2 ms·
The cost of licensing, manufacturing, cert etc in those days was quite high, yes. To be fair they were offering many services for that cost that you couldn't ge
by kevingadd 7y ago
The cost of licensing, manufacturing, cert etc in those days was quite high, yes. To be fair they were offering many services for that cost that you couldn't get elsewhere at the time. These days publishing on consoles is much cheaper and in some cases they've waived or eliminated many of the fees you used to have to pay for. In the XBox 360 days the certification process to push a build to consoles could itself cost you upwards of a thousand dollars depending on the circumstances, though it's my understanding that the fees would be waived in some cases (for bug fixes, etc). This was largely a necessity to prevent a broken build being shipped to 100k customers (because in those days it wasn't reasonable to expect everyone to download a 1gb patch), not as important now.
Steam is the best 1:1 approximation to the App Store and it predates it somewhat. The comparison isn't exact since they don't lock down your PC but they offer most of the same features.
- enos_feedler 7y agoI understand your comparison from how the underlying product is realized but I am looking at it from the value delivered to a software shop. Whether it's Nintendo, Steam or iOS, the value delivered is the same: I give you docs, guides, etc to construct a program against an abstract target. When you are done and press the "ship it" button, an opportunity now exists, in the real world, for people to buy your thing and for you to keep some money. Regardless of how the platform achieves this, the value is the same. You get to focus on building your product and collecting money. What I can't wrap my head around is why developer's are judging the affordability or fairness of this when the fractional cost may not have changed since the 80s/90s.