4 ms·

I disagree. It doesn’t matter if the company makes money on the device or not. A device with a walled off App Store, be it a PS4, Xbox, Switch, or an iPhone, op

I disagree. It doesn’t matter if the company makes money on the device or not. A device with a walled off App Store, be it a PS4, Xbox, Switch, or an iPhone, operates in the exact same murky legal waters. MS better be careful, or they could wind up breaking their own console’s ability to limit access to their store. Why shouldn’t Steam or Epic be allowed to sell games to an Xbox customer?

ksec 6y ago
So you are suggesting console maker to sell at a loss while others come in and paid nothing for using their platform? Even EPIC have no problem with the console business model.
- baddox 6y ago
  Or, maybe don’t sell at a loss?
  - ksec 6y ago
    You then end up with no body buying the console. It would cost $999, and everyone would have problem justify that price tag. And the total market would shrink, which means for Game developers their Games would also have to be priced higher in order to make a return of investment. Normally that wouldn't work because pricing it higher also means less people are willing to buy, so the solution would be to lower the cost of making games. And less ridiculously expensive AAA titles.
    - baddox 6y ago
      Apple sure sells a lot of iPhones at around the $1000 price point, and they’re not selling those at a loss. I don’t see any reason to think that the laws of the physics are such that it’s simply impossible to sell a gaming console the same way that, you know, almost every product in the world is sold: for more money than it costs to make.
      - inawarminister 6y ago
        I'd assume your typical gaming studio needs to sell a LOT more copies to break even than most shops producing iPhone apps. Also, a smartphone is an essential hardware for modern living. A gaming console... Not really.
        baddox 6y ago
        Sure, but then the argument is nothing more than “because our product isn’t good enough to just sell it like every other normal product in the world, we have to sell it at a loss and then extract as much value as we can from developers by exerting total control over software distribution.”
        chongli 6y ago
        Or maybe the product is great but consumer expectations have been set by years of loss-leading prices on consoles?
        Talanes 6y ago
        Are you just arguing because you can't stand the idea of a world where everything isn't black and white? If the system as it has settled were so much of a problem for the developers, they would not have time and time again put their weight behind the companies pricing their consoles low. Prices are all ephemeral anyway. How many of those "normal products" are only able to be sold for more than they are made for because we value the labor of the person making it less than we would the same labor from the person buying it?
        danShumway 6y ago
        > If the system as it has settled were so much of a problem for the developers, they would not have time and time again put their weight behind the companies pricing their consoles low. To loop back around to the iPhone, pretty much every indie developer I know thinks that mobile phone games are priced too low, but nobody can change it because the expectation has been set that a mobile game can't be $30-60. It's just the way the market has evolved. So markets are complicated. Sometimes they move in smart directions, sometimes multiple factors conflate together and they move in unsustainable directions. The fact that developers still write games for consoles doesn't necessarily mean that developers like the system they're a part of, or that they don't want it to be any better. It just means the expected value of signing those NDAs, using expensive locked down hardware, and paying revenue portions to the console maker still currently work out to be positive. Games sell like hot-cakes on the Switch right now. Nintendo would honestly need to do some pretty horrible stuff to make a Switch release of almost any semi-popular game not worthwhile economically. But that doesn't mean developers love everything Nintendo does. So be careful of reading too much into what developers do. We're Capitalists just like everyone else. If the market demands F2P micro-transactions, NDAs, DRM, or region-specific pricing, ultimately most of us will do what the market demands. Revenue splits are no exception. That being said, I would argue the market for games publishing hasn't settled, and that it's really not shifting towards increasing revenue splits or developer costs. The original process for getting games on the XBox was way harder and way more expensive than it is today. The reason consoles have generally started to shift towards more open terms is because developers eventually got fed up with paying money to release bugfixes, and started shifting focus to consoles that made releasing software easier. We're seeing the same trends with Steam and the Epic store. 30% was reasonable, until Epic started offering much better terms. Now Valve is starting to move towards 20%. Devs will work with any system that makes them money, but obviously they would prefer to take bigger cuts of each sale. People don't really appreciate that -- if Steam didn't have such a massive market share right now, no developer would rationally choose to release on Steam instead of Epic Store. We all want lower revenue splits.
    - simion314 6y ago
      >You then end up with no body buying the console. It would cost $999, If people are bad at gathering enough money at once then there are options like pay 999 now or pay 1099 over 2 years period. This is not in the interest of the consumer so it will not happen without regulation.
- Navarr 6y ago
  No, I think they're suggesting that console makers need to open up their app stores and that may result in them no longer being able to sell at a loss.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- gdhbcc 6y ago
  Selling at a loss is also called "dumping" and Is generally considered as a illegal anticompetitive practice. Why should video game consoles have an exception?
  - take_a_breath 6y ago
    Doesn't Walmart do this with groceries section?
  - will4274 6y ago
    > Selling at a loss is also called "dumping" and Is generally considered as a illegal anticompetitive practice No, this is wrong. Dumping is selling at a loss unsustainably in the short term to drive out competitors. If you do it sustainably, it basically can't be dumping. Thousands of business have loss leaders, from supermarkets to rasers. Video game consoles are not an exception.
- jonny_eh 6y ago
  Consoles are usually not sold at a loss. Maybe for the first year after launch, but they quickly get costs lowered to the point that they're profitable.

ksec 6y ago

So you are suggesting console maker to sell at a loss while others come in and paid nothing for using their platform? Even EPIC have no problem with the console business model.

baddox 6y ago
Or, maybe don’t sell at a loss?
- ksec 6y ago
  You then end up with no body buying the console. It would cost $999, and everyone would have problem justify that price tag. And the total market would shrink, which means for Game developers their Games would also have to be priced higher in order to make a return of investment. Normally that wouldn't work because pricing it higher also means less people are willing to buy, so the solution would be to lower the cost of making games. And less ridiculously expensive AAA titles.
  - baddox 6y ago
    Apple sure sells a lot of iPhones at around the $1000 price point, and they’re not selling those at a loss. I don’t see any reason to think that the laws of the physics are such that it’s simply impossible to sell a gaming console the same way that, you know, almost every product in the world is sold: for more money than it costs to make.
    - inawarminister 6y ago
      I'd assume your typical gaming studio needs to sell a LOT more copies to break even than most shops producing iPhone apps. Also, a smartphone is an essential hardware for modern living. A gaming console... Not really.
      - baddox 6y ago
        Sure, but then the argument is nothing more than “because our product isn’t good enough to just sell it like every other normal product in the world, we have to sell it at a loss and then extract as much value as we can from developers by exerting total control over software distribution.”
        chongli 6y ago
        Or maybe the product is great but consumer expectations have been set by years of loss-leading prices on consoles?
        Talanes 6y ago
        Are you just arguing because you can't stand the idea of a world where everything isn't black and white? If the system as it has settled were so much of a problem for the developers, they would not have time and time again put their weight behind the companies pricing their consoles low. Prices are all ephemeral anyway. How many of those "normal products" are only able to be sold for more than they are made for because we value the labor of the person making it less than we would the same labor from the person buying it?
        danShumway 6y ago
        > If the system as it has settled were so much of a problem for the developers, they would not have time and time again put their weight behind the companies pricing their consoles low. To loop back around to the iPhone, pretty much every indie developer I know thinks that mobile phone games are priced too low, but nobody can change it because the expectation has been set that a mobile game can't be $30-60. It's just the way the market has evolved. So markets are complicated. Sometimes they move in smart directions, sometimes multiple factors conflate together and they move in unsustainable directions. The fact that developers still write games for consoles doesn't necessarily mean that developers like the system they're a part of, or that they don't want it to be any better. It just means the expected value of signing those NDAs, using expensive locked down hardware, and paying revenue portions to the console maker still currently work out to be positive. Games sell like hot-cakes on the Switch right now. Nintendo would honestly need to do some pretty horrible stuff to make a Switch release of almost any semi-popular game not worthwhile economically. But that doesn't mean developers love everything Nintendo does. So be careful of reading too much into what developers do. We're Capitalists just like everyone else. If the market demands F2P micro-transactions, NDAs, DRM, or region-specific pricing, ultimately most of us will do what the market demands. Revenue splits are no exception. That being said, I would argue the market for games publishing hasn't settled, and that it's really not shifting towards increasing revenue splits or developer costs. The original process for getting games on the XBox was way harder and way more expensive than it is today. The reason consoles have generally started to shift towards more open terms is because developers eventually got fed up with paying money to release bugfixes, and started shifting focus to consoles that made releasing software easier. We're seeing the same trends with Steam and the Epic store. 30% was reasonable, until Epic started offering much better terms. Now Valve is starting to move towards 20%. Devs will work with any system that makes them money, but obviously they would prefer to take bigger cuts of each sale. People don't really appreciate that -- if Steam didn't have such a massive market share right now, no developer would rationally choose to release on Steam instead of Epic Store. We all want lower revenue splits.
  - simion314 6y ago
    >You then end up with no body buying the console. It would cost $999, If people are bad at gathering enough money at once then there are options like pay 999 now or pay 1099 over 2 years period. This is not in the interest of the consumer so it will not happen without regulation.
Navarr 6y ago
No, I think they're suggesting that console makers need to open up their app stores and that may result in them no longer being able to sell at a loss.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
gdhbcc 6y ago
Selling at a loss is also called "dumping" and Is generally considered as a illegal anticompetitive practice. Why should video game consoles have an exception?
- take_a_breath 6y ago
  Doesn't Walmart do this with groceries section?
- will4274 6y ago
  > Selling at a loss is also called "dumping" and Is generally considered as a illegal anticompetitive practice No, this is wrong. Dumping is selling at a loss unsustainably in the short term to drive out competitors. If you do it sustainably, it basically can't be dumping. Thousands of business have loss leaders, from supermarkets to rasers. Video game consoles are not an exception.
jonny_eh 6y ago
Consoles are usually not sold at a loss. Maybe for the first year after launch, but they quickly get costs lowered to the point that they're profitable.