> Imagine if Sony did this on Playstation. a) prohibiting the installation of non-PlayStation games and b) insisting that all purchases done via their store give them a 30% cut.
Many platforms are like this -- and many also have the majority marketshare. Is this a call to redefine what platforms can and cannot control?
For PlayStation you pay the Sony tax for the convenience of integrating with their payment services, not because they'll ban you for using anything else.
It's also a super different situation in general; for example, Sony actually often pays developers to develop for their store (e.g. PubFund [1]), and does free marketing campaigns for them. Console makers live and die by their access to a pipeline of new exclusive games, so they treat game developers well; Apple doesn't, so it squeezes app developers for what it can. Hence why game developers are suing Apple but not Sony.
Hmmm -- not to stretch the analogy too thin, but is this similar to Apple though, where they allow you to sign in to subscription services (e.g. Netflix) with your existing account to the service, but don't allow sign ups (which would trigger payment processing)? Or is payment processing baked in there as well?
> For PlayStation you pay the Sony tax for the convenience of integrating with their payment services, not because they'll ban you for using anything else.
To clarify, has any developer integrated external payment services within a Playstation game / app / etc? From all the games and apps I've played with, I never remember any other payment system built in other than Sony's.
> It's also a super different situation in general; for example, Sony actually often pays developers to develop for their store ...
Blackberry did the same thing near the end of it's life -- I was at a hackathon where they were giving away Blackberries and cash to anyone who developed a Blackberry app -- but does not giving back really reflect as monopolistic?
Actually, looking now, I think you're right. It looks like Spotify disabled setting up subscriptions on PS4. I guess PS4 subscriptions are a small enough chunk of revenue for Spotify it didn't really matter to them.
I guess the real point is that PS4 just isn't a large enough chunk of these kinds of services' market share by revenue to matter; they don't need signups, since not many people primarily use Spotify via PlayStation.