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A finding that preventing or discouraging installation of apps from anywhere but the first-party store constitutes use of market power to exclude competitors and fix prices in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act sounds like a great solution to me.


Console gaming will probably catch the strays of it, though (not that the sentiment to move to PC gaming is increasingly vocal anyway).


It's my understanding that availability of alternatives is a major factor in determining whether a company has market power. Someone looking for interactive entertainment has a multitude of options beyond gaming consoles, so the manufacturer using technical means to extract a payment from anyone selling games is less likely to be considered anticompetitive. Furthermore, people with gaming consoles often have more than one brand, PC games, and games on mobile devices.

There is no viable alternative to an Android or iOS powered smartphone for most people, and even switching between the two is enough of a challenge that few people do it once they've picked one. That gives their respective vendors substantially more power to fix prices and exclude competitors.




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