It argues console makers have to treat app makers better because they lose money on hardware, unlike Apple, so they need to plan around attracting developers to the platform. Microsoft’s Xbox head says the console is more like an iPod than an iPhoneĮpic describes profit as one of the biggest differences between iPhones and consoles. (She described a “special-purpose” Apple product as something like an iPod.) Intentionally or not, Wright also linked the distinction to one of Epic’s major talking points: profit. It’s hard to call the iPhone anything but a general-purpose device under Wright’s definition.
That’s despite the fact that under the hood, there’s not a massive hardware difference between an Xbox and a desktop PC. Wright says there’s no plan to change that discrepancy.
APPLE THE ICONSOLE WINDOWS
Microsoft recently dropped its commission on Windows apps to 12 percent to compete with Epic, while the Xbox still takes a 30 percent commission. That includes Microsoft’s own app store, but also Steam, the Epic Games Store, and direct downloads from a website. Wright made a point of discussing all the different ways that users could get apps on Windows. “It can do a bunch of things already, and it has the aperture to do a bunch more things.” These platforms can support unexpected, emergent applications across more aspects of people’s lives, particularly when it’s easy to get an app onto them in the first place.
“You’re buying it to do a wide variety of things, and that changes every day as new ideas are getting created,” she said. Windows computers, according to Wright, are “general-purpose” devices. “It can do a bunch of things already, and it has the aperture to do a bunch more” Later in the day, Epic engineering fellow Andrew Grant gave his own, similar definition of gaming consoles in general, calling a console “a single-purpose device for entertainment.” People buy an Xbox because they want to play games.” As a result, Microsoft keeps tight control of what content users can access - it’s a “curated, custom-built hardware/software experience.” The market is also much smaller: tens or hundreds of millions sold, compared to “billions” of Windows devices. “The Xbox is designed to give you a gaming experience. “You are basically building a piece of hardware to do a specific thing,” she told a judge. The Xbox, as Wright describes it, is a special-purpose device. In response to a line of questioning, Wright divided computing devices into “special-purpose” and “general-purpose” devices - in a way that clearly defined iPhones as the latter. But today, Epic called up Microsoft’s Xbox business development head Lori Wright as a sympathetic witness. “If Epic prevails, other ecosystems will fall too,” they warned. Apple says if Epic wins, ‘other ecosystems will fall’Īpple’s attorneys issued a dire warning to Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft during its opening statement, saying that their business models were all fundamentally similar.