Get ready to answer why an iPhone is different than an xbox
Closed ecosystems only benefit the corporations that control them.
scale and usage matters. Apple has > 50% market share in the USA (the place relevant to USA law). So, being a monopoly they get treated differently than a non-monopoly.
Even if they had less than 50%, people bank, invest, shop, talk, communicate, book hotels, flights, and effectively live their lives on smartphones. On XBox they play games and same small percent play music or watch movies there (I suspect most switch over to their Smart TV/Apple TV/.. for that).
the first sentence in the article is:
> A federal judge hammered Apple for violating an antitrust ruling related to App Store restrictions and took the extraordinary step of referring the matter to federal prosecutors for a criminal contempt investigation.
Seems like it's about antitrust law
The actual judgment: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/25924283-epic-v-appl...
>After a bench trial, this Court entered judgment on September 10, 2021, finding thatcertain of Apple’s anti-steering rules violate the California Unfair Competition Law (“UCL”)under its unfair prong. ... As to the merits of Apple’s UCL violations, Apple did not directly challenge this Court’s application of the UCL’s tethering and balancing tests, instead arguing that(i) the UCL’s “safe harbor” doctrine insulates its liability because Epic failed to establish Sherman Act liability ... As to Apple’s “unfair” practices under the UCL, the Court explainedthat Epic could demonstrate unfairness under either a “tethering” test or a “balancing” test. Id. at1053. The “tethering” test required Epic to “show that Apple’s conduct (1) ‘threatens an incipientviolation of an antitrust law,’ (2) ‘violates the policy or spirit of one of those laws because itseffects are comparable to or the same as a violation of the law,’ or (3) ‘otherwise significantlythreatens or harms competition.’” Id. at 1052 (quoting Cel-Tech Commc’ns, Inc. v. Los AngelesCellular Tel. Co., 973 P.2d 527, 544 (Cal. 1999)). While the Court held that Epic’s claims basedon app distribution and in-app payment processing restrictions failed to state a claim of unfairpractices, the Court held that Apple’s anti-steering provisions were severable and constitutedunfair practices under the UCL
I'm not sure that the scale or usage really matters.
our anti-trust laws are not about being a monopoly or the size of your business: they are about abusing market dominance (where up or downstream has no choice) with unfair business practices.
a monopoly that charges fair prices and does not abuse suppliers and customers will not encounter any legal difficulty
iPhones are sold at a _premium_.
If iPhones were sold at-cost to consumers, then Apple would have been right to ask developers to pay 30% fees.
And since all the console manufacturers are selling the hardware at loss or with low margins, they can argue that it's just how the market works (free razors but expensive razor blades).
Yes but why? They very powerful computers. New recycling laws might force companies to give up the keys to the hardware before or after their obsoletion.
The precedent here is SIM-locked devices. At some point you must let the user do what they want with it.
Might still make sense, though. Just for general historical preservation.
However, for the consoles to make sense, they _have_ to be an oligopoly. There can't be 100 brands of competing consoles.
The main feature of traditional consoles that would be lost in this scenario: guaranteed compatibility of games.
So, who is causing this friction? Console companies. Now, there may be technical limitations due to games being such a unique kind of software. But at the end of day, they are software. Games can be packaged to support multiple formats or a standard interface.
Console games are typically highly optimized for particular console hardware. This coupling allows great-looking games for hardware that is cheap to make.
As a result, it's typical for consoles to far outperform regular PCs of the same price range. Especially at the beginning of the console lifecycle.
So it can be argued that consumers benefit from this arrangement: they get cheap special-purpose devices for gaming that can't be obtained if consoles are prohibited.
> Games can be packaged to support multiple formats or a standard interface.
Sure. But for AAA-type games that push the envelope, it's not at all trivial.
However, it seems that this pattern is fading with the recent consoles. So perhaps they also need to be unbundled.
Unless your name is T. Cook, you lack the authority to make that statement conclusively. The judge claims that Apple is guilty of perjury, and never corrected the executive that made misleading statements. If that testimony was fabricated, then there is every reason to believe Apple is obstructing information that could benefit the prosecution. There is no other feasible alibi in this scenario besides their lawyers all calling in sick. It's one thing to make a mistake, it's another thing to insist it's truth.
Let's not forget that Apple was headed down this same road with the DOJ, too. They are being investigated for a pattern of behavior that is not new, meaning they very well could be guilty of monopoly abuse right this very second. Saying "because it's not" is like telling Lance Ito to drop the OJ charges. Apple is not guilty until proven innocent; but claiming their innocence in certainty is a base lie. You do not actually know, either.
If you really ask: xbox is pretty much the same as an x86-64 PC, running Windows (and having AMD GPU). It just bit more sealed.
We also would have more Switch competition in the ARM gaming space instead of x64 handhelds and Android windows emulation if these walled gardens didn’t exist.
Which, given the sentiment against the very existence of these things in PC gaming circles (as a desktop, at least) in favor of self-building, would be just laptops and handhelds (Steam Decks/ROG Allys) at best.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/previous-versions/windows/...
Source?
I can't find anything that backs that up.
Are you pushing back on the word "majority" or on the concept that many people use their phones for nearly everything they used to use their computers for but that next to no one does the same with an Xbox?
That link though doesn't say that. It simply shows global ownership of smartphones is higher than computers which is rather different altogether.