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The argument is that things should be different for a platform that isn't easily substituted. EGS is easily substituted for Steam because there are no barriers

The argument is that things should be different for a platform that isn't easily substituted. EGS is easily substituted for Steam because there are no barriers to which store you use on PC aside from installing a new one, and using multiple at a time isn't even much of a burden. The App Store is not easily substituted for anything because there are no major alternatives in the mobile space that don't have the same restrictions, and even ignoring that there's an argument to be made about the cost (monetary and otherwise) to switch platforms that is _much_ higher than switching storefronts on PC. The one segment you've mentioned that actually works similarly is consoles - Xbox/PlayStation/Switch. These operate much the same way as the App Store and are the reason I myself am torn on whether I agree with Epic. Their argument for why consoles do _not_ apply here is that they are not intended as "general purpose" devices the way a PC or phone is. I don't know if I believe that argument to be convincing, but I absolutely see where they are coming from with everything else. > I think you are narrowly defining the marketplace as being only iOS, when in fact it's much larger For the record, a big part of the court case has been (and likely will continue to be) about this point - does it make sense to segment the market in this way?

johnnyanmac 5y ago
I see the argument as convicting for the same reason the person above is being dismissive: do people care? If Facebook, Adobe, Twitter, and Discord care about hosting their apps on PSN, then there can be a case that this is a general purpose usage that should be allowed. In reality, I imagine they don't and even if Sony/Microsoft were forced to open up that their competing stores would be as thriving as those Custom Firmware homebrew stores. Point #2: ephemerality. There's a 99.999% chance that the PS5 and XSX will be succeeded in a decade by the PS6 and the Xbox Whatever. Would Adobe want to spend all that development time releasing photoshop for PS5, only to need to re-develop it for PS6 6 years later? For what is likely to be an entierly new OS? in contrast, there's good odds that an app made in 2010 would still work just fine today, barring some outdated Api calls that Google/Apple made great strides to ease the migration on. So that security on not needing to change OS's every generation would incentivize development.
- redxdev 5y ago
  > do people care? The problem with this line of reasoning is that said companies might not have even thought about trying to do something with those platforms because it was assumed impossible, and they didn't want to go through the effort of a court case to make it so. It's hard to say what would happen if consoles opened up without it actually happening. > Point #2: ephemerality. With how much mobile OSs change I'm not sure it's relevant. Apps that aren't kept up to date (esp. when it comes to changes in how the system manages privacy settings) tend to be delisted, and the rate at which those changes happen is much faster than the 7-10 year console cycles where backwards compatibility is a requirement even when major parts of the OS change (see: Win8 -> Win10 kernel transition in the early days of the X1). Admittedly, keeping up with mobile OS changes doesn't usually require a full rewrite of the app, but neither did anything moving from X1/PS4 to XSX/PS5.
  - johnnyanmac 5y ago
    > said companies might not have even thought about trying to do something with those platforms because it was assumed impossible We know now that Epic (obviously) wanted to open negotiaions with Nintendo on EGS deals, even if they haven't started yet and are considered a shot to the moon. I'd be surprised if other companies never put even a bit of thought into the alternate platforms. That is partially was why the court subpeona'd the entire industry for questions and arguments. >With how much mobile OSs change I'm not sure it's relevant. I say it's relevant because part of the marketing of app versions is how (relatively) easy it is to migrate, often including automated tools for the job. I highly dought Nintendo and Sony offer similar things (maybe Microsoft). As such they want to encourage that longevity as long as the dev in intersted in maintaining. So it again comes from "do they care"? Google and Apple do. consoles make no such guarantee. Some years after the next gen becomes current gen, they will leave no option to submit previous generation titles. Both in a physical (stop accepting submissions) and marketing sense (less updates to older consoles, usually just security patches). It should also be noted that consoles are 1-2 systems specs, and some games highly, highly optimize for that spec. So mimgration is naturally harder because consoles generally give devs almost a full memory block to work with, compared to, say, Window's non-guarantee of memory layout.

johnnyanmac 5y ago

I see the argument as convicting for the same reason the person above is being dismissive: do people care? If Facebook, Adobe, Twitter, and Discord care about hosting their apps on PSN, then there can be a case that this is a general purpose usage that should be allowed. In reality, I imagine they don't and even if Sony/Microsoft were forced to open up that their competing stores would be as thriving as those Custom Firmware homebrew stores. Point #2: ephemerality. There's a 99.999% chance that the PS5 and XSX will be succeeded in a decade by the PS6 and the Xbox Whatever. Would Adobe want to spend all that development time releasing photoshop for PS5, only to need to re-develop it for PS6 6 years later? For what is likely to be an entierly new OS? in contrast, there's good odds that an app made in 2010 would still work just fine today, barring some outdated Api calls that Google/Apple made great strides to ease the migration on. So that security on not needing to change OS's every generation would incentivize development.

redxdev 5y ago
> do people care? The problem with this line of reasoning is that said companies might not have even thought about trying to do something with those platforms because it was assumed impossible, and they didn't want to go through the effort of a court case to make it so. It's hard to say what would happen if consoles opened up without it actually happening. > Point #2: ephemerality. With how much mobile OSs change I'm not sure it's relevant. Apps that aren't kept up to date (esp. when it comes to changes in how the system manages privacy settings) tend to be delisted, and the rate at which those changes happen is much faster than the 7-10 year console cycles where backwards compatibility is a requirement even when major parts of the OS change (see: Win8 -> Win10 kernel transition in the early days of the X1). Admittedly, keeping up with mobile OS changes doesn't usually require a full rewrite of the app, but neither did anything moving from X1/PS4 to XSX/PS5.
- johnnyanmac 5y ago
  > said companies might not have even thought about trying to do something with those platforms because it was assumed impossible We know now that Epic (obviously) wanted to open negotiaions with Nintendo on EGS deals, even if they haven't started yet and are considered a shot to the moon. I'd be surprised if other companies never put even a bit of thought into the alternate platforms. That is partially was why the court subpeona'd the entire industry for questions and arguments. >With how much mobile OSs change I'm not sure it's relevant. I say it's relevant because part of the marketing of app versions is how (relatively) easy it is to migrate, often including automated tools for the job. I highly dought Nintendo and Sony offer similar things (maybe Microsoft). As such they want to encourage that longevity as long as the dev in intersted in maintaining. So it again comes from "do they care"? Google and Apple do. consoles make no such guarantee. Some years after the next gen becomes current gen, they will leave no option to submit previous generation titles. Both in a physical (stop accepting submissions) and marketing sense (less updates to older consoles, usually just security patches). It should also be noted that consoles are 1-2 systems specs, and some games highly, highly optimize for that spec. So mimgration is naturally harder because consoles generally give devs almost a full memory block to work with, compared to, say, Window's non-guarantee of memory layout.