope one day the EU will go
after Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo. If iOS is a walled garden then consoles are prison.
It's the fact that modern living simply requires a phone is why the EU is so upset with Apple and Google putting up their garden walls.
Maybe so, but that doesn’t mean they can defraud their users
Most the time they break their own Eula, lose customer data, change rules on the fly, etc.
Doesn't matter. If I truly own the hardware, I should be able to run my own software.
Toasters also aren't essential to day to day life. Toaster manufacturers aren't putting sophisticated cryptographic locks on their products to keep me from toasting my own bread.
Don't give them any ideas. Coffee brewing machines are already there (kind of).
"Are they essential for day to day life" is a new one. I'm not sure that makes sense either, but I'll give you points for originality! It's also debatable whether phones are essential for day to day life, but we can leave that in another thread.
Literally from the first time people argued about this, that was at the core of the issue.
Nobody cares if you're creating a hardware device that can only run your OS and Apps if its not in widespread use. The issue occurs only once they're entrenched and can use their market position as an unfair advantage, which apple unashamedly does.
(And so does Nintendo and Sony with their gaming system, yes. The reason why almost nobody cares is because they're not in widespread use. And if they abuse their market position they also get a lot of flak. A lot more then apple ever gets, that's for sure. Just look at the helldivers 2 debacle last week, Nintendo banning people that mod their games in single player etc.)
I don't know if everything that has been labeled a console matches this description. Some "consoles" have indeed been stretching any meaningful distinction to or even past the breaking point.
But I will unashamedly go "no true Scotsman" on those: If a machine has a secondary (tertiary, quadrutionary, ...) specific focus with dedicated interface, it might still be a console. Illustration: a console that also can play dvd's ia a dedicated dvd interface. However, if the interface is generic and just waiting for the right app, not so much.
The point is not "can it do general-purpose computing" - a lot of devices can be made to run some linux. The pertinent question: is it made to support general-purpose computing out of the box? Things that I would call game consoles aren't - they're platforms for gaming.
(I agree the behaviour would be regulated a bit either way. But it's not even close to "prison")
Videogame consoles are typically not marketed as general purpose computers.
Out of the box, the only thing I can do on my Nintendo Switch is play videogames.
In fact, I was not even sure it had one. I had to look it up and found this: https://www.digitaltrends.com/gaming/how-to-use-hidden-ninte...
It would be difficult to make a case that the average user would see this as a general purpose computer.
Therefore, not a "general purpose" computer anymore.
Video game consoles have been crippled so that it would be misleading to market them as general purpose computers.
However, the videogame industry in its entirety was dead-lifted from its premature grave by one "Nintendo Family Computer".
Consoles maybe, but I don't think that the early 8/16-bit microcomputers were affected by the crash of 1983, and in any case the crash was mostly a US phenomenon with minor effects on other regions.
Sure, but you are in no way forced or pushed to do that. You only do it if you really want to play their exclusive games. It's a completely free choice in a way that choosing a smartphone isn't (due to various apps being close to required for modern life)
Don't buy the console. Or buy it and something else as well. It's a very fancy toy.
On pmOS, there's also full KVM virtualization support (works out-of-the-box on most aarch64 devices) for more picky apps, as well.
But anyway. I don't want to start the pointless flame war for the milionth time. I think I just have a different definition of "modern life", which is based on using what was considered high-tech not so long ago, like high-throughput radio links and instantaneous worldwide communication (including things like video), without giving up any control. It's not needed to do the abovementioned, so why would I?
BTW, 90% of internet services of any kind still serves "web apps". Which is far from perfect, but gives best compatibility and security out of all technologies we've managed to push to very high adoption.
Personally, I think exclusivity deals need to be banned. The are an inherently anti-competitive practice that does nothing to help consumers.
Given that Sony is historically extremely bad about allowing any crossplay, your argument that exclusive games are the only reason people are pushed into buying a PS is false.
Gaming is part of many people's social lives and Sony deliberately exploits this to maintain market dominance.
Insisting that consumer purchasing decisions are the only or best way to deal with monopolies ignores history and reality.
AFAIK at the country level ios market share tops out at around 60%. That's nowhere near a "monopoly".
There was no way for iOS except Apple's App store.
One option more.
The hardware enforced only one store
I want my delegates to regulate the market to make it more fun to me.