Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

Back in the NES era with licensing restrictions, yes. I believe it was Tengen vs Nintendo? Also Atari vs Activision?

But the Switch, PS4, and XBox One ALL have closed app stores exactly the way Apple does.

If Apple loses a lot of people will have to find a new business model.



I would love game consoles to have third party stores. As it stands I almost never buy console games through the PSN store/xbox store/whatever because (at least with AAA titles) games remain at initial launch price way too long, and are usually more expensive than retail stores.


Although, it isn't only limited to online console stores, some publishers are pretty terrible on PC too. As an example - in my region (New Zealand) Call of Duty Black Ops is still $99 on Steam, and that released in 2010...

(Activision, you there? I still want to buy it but I can't justify that price for an 8 year old game, or even the half off sale price right now...)


You can buy digital codes to redeem games on those stores from third party retailers. Often at a discount.


Really? I think I’ve only ever seen that for Steam/GOG.



I’ve seen the digital codes before, but that’s actually MORE expensive than disk.

I assumed they weren’t allowed to sell at a discount




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: