6 ms·

I wonder why the EU is pushing Apple this hard, and not the other gatekeepers. For example, Xbox, Playstation, and Nintendo consoles should now support an exter

by m_a_g 3y ago

I wonder why the EU is pushing Apple this hard, and not the other gatekeepers. For example, Xbox, Playstation, and Nintendo consoles should now support an external store.

makeitdouble 3y ago
They're not general purpose computers, even if architecturally they could be. Apple amply touted the iPhone's capacities ("there's an app for that") and smartphones are defacto a core component of our lives. The Switch isn't.
- ggreer 3y ago
  What applications are necessary to call it a general purpose computer? A web browser? A self-hosted development environment? I don't think there's a bright line between what applications a Playstation or Xbox has versus what a phone has. And it's not like the iPhone is the only phone you can get. If Apple is restricting such a core component of our lives, you can simply buy non-Apple products.
  - zarzavat 3y ago
    Games consoles are designed, marketed and used to play games and for similar entertainment purposes. You are not going to do your online banking on an Xbox, or write a letter on a PlayStation, even if the hardware is theoretically capable of that, it’s just not what it’s for.
    - weberer 3y ago
      That's what people said about phones at first too. The Nintendo Switch has the same capabilities with its touchscreen. Its more than capable of taking the place of an iPad.
      - asadotzler 3y ago
        That's what people said about phones and cell phones, not about smartphones and there's a meaningful difference. "Phones" include analog devices that send voltage over copper wires to make sound at each end and they were never nor will ever be capable of use as a general purpose computer, so care with product categories must be taken. The thing my grandfather used first as a child to call across town to his uncle is not the same thing our children are carrying in their pockets to watch TikToks, and any more than a carrier pigeon is a 747.
  - stale2002 3y ago
    That is a great question which is answered by the Digital Markets Act. > I don't think there's a bright line Well there is one. The bright line would be the services that the DMA applies to or doesn't. That is a bright line.
  - bloppe 3y ago
    It's not about how you might use the device. it's about how people actually use them. Maybe a dozen ppl have ever used the browser on a PlayStation. When you lose your phone, on the other hand, it literally feels weird to go about your day without one. Right now you have a "Hobson's choice", but if you could ditch the iPhone while still keeping access to iMessage and iCloud, wouldn't you?
    - ggreer 3y ago
      I don't really care about iMessage or iCloud. Yes the blue text looks nicer and the quality of images in messages is a little better, but it's not a deal breaker if I'm messaging an Android user. I have less than a gigabyte of stuff in iCloud and I don't know how it got there. I use iPhones because they're smaller than Android phones. Would I like it if Apple still made phones in the form factor of the iPhone 4 or 5? Absolutely. Should the government force Apple to do that? Probably not.
  - ncruces 3y ago
    On my smartphone I have: - an app that's used by pharmacies to handle prescriptions from the public health system; - an app I can legally show a police officer so they can determine that I have a valid driver's license; - an app I can use to pay my taxes; - an app I can use to pay parking meters to the local authorities; - apps used to register consumption (kWh, m3, etc) with the local utilities. Some of these are published by the government itself, others by public companies. A smartphone is not a Playstation or an Xbox. We have Androids and iPhones, that's it. And significant portions of our lives are tied to having Androids and iPhones. PS: I also remember having an app that used an API purportedly developed with amazing good will to help public health systems trace COVID exposure. Remember that one? How everyone having a smartphone was going to help get us back to the subway safely?
    - burnerthrow008 3y ago
      So your argument for why we don’t need to open up game consoles is because they are not already open? Isn’t that circular reasoning?
      - ncruces 3y ago
        My argument is we regulate these companies and not others because these are important to society, yes. Same as we regulate phone companies or the internet. We can't allow two global multinationals to gatekeep this much of our modern lives and simply do nothing about it. Or we could, but we don't want to. Apple and Google can leave the market if they don't like the rules.
        ggreer 3y ago
        Doesn't that argument prove too much? I can think of several things that are much more important to society but regulated less. For example, books are important to society. Should the government dictate what books publishers are allowed to publish? After all, certain ideas are extremely corrosive to society and should be discouraged. (I can think of a few religious texts that might fall under that umbrella.) Or what about the opposite? Amazon doesn't sell certain books on its Kindle platform. Just like Apple and the iPhone, shouldn't Amazon be forced to support third party stores for the Kindle? Apple's app store isn't nearly as important to society as books, but the EU regulates it much more. That makes me think that the driving factor behind these particular regulations is not importance to society.
  - kube-system 3y ago
    It's really a lot more simple than you're making it out to be. The word 'purpose' refers to intent, not capability. Xbox is a gaming console because that's what it was meant to be. The iPhone is intended to run many different categories of applications, because that's what it was designed to do.
    - ggreer 3y ago
      In that case, why is the EU forcing Apple to support alternative app stores for watchOS and tvOS, not just iOS and iPadOS? The Apple Watch and Apple TV aren't designed to be general purpose.
      - kube-system 3y ago
        Because they're interconnected enough that the EU lumps them in with the rest of the ecosystem for anticompetitive purposes? I wasn't necessarily agreeing with the rationale above, just commenting on what a 'special purpose computer' is.
        ggreer 3y ago
        But Microsoft has a single store for both Windows and Xbox apps. So why isn't the EU forcing Microsoft to open up the Xbox?
        kube-system 3y ago
        Probably because the Windows store is the furthest thing from an anticompetitive marketplace? I don't even know anyone who uses it.
      - asadotzler 3y ago
        Because they don't have the numbers to matter, that's why. I know it can be hard to keep several distinct conditions in the head at once, but it's important to remember that just because one can satisfy a single condition does not mean a law which requires several conditions to be true will necessarily apply.
mthoms 3y ago
Access to gaming is not critical to participation in a modern economy. Whereas a phone gives you access to banking, government services, medical services, emergency services, education, information, news, wayfinding(GPS), shopping (especially if you live somewhere remote) are just some examples of things people do with their phones. And that's not just some people, like 80-90% of all people. It's not the same.
- sjm 3y ago
  Are any of those things impossible without sideloading or the DMA? Those things will only be riskier on your phone with all the malware that will undoubtedly spread throughout fully open marketplaces. I really do not want my mom accidentally installing her "Chase Bank" app from www.chazebank.cc.
  - asadotzler 3y ago
    those things are all made prohibitively difficult without a smartphone. there are people in the US getting kicked off their insurance plans for not having a required smartphone. this isn't some goddamn game here, peoples lives and livelihoods are on the line and you're wondering if it might not be such a big deal clearly never having put more than a moment's thought into it. And your malware claims are total BS There's been alternative stores on Android for years and the malware situation remains stable to slightly improving thanks to hardening of the OS that Google did resulting from the goal of supporting multiple stores. Far more people in the world use Android and bank on it than iOS so the idea that the sky will fall if Apple opens up is pure ridiculousness, utter silliness.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - sjm 3y ago
      You are trying to start fights all over this post and I'm not sure why, but please don't put words in my mouth. At no point did I even remotely suggest that people shouldn't have access to smartphones.
weberer 3y ago
That would be cool if they did. And lets extend it to all devices. Once I pay for a device, I should be able to do whatever I want with it.
- darknavi 3y ago
  Just be ready for Xbox and Sony to stop subsidizing their console prices then. That may be the future anyways as Xbox (and Sony really recently) push towards cross-plat gaming.
  - weberer 3y ago
    Well Nintendo has been able to outsell both of them combined without subsidization, so it shouldn't be too big of a problem.
    - ggreer 3y ago
      That may be true in terms of number of devices sold, but it's definitely not true in terms of revenue. In the seven years since the launch of the Switch, Nintendo has made almost $60 billion in revenue, or $8.5 billion per year. The Playstation and Xbox platforms make $12-16 billion a year.
      - asadotzler 3y ago
        I care about their revenues about as much as I care about the consistency of squirrel droppings. They can all take a haircut and still be eminently sustainable, even quite profitable, as Nintendo has amply demonstrated.
        ggreer 3y ago
        Umm, ok. I'm just saying that the parent comment is incorrect. Loss leader consoles make more money. Also "Console manufacturers can endure being forced to sell products at cost." is a different argument than "Console manufacturers are more successful when they sell products at cost.", which is what I was addressing.
lupusreal 3y ago
Don't divide your firepower between multiple targets at once. Instead, line them up and knock them down.
- CatWChainsaw 3y ago
  Who gets to be Hitler, who gets to be Bin Laden, and who gets to be Toby?
TillE 3y ago
> other gatekeepers Because they are not "gatekeepers", a term defined by the DMA which focuses on specific sectors. Also the video game ecosystem is pretty healthy these days, with nearly every major game available on Windows at launch or a few months later. As a matter of market competition, letting you hack your game console or smart TV or whatever just isn't that relevant.
- arminluschin 3y ago
  Following your line of argument, isn’t the app ecosystem the healthiest of all, with nearly every major app available on Android and iOS?
  - skydhash 3y ago
    It could be, but with Apple's overseeing has turned into a Damocles sword hanging over everyone. The rules has been ok (and that's why most business didn't care about the 30% fee), but lately the rules has been only in Apple's favor. And with their ubiquity today, it's more rent seeking than curation.
- NoPicklez 3y ago
  I like how in this scenario people are happy to quote particular areas of law or DMA to excuse opening up consoles. But when Apple do it people just simply want more freedom regardless of what the law says, which isn't that what would be the case with consoles too?
summerlight 3y ago
Because none of those businesses are considered as "gatekeeper" in DMA.
layer8 3y ago
Because smartphones have become an ubiquitous and essential part of everyday life (communication, information access, and services) for large parts of the population, which is not true for gaming consoles.
Almondsetat 3y ago
It seems disingenuous to compare video game consoles with smartphones
kmeisthax 3y ago
Existing law surrounding anticircumvention already singles out game consoles as deserving special protection. i.e. the Copyright Office made it explicitly legal to circumvent the iPhone's DRM in order to install otherwise legal software, but they refused to extend this to game consoles. While you are technically correct that we should be treating game consoles the same as smartphones, in practice the industry treats game consoles as a locked down box to handcuff users with while smartphones are not. I suspect if half the console market was unlocked ala the Steam Deck, the EU would be pushing for the other half to also be unlocked, too. We also have to keep in mind that Epic sued Apple, not Microsoft, Sony, or Nintendo. A lot of monopoly maintenance involves obfuscating the business relationships that make the monopoly work. i.e. Apple doesn't report how much money they make from the App Store[0] because that information would be very useful to regulators looking to undo their monopoly. The discovery on the Apple lawsuit published a lot of this previously hidden information. In other words, the EU had Apple land on their plate ready to cook and serve. Epic will not sue their console partners. The damage to their business would actually be a lot worse: instead of merely seeing Fortnite taken off the various console stores, the console manufacturers would be sending repo men to take away all the devkits Epic uses to test Unreal Engine, demanding they delete the console ports of the engine, and refusing to cert any new games using Unreal Engine, forcing all their partners to license different technology and rebuild their games from the ground up. It would be immediate and total financial suicide. In other words, the console manufacturers are "getting away with it" because they had way more control over their niche than Apple did. [0] Related note: there's an unenforced SEC rule that specifically forbids not reporting this information, to prevent monopolies from obfuscating their profit centers like this.
- kowbell 3y ago
  > take away all the devkits Epic uses to test Unreal Engine, demanding they delete the console ports of the engine, and refusing to cert any new games using Unreal Engine, forcing all their partners to license different technology and rebuild their games I think this is a lil extreme. Even if Epic had some reason to sue the console makers, there are too many high profile and high grossing games (e.g. the next Witcher and Cyberpunk, Hogwarts Legacy, Star Wars Jedi series) for Sony/Microsoft to choose to completely ban Unreal. Imagine too: if one of them announces they will prohibit Unreal games, why won’t the other swallow their pride and become the console-exclusive platform for that title? Not even Apple has banned Unreal, and I can’t think of any big games on their store that use it.

by m_a_g 3y ago

I wonder why the EU is pushing Apple this hard, and not the other gatekeepers. For example, Xbox, Playstation, and Nintendo consoles should now support an external store.

makeitdouble 3y ago

They're not general purpose computers, even if architecturally they could be. Apple amply touted the iPhone's capacities ("there's an app for that") and smartphones are defacto a core component of our lives. The Switch isn't.

ggreer 3y ago
What applications are necessary to call it a general purpose computer? A web browser? A self-hosted development environment? I don't think there's a bright line between what applications a Playstation or Xbox has versus what a phone has. And it's not like the iPhone is the only phone you can get. If Apple is restricting such a core component of our lives, you can simply buy non-Apple products.
- zarzavat 3y ago
  Games consoles are designed, marketed and used to play games and for similar entertainment purposes. You are not going to do your online banking on an Xbox, or write a letter on a PlayStation, even if the hardware is theoretically capable of that, it’s just not what it’s for.
  - weberer 3y ago
    That's what people said about phones at first too. The Nintendo Switch has the same capabilities with its touchscreen. Its more than capable of taking the place of an iPad.
    - asadotzler 3y ago
      That's what people said about phones and cell phones, not about smartphones and there's a meaningful difference. "Phones" include analog devices that send voltage over copper wires to make sound at each end and they were never nor will ever be capable of use as a general purpose computer, so care with product categories must be taken. The thing my grandfather used first as a child to call across town to his uncle is not the same thing our children are carrying in their pockets to watch TikToks, and any more than a carrier pigeon is a 747.
- stale2002 3y ago
  That is a great question which is answered by the Digital Markets Act. > I don't think there's a bright line Well there is one. The bright line would be the services that the DMA applies to or doesn't. That is a bright line.
- bloppe 3y ago
  It's not about how you might use the device. it's about how people actually use them. Maybe a dozen ppl have ever used the browser on a PlayStation. When you lose your phone, on the other hand, it literally feels weird to go about your day without one. Right now you have a "Hobson's choice", but if you could ditch the iPhone while still keeping access to iMessage and iCloud, wouldn't you?
  - ggreer 3y ago
    I don't really care about iMessage or iCloud. Yes the blue text looks nicer and the quality of images in messages is a little better, but it's not a deal breaker if I'm messaging an Android user. I have less than a gigabyte of stuff in iCloud and I don't know how it got there. I use iPhones because they're smaller than Android phones. Would I like it if Apple still made phones in the form factor of the iPhone 4 or 5? Absolutely. Should the government force Apple to do that? Probably not.
- ncruces 3y ago
  On my smartphone I have: - an app that's used by pharmacies to handle prescriptions from the public health system; - an app I can legally show a police officer so they can determine that I have a valid driver's license; - an app I can use to pay my taxes; - an app I can use to pay parking meters to the local authorities; - apps used to register consumption (kWh, m3, etc) with the local utilities. Some of these are published by the government itself, others by public companies. A smartphone is not a Playstation or an Xbox. We have Androids and iPhones, that's it. And significant portions of our lives are tied to having Androids and iPhones. PS: I also remember having an app that used an API purportedly developed with amazing good will to help public health systems trace COVID exposure. Remember that one? How everyone having a smartphone was going to help get us back to the subway safely?
  - burnerthrow008 3y ago
    So your argument for why we don’t need to open up game consoles is because they are not already open? Isn’t that circular reasoning?
    - ncruces 3y ago
      My argument is we regulate these companies and not others because these are important to society, yes. Same as we regulate phone companies or the internet. We can't allow two global multinationals to gatekeep this much of our modern lives and simply do nothing about it. Or we could, but we don't want to. Apple and Google can leave the market if they don't like the rules.
      - ggreer 3y ago
        Doesn't that argument prove too much? I can think of several things that are much more important to society but regulated less. For example, books are important to society. Should the government dictate what books publishers are allowed to publish? After all, certain ideas are extremely corrosive to society and should be discouraged. (I can think of a few religious texts that might fall under that umbrella.) Or what about the opposite? Amazon doesn't sell certain books on its Kindle platform. Just like Apple and the iPhone, shouldn't Amazon be forced to support third party stores for the Kindle? Apple's app store isn't nearly as important to society as books, but the EU regulates it much more. That makes me think that the driving factor behind these particular regulations is not importance to society.
- kube-system 3y ago
  It's really a lot more simple than you're making it out to be. The word 'purpose' refers to intent, not capability. Xbox is a gaming console because that's what it was meant to be. The iPhone is intended to run many different categories of applications, because that's what it was designed to do.
  - ggreer 3y ago
    In that case, why is the EU forcing Apple to support alternative app stores for watchOS and tvOS, not just iOS and iPadOS? The Apple Watch and Apple TV aren't designed to be general purpose.
    - kube-system 3y ago
      Because they're interconnected enough that the EU lumps them in with the rest of the ecosystem for anticompetitive purposes? I wasn't necessarily agreeing with the rationale above, just commenting on what a 'special purpose computer' is.
      - ggreer 3y ago
        But Microsoft has a single store for both Windows and Xbox apps. So why isn't the EU forcing Microsoft to open up the Xbox?
        kube-system 3y ago
        Probably because the Windows store is the furthest thing from an anticompetitive marketplace? I don't even know anyone who uses it.
    - asadotzler 3y ago
      Because they don't have the numbers to matter, that's why. I know it can be hard to keep several distinct conditions in the head at once, but it's important to remember that just because one can satisfy a single condition does not mean a law which requires several conditions to be true will necessarily apply.

mthoms 3y ago

Access to gaming is not critical to participation in a modern economy. Whereas a phone gives you access to banking, government services, medical services, emergency services, education, information, news, wayfinding(GPS), shopping (especially if you live somewhere remote) are just some examples of things people do with their phones. And that's not just some people, like 80-90% of all people. It's not the same.

sjm 3y ago
Are any of those things impossible without sideloading or the DMA? Those things will only be riskier on your phone with all the malware that will undoubtedly spread throughout fully open marketplaces. I really do not want my mom accidentally installing her "Chase Bank" app from www.chazebank.cc.
- asadotzler 3y ago
  those things are all made prohibitively difficult without a smartphone. there are people in the US getting kicked off their insurance plans for not having a required smartphone. this isn't some goddamn game here, peoples lives and livelihoods are on the line and you're wondering if it might not be such a big deal clearly never having put more than a moment's thought into it. And your malware claims are total BS There's been alternative stores on Android for years and the malware situation remains stable to slightly improving thanks to hardening of the OS that Google did resulting from the goal of supporting multiple stores. Far more people in the world use Android and bank on it than iOS so the idea that the sky will fall if Apple opens up is pure ridiculousness, utter silliness.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - sjm 3y ago
    You are trying to start fights all over this post and I'm not sure why, but please don't put words in my mouth. At no point did I even remotely suggest that people shouldn't have access to smartphones.

weberer 3y ago

That would be cool if they did. And lets extend it to all devices. Once I pay for a device, I should be able to do whatever I want with it.

darknavi 3y ago
Just be ready for Xbox and Sony to stop subsidizing their console prices then. That may be the future anyways as Xbox (and Sony really recently) push towards cross-plat gaming.
- weberer 3y ago
  Well Nintendo has been able to outsell both of them combined without subsidization, so it shouldn't be too big of a problem.
  - ggreer 3y ago
    That may be true in terms of number of devices sold, but it's definitely not true in terms of revenue. In the seven years since the launch of the Switch, Nintendo has made almost $60 billion in revenue, or $8.5 billion per year. The Playstation and Xbox platforms make $12-16 billion a year.
    - asadotzler 3y ago
      I care about their revenues about as much as I care about the consistency of squirrel droppings. They can all take a haircut and still be eminently sustainable, even quite profitable, as Nintendo has amply demonstrated.
      - ggreer 3y ago
        Umm, ok. I'm just saying that the parent comment is incorrect. Loss leader consoles make more money. Also "Console manufacturers can endure being forced to sell products at cost." is a different argument than "Console manufacturers are more successful when they sell products at cost.", which is what I was addressing.

lupusreal 3y ago

Don't divide your firepower between multiple targets at once. Instead, line them up and knock them down.

CatWChainsaw 3y ago
Who gets to be Hitler, who gets to be Bin Laden, and who gets to be Toby?

TillE 3y ago

> other gatekeepers Because they are not "gatekeepers", a term defined by the DMA which focuses on specific sectors. Also the video game ecosystem is pretty healthy these days, with nearly every major game available on Windows at launch or a few months later. As a matter of market competition, letting you hack your game console or smart TV or whatever just isn't that relevant.

arminluschin 3y ago
Following your line of argument, isn’t the app ecosystem the healthiest of all, with nearly every major app available on Android and iOS?
- skydhash 3y ago
  It could be, but with Apple's overseeing has turned into a Damocles sword hanging over everyone. The rules has been ok (and that's why most business didn't care about the 30% fee), but lately the rules has been only in Apple's favor. And with their ubiquity today, it's more rent seeking than curation.
NoPicklez 3y ago
I like how in this scenario people are happy to quote particular areas of law or DMA to excuse opening up consoles. But when Apple do it people just simply want more freedom regardless of what the law says, which isn't that what would be the case with consoles too?

summerlight 3y ago

Because none of those businesses are considered as "gatekeeper" in DMA.

layer8 3y ago

Because smartphones have become an ubiquitous and essential part of everyday life (communication, information access, and services) for large parts of the population, which is not true for gaming consoles.

Almondsetat 3y ago

It seems disingenuous to compare video game consoles with smartphones

kmeisthax 3y ago

Existing law surrounding anticircumvention already singles out game consoles as deserving special protection. i.e. the Copyright Office made it explicitly legal to circumvent the iPhone's DRM in order to install otherwise legal software, but they refused to extend this to game consoles. While you are technically correct that we should be treating game consoles the same as smartphones, in practice the industry treats game consoles as a locked down box to handcuff users with while smartphones are not. I suspect if half the console market was unlocked ala the Steam Deck, the EU would be pushing for the other half to also be unlocked, too. We also have to keep in mind that Epic sued Apple, not Microsoft, Sony, or Nintendo. A lot of monopoly maintenance involves obfuscating the business relationships that make the monopoly work. i.e. Apple doesn't report how much money they make from the App Store[0] because that information would be very useful to regulators looking to undo their monopoly. The discovery on the Apple lawsuit published a lot of this previously hidden information. In other words, the EU had Apple land on their plate ready to cook and serve. Epic will not sue their console partners. The damage to their business would actually be a lot worse: instead of merely seeing Fortnite taken off the various console stores, the console manufacturers would be sending repo men to take away all the devkits Epic uses to test Unreal Engine, demanding they delete the console ports of the engine, and refusing to cert any new games using Unreal Engine, forcing all their partners to license different technology and rebuild their games from the ground up. It would be immediate and total financial suicide. In other words, the console manufacturers are "getting away with it" because they had way more control over their niche than Apple did. [0] Related note: there's an unenforced SEC rule that specifically forbids not reporting this information, to prevent monopolies from obfuscating their profit centers like this.

kowbell 3y ago
> take away all the devkits Epic uses to test Unreal Engine, demanding they delete the console ports of the engine, and refusing to cert any new games using Unreal Engine, forcing all their partners to license different technology and rebuild their games I think this is a lil extreme. Even if Epic had some reason to sue the console makers, there are too many high profile and high grossing games (e.g. the next Witcher and Cyberpunk, Hogwarts Legacy, Star Wars Jedi series) for Sony/Microsoft to choose to completely ban Unreal. Imagine too: if one of them announces they will prohibit Unreal games, why won’t the other swallow their pride and become the console-exclusive platform for that title? Not even Apple has banned Unreal, and I can’t think of any big games on their store that use it.