For those who missed it this is the quote that matters here:
> In an escalation, Apple then said it would pull Epic's access to developer tools on iOS and Mac.
> But Microsoft said this would damage a "critical technology" for many third-party game creators.
> That is because Epic also owns the Unreal Engine - a tool widely used by developers from other studios to build games, virtual-reality VR experiences and special effects in major television shows and films.
I may be missing the point, but does this imply that no games based on the Unreal engine could be developed for Mac anymore, as Epic themselves will be unable to develop for it / support it?
It means they cannot fix breakages before a new version of iOS/macOS is generally available, and they won't have access to the new ARM CPU devkit that's critical to port their engine to ARM based macOS.
This is what I'm taking it as. They probably have special access in order to get their engine ready for the latest iOS updates. This move on Apple's part is very abusive. People elsewhere in the thread are comparing Microsoft, but Microsoft wouldn't cripple developer tools because an app from a vendor abused its guidelines. Any store willing to do this has gone too far.
I note that Epic continues to provide a version of Fortnite that violates the rules and provides the ability to buy in-game currency at a lower price through their own store, and has filed legal papers requesting that Apple be forced to support this while the court case proceeds.
This seems like an abusive move by Epic.
Two wrong don't make a right, but it's tough to see how this isn't a direct result of Epic's actions, and more to the point, something Epic could fix in less than an hour by turning off their violating store.
Turn it back when/if you win the court case, Epic. Right now it seems like you bet that Apple wouldn't call your bluff, and you lost. They did.
This is pretty funny because Xbox has the same store restrictions (impossible to install from another source, all games approved by them, takes a revenue percentage) Apple does.
This was mentioned in one of the other threads about this - but you can purchase XBox games outside the Microsoft Store platform just fine - Best Buy, Amazon, Walmart, even resell on eBay, and Microsoft doesn't take a cut.
Microsoft receives a fee from developers that participate in their licensing program, which is generally a royalty on each sale ranging from 1% to 30% depending on the negotiating leverage of the publisher.
Developers are not required to participate in that program to sell games/software for the xBox, and some don't, but MS doesn't guarantee that any unlicensed software will work with the current version of the system or any (software) updates to the system.
Can you cite a source for this claim and provide an example of a game that was physically distributed in stores without the publisher having a signed publishing agreement with Microsoft?
> Developers are not required to participate in that program to sell games/software for the xBox, and some don't
They may not be required to take part in the standard distribution licensing program, but instead have the option of participating in ID@XBOX, where the games still have to be certified by MS to be allowed on the platform. This program also seems to be exclusive to digital distribution and smaller indie studios.
In the end MS is still always in a position to take revenue cuts for access to their platform, and mostly exercises it.
For the first transaction MS most likely gets a cut, but after that you can resell xbox games (at least the ones sold on physical media). You can't resell ios apps.
Yes, I'm equally mis-informed, but allowing companies to make games for your console requires some payment to the creator of the console to allow that.
It's how consoles are sold at a loss, but make it up through game sales.
Microsoft still get’s their ~20% for games sold in other stores. So, in terms of Microsoft’s profit on XBox those sales channels are closer to downloading over WiFi vs cellular modems.
They also prevent other digital retailers from selling on the XBox which is very relevant for in game purchases.
Not necessarily the case. The newer xboxes don’t come with removable media and the bought keys are tied to your Microsoft account.
The whole thing is slippery mass of corporate worms trying to fuck each other over for market control and the only losers are the end users. I want nothing to do with any of them any more.
That isn't true at all, Microsoft absolutely takes a cut from physical game sales, and also places arbitrary restrictions on what can be sold and requires pre approval for everything. That's literally the business model of the Xbox.
It's no different to the iPhone at all. It's just less controversial because people think of their phone like a mini computer but always expected consoles to be closed.
Microsoft also negotiates with publishers/developers, so it's not a flat rate. MS (and Sony) let the market decide what their royalty is for every sale, and that's what anti trust laws want.
First of all, I can buy Xbox games in many stores - GameStop, MediaMarkt, etc. etc.
iOS devices (especially iPads) are marketed as general purpose computers and as such should be compared with Windows and Linux where software authors can:
- Distribute their app without approval of the platform owner.
- Can freely communicate about pricing and availability of their software.
Apple forbids even talking about lower prices or other platforms, essentially forcing us developers to mislead and misinform customers of their platforms. It's deeply against the principles of a free market competition.
Sigh. Various comments already pointing out console vendors also take a cut from physical game sales.
I don't know where the "especially iPads" comes from - they are the only ones that could come even close to not being called a watch or a phone. What else apart from iPads are you talking about?
You can't resell them because you're purchasing a digitally licensed product. You have the same issue with most digital content. You can't resell your Amazon Kindle, Amazon Music, or Amazon Video purchases. You can't resell anything bought from Steam. You can't resell anything bought in the Windows app store. You can't resell anything bought through Google Play. You can't resell digitally purchased Switch games. You can't resell anything bought through, I'd wager, the majority of current digital market places.
The comment I replied to was talking about physical Xbox games, which you can buy and sell to your heart's content. The fact that all of those other digital stores don't allow reselling is irrelevant.
How many unsigned, unlicensed, un-xbox branded printed discs end up at game markets? I'm not sure ive ever seen an "xbox-compatible" disc at a store. Microsoft is still largely controlling distribution.
What is the difference between the capabilities of the console hardware and the phone hardware? The console hardware is actually more powerful. PS3's were used as general purpose computers until Sony removed OtherOS functionality.
This is nothing but defensive "don't sue us next" posturing by Microsoft. Consoles are just as general purpose as a phone. The only difference is the software veneer running on top.
It doesn't matter that you got your Microsoft-store approved copy of Gears of War from Gamestop instead of the Microsoft app store. MS still gets their cut, and that application still had to be approved by them.
The core similarity to iOS and Apple's app store is: Third party applications cannot run on the Xbox without Microsoft review, approval, and fee. It doesn't matter that it's a physical copy or not. You, an independent developer, can't just create an Xbox game and get it running without MS approval, no matter whether you wanted to sell it on the app store or as a physical copy.
Yep, I'd say Google's closer to doing the right thing here comparatively, having at least a non-terrible path to running unsigned APKs.
I would put Apple, Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo in the same bucket of "makes hardware that can run software, but only software they approve." Whether this is something we as a society should allow, I won't comment on, but I will say that Epic should either have a grievance with all of them or none of them. Microsoft and Epic are strange bedfellows and I can't see this headline as anything other than a nervous preemption on Microsoft's part.
I against to put smartphone platform and game console in the same bucket on antitrust perspective because there's only two viable players in smartphone platform market (on gaming, 3 major platforms + open PC platform + smartphone platforms) and it's mandatory device for modern life.
Many (or even most) PS5 users will not be able to purchase from physical stores since the cheapest model does not ship with a BluRay drive. And it's likely PS5 Pro or PS6 will not support this model at all.
If iPhones had the same rules of PSN Apple wouldn't be so rich
"If you want to play on another PS4 that isn't your primary console, you can download any game you've bought on the PS Store as long as you sign into PSN. Only you'll be able to start the games you've downloaded, and you can only be logged into two consoles at any one time: your primary PS4 and one other secondary one (like a friend's). The good news is there's no limit on the number of systems you can download your games to. You have to be logged in in order to play, but from the sounds of things this means you can share digital games with as many mates as you like, though only one of these secondary consoles will be able to play a title at any given time and you'll have to tell them your password so they can log in.
As has been mentioned before, the situation with discs remains the same as ever. Sony has reiterated that, "You can share disc games with your friends and play used disc games on your PS4 system just like you can on a PlayStation 3 system. You do not have to connect to the Internet or pay any usage fees to play used games."
100% agree. Game consoles are entertainment, but our lives are run through our smartphone. It tracks our location, is required by many employers so you can run job-related apps, supports multiple financial activities like banking, investing, and payments, and acts as the primary 2FA device for many folks. Comparing the capabilities of the hardware is beside the point: it's about the scope of the intended/expected usage.
The point is that folks expect to use their smartphones for a vast array of tasks, and they are _expected_ to use their smartphones for these tasks (by family, employers, friends, merchants, etc.) This is a social problem much more than a technical one, as I see it.
Yes. Game consoles are just as much “general purpose computers” as phones are. Volume and ubiquity doesn’t change that (modern) game consoles have the architecture required to run anything you want, even easier than needing to compile for Arm through Xcode.
One could argue that any console pre-CD days were specialized computing devices that required additional circuitry to run (cartridges.) But in my mind, any console that downloads contents of a storage medium to RAM and executes it is general purpose. You could make Spreadsheets for the Xbox or PlayStation or Switch, if you so chose.
In a way, I really do think the term "general purpose computer" should denote a standard for hardware that anyone can write software for. Both Microsoft and Apple are rather notorious for trying to kill this. https://www.pcworld.com/article/248342/windows_8_secure_boot...
The question of "where to draw the line" is an interesting one. People don't complain about it with consoles because you can just buy the game disks anywhere (including some list of retailers, and used from ebay/craigslist/wherever). Even though making a game for a console requires licensing and specific developer tools that - like iOS, access can be granted and revoked.
With iOS, Apple sells the idea that the iPad is a computer pretty hard. Yet it's not. It's an Apple Terminal. Just like the iPhone is.
I think a case could be made for it, yes. The original Xbox was, in fact, a general purpose computer in disguise (barely, lots of people took advantage of that capability). There have been Linux versions released for PlayStation.
It's not like 80s and 90s consoles which were much more limited and more clearly streamlined to just play games (limited or no internal memory, limited input device support, though some of them supported keyboards and could even be hooked up to modems). The lock down on gaming consoles today is mostly artificial.
The current generation of video games consoles are all x86-based systems with Radeon graphics, USB, Bluetooth, HDMI out, etc - they're basically full-on desktop class PCs with a few minor changes and a lot of lockdown. One of the big console hacking groups even managed to get the Linux versions of Steam and Portal 2 running on the PS4, with some slight hacks to the graphics drivers to deal with the slightly modified GPU.
The PS4, PS5, Xbox One and Xbox One Series X all run more or less the same type of AMD CPU & GPU. They all have HDMI And USB type A ports. They're much closer to a desktop PC than any smartphone.
Phones aren't really a "luxury" anymore, they are a necessity to life. A gaming console is not. Apple also sells their products at a HUGE profit margin of 30%+ where Microsoft/Sony often sell their gaming hardware at a loss and make it up in software fees.
> Phones aren't really a "luxury" anymore, they are a necessity to life
Tell that to the billions of people without one.
And interestingly with us in Australia being under a mandatory COVID-19 stay at home order I have not used my phone in over a week. I can do everything it does on my laptop just fine e.g. messaging, banking etc.
Food, shelter etc are necessities. Phone is just a nice to have.
Ti be clear the point was: if my Android phone breaks or is stolen and I am on the other side of the World I can enter any store buy a 50$ replacement, put the SIM in, sync my contacts and call back home
With Apple phones that's not possible
If you develop Apple apps you need Apple HW, another hidden tax to be paid to be part of the ecosystem
I think a company shouldn't be allowed to sell billions of devices that people rely on for daily activities, but that owners cannot control
Even if life can go on without smartphones
Life can also go on without refrigerators or washing machines, but if you buy one vendors don't lock customers in
There are vendors of phones that are not Apple. Trying to play it off like Apple is some kind of monster denying people life necessities for the sake of profit is pretty damned stupid even by HN standards.
I think it comes down to the way they're marketed towards consumers. Video game consoles are marketed as appliances that do only one thing (play video games). Apple markets iDevices as "your next computer".
This isn’t super surprising. Microsoft is desperate to get people to develop for the Windows platform and this obviously an incentive that developers will find attractive.
They take 5% if the customer gets to your app via a direct link. But they take 15% if the customer gets to your app via their store.
This actually aligns incentives really well. If the user came to you because of the marketing you directly did, you don't pay much more than if you had organised the sale directly on your website.
But Microsoft is incentivised to attract people to buying apps through their shop experience directly, and if they do, they get rewarded for it. These are customers that you might not otherwise have attracted yourself, so it's not unreasonable to pay a higher amount for them.
I think it's a really great model and I wish that other stores would adopt it.
I strongly doubt that, considering gaming makes up somewhere around 10% of their total revenue, while app store sale shares fall somewhere deep in an "other" category. Does anyone actually buy non-gaming apps in the MS Store? I don't see anything particularly strong in their top paid apps[1] but I could be wrong.
Are Windows PC gaming and the XBOX line in such a decline that they could be described as desperate? I really doubt it, but I'm having trouble finding data to back up either argument.
I believe he was referring to the Store on Windows platforms, not Xbox platforms. The Windows Store has games but Microsoft never made a fight against Steam the way Epic has.
What's the difference between the Windows store and XBox store? Is the revenue split different? Are there different requirements for selling on Windows and XBox?
I'm not versed in the finer details. Initially it was difficult to get into the Xbox store but then Microsoft started catering to Indie developers and smaller games.
They've rebranded the Xbox Store and Windows Store to both just be the Microsoft Store and content you purchase them (e.g. Movies, Music, TV) is shared between the two. Some Games are "Xbox Play Anywhere" which means you can play them on Windows 10 or Xbox (e.g. Forza Horizon 4) but others are exclusive to either platform (e.g. Flight Simulator). Some games can be purchased for either platform individually (e.g. Halo).
Then you have the weirdness that Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 is published by Xbox Game Studios but only available on Windows 10.
Pretty much nobody wants to buy games from the Windows Store instead of Steam. Even Microsoft has moved to selling their first party games on Steam.
Oddly enough, part of the unpopularity of the windows store comes from frequent reports of instability in the performance of the windows store software. You would think the world's biggest software company could figure out how to create a digital store that's as stable as their competition, but apparently they cannot.
There is also the fear that Windows Store goes the way of Plays For Sure(tm) (that name still makes me giggle) or Games For Windows Live (Lost few purchases there).
Steam has longetivity. MS stores mean that you rent the product for maybe 5 years or bit more.
The 5% split doesn’t cover Xbox. I’m pretty sure Microsoft’s share of PC game sales is really small, not PC gaming itself but the Microsoft share. As an example this article talks about Steam vs Epic with Steam described as the clear market leader: https://www.theverge.com/2019/4/16/18334865/epic-games-store...
This is only for the Microsoft Store, and it was 30% as well before it was dropped last year. I doubt their app store for Windows 10 devices pulls in very much since "side loading" has been the default distribution model for decades.
For further context, they used to take 30% on the Phone and Desktop store when they launched with Windows/Phone 8. The only reason they take less now is because those were miserable failures.
And no, no one finds the Windows store attractive.
> The new fee structure is applicable to purchases made on Windows 10 PC, Windows Mixed Reality, Windows 10 Mobile and Surface Hub devices and excludes purchases on Xbox consoles.
That’s peanuts considering the credit card fee itself is going to be 3% as I’d expect there is significantly more fraud for in game purchases than a vanilla shop.
Note that Microsoft is not backing Epic in their court case against Apple, because that would be quite the glass house given the xbox (which is a 70/30 split, with virtually identical restrictions as the App Store). Instead they are merely backing them for the injunction to prevent Epic from losing immediate access to development tools.
For an apples to apples comparison, Windows Phone allowed sideloading apps, so you could avoid the avoid paying a giving a cut to the store. The sideloading process was convoluted, but it worked.
The best outcome for MS would be if the Apple App Store itself were to become one of several app stores on iOS devices. Then MS could build out the pipeline (largely already possess it) to have their own MS App Store on iOS and Android, paired with their development tools which, really, are topnotch. They wouldn't necessarily need to undercut Apple's percentage, but just reduce friction for development and deployment across OSes.
No doubt. I'm just saying what would benefit them. They already have the infrastructure for developing cross-platform software. If this suit, taken to its extreme, breaks Apple's hold on the iOS app store then MS would benefit greatly by having their own app store which worked across their OS and the two primary mobile OSes.
As I understand it, though, there's little motivation to sell software on Android versus iOS right now due to the relative lack of sales (that is, iOS users consistently spend more an applications than Android users). I doubt there'd be much incentive to invest in an app store infrastructure on Android right now given the poor expected return (going off of my recollection, Amazon's app store has not done particularly well, what would differentiate MS's from Amazon's right now?). But if you could have the same app store on both iOS and Android, you'd place yourself in a much more compelling position (for users and developers).
And since iOS users have demonstrated a willingness to part with their money for software, it's a better target for companies like MS, Steam, Epic, and others than Android (or Android alone).
Quite a change, I remember when Microsoft could kill software just by announcing it intended to develop a competing product. If you had told me then that one day I'd be using a Mac for daily work I would have not believed it.
We should view MS with scrutiny due to their history (trying to compete and kill Linux; the SCO bullshit, etc.), but they are the underdog in this particular case and the market has changed quite a bit. I wouldn't think of Microsoft holistically.
That being said, this isn't the underdogs vis big players. These are big players, taken on other bigger players, and just kinda incidentally helping a lot of the smaller players ... for now .. but this could just as easily turn again if one of them gets back on top.
Microsoft will tear down competitors by building just good enough alternatives and giving them away free/cheap. See Teams vs Slack/Zoom, Github vs Gitlab, etc etc. Nothing has changed. They have almost no alternative but to behave this way.
It's time to stop being Apple apologists. We're engineers and these are our devices.
Apple has no right to fence in our entire industry as a walled garden. It wasn't like this until their grubby behavior with the iPhone. They're clearly taking Mac in that direction.
I wonder what car manufacturing companies think about all of this?
In my state and I think in much of the US, we're not allowed to buy directly from the car manufacturer. I never liked that law because I don't like car dealerships, but now I'm beginning to see why those laws that keep car dealerships in business might have passed.
Tangential: right to repair laws in some places state that a consumer should be able to buy any tool, part or manual that is available to a dealership.
Tesla manages to get around selling parts to consumers ... because they don't have any dealerships.
Microsoft seems to be doing everything they can to push everyone to writing platform agnostic software:
1. Game streaming, which opens the doors to app streaming
2. Progressive Web Apps, teaming with google to create a tool to publish them directly to the Android Play Store
3. At one point, they created tools to port iOS and Android apps to windows mobile
4. Investing in React Native and Xamarin
Personally, I am not a fan since today, the quality of these apps are really bad and give developers too much power. But seems Microsoft is trying to get a foothold to relaunch Windows Mobile again once more apps switch over
Epic needs to offer a 30% discount for anyone who gets their content from their website.
And while I'm not sure if you can side load on Apple products, if you can't, don't offer your services on Apple products. Customers will move as they wakeup to their horrible business practices.
> - Apple forbids people from buying content on their website.
Not quite. Apple forbids directing users to a web site from within your app to sidestep in-app purchases. If you offer any digital purchases through your app, they must use IAP.
AFAIK they did something like that before (ie. they offered x% off coupon, paid out of their own pocket), and several publishers adjusted their pricing up/down so their games wouldn't be eligible for the discount. I believe the reason was that they didn't want to "devalue" their games. random source: https://www.vg247.com/2020/05/18/the-witcher-3-epic-store-10...
Full support for Msft and Epic! Time to bring the dictator (Apple) down.
And when that day arrives, it will be a tragedy on HN since tears will be shed by Apple fanboys. Hint: You cannot support anti-competitive practices because you like your Mac :)
Part of me wonders if this is Microsoft just trying to align with Epic, in the cast that the courts do side with Epic, who in turn use that ruling against Sony/Microsoft/Nintendo.
I wonder if it is because they believe that their cloud gaming platform will be more lucrative than XBox in a few years and think that not having to pay apple the 30% and still have access to the iOS userbase will be more profitable.
I for one wouldn't mind if this case ended up forcing Apple to loosen their restrictions in regards to sideloading and other app stores on the device.
That's true for games distributed via disc (I'm very glad the PS5 still has a disc option; I do not want to lose the used game market), but that's only for the big titles.
Independent developers don't have used game sales and still dependent on xbox, PS Store, Steam, Humble, GoG, etc.
That's not a very meaningful distinction. Microsoft still gets their cut and till approves every title. An independent XBox store would remove Microsoft from the loop.
If Epic wins in court (and I hope they do), then the consoles are next in line to be forced open.
Does it really matter how it's marketed? We know that an XBox is mostly a Windows PC. There's all kinds of software I'd like to load onto an XBox-like device. A PC in the living room connected to a large TV has a lot of potential. I'd like to write software for it and I'm sure I'm not alone.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24253943 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24257455