Comment by PeterStuer
3 months ago
People install games from Steam or the Epic Store on their computers without Microsoft preventing that or taking a cut all the time (not for lack of trying. I know). But somehow, in the mobile world, we went with total lockdowns and platform extortion as the rule?
The irony of that iconic Apple 1984 add .
> People install games from Steam or the Epic Store on their computers without Microsoft preventing that
microsoft wishes they could have the level of platform control that google/apple on mobiles have.
It's pure luck that the IBM-compatible PC was not locked down and restricted, because at the time IBM had not thought of it as being important. When it became clear that it was a lost profit opportunity, the cat was already out of the bag and so IBM had no choice.
Microsoft repeated the same "mistake". But apple learnt, and google also from apple.
They tried with the PS/2 MCA architecture, but naturally everyone ignored them.
Nowadays Microsoft could easily do it, they aren't fully into it, because they managed to botch themselves the whole WinRT/UWP and Windows 10X transition, had they made it in a way that most Windows developers would join the party, and the outcome would look much different.
Windows 11 sandboxing already requires MSIX and store distribution to be fully enabled, they only have to slowly keep turning the knobs on Windows 12 in whatever form it shows up, eventually.
That's also because Microsoft has their own game / app store and video game monetization scheme in the form of xbox live, which is integrated into Windows installations.
I don't know if it's actually used much much on windows, but iirc xbox live is pretty popular.
Wrong analogy, as you need to register at Steam to sell a product. To share an executable for Windows, you don't. It's also not about taking a cut.
Do you know that Proton is developed as a countermeasure against Microsoft's possibility of vendor locking? It is already anticipated that little or more Microsoft will want that cut.
We're at late stage capitalism, where enshittification occurs at alarming rate.