{"id":32403,"date":"2021-05-06T16:53:48","date_gmt":"2021-05-06T20:53:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/?p=32403"},"modified":"2021-06-18T07:04:36","modified_gmt":"2021-06-18T11:04:36","slug":"epic-v-apple-day-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2021\/05\/06\/epic-v-apple-day-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Epic v. Apple, Day 3"},"content":{"rendered":"

Adi Robertson<\/a> (tweet<\/a>):<\/p>\n

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Is an iPhone more like a PC or an Xbox?<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

Epic called up Microsoft’s Xbox business development head Lori Wright as a sympathetic witness. 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.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

It’s hard to call the iPhone anything but a general-purpose device under Wright’s definition. (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.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n

Nick Statt<\/a>:<\/p>\n

“We sell the consoles at a loss,” Wright said. Asked why Microsoft would continue to do this, Wright elaborated that Xbox business model involves selling hardware at a loss and subsidizing it with game sales and subscription services, in this case to services such as Xbox Live Gold and Xbox Game Pass. The goal is to serve an “end-to-end consumer experience.” When asked if Microsoft has ever earned a profit on the sale of an Xbox device, Wright said no.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n

Adi Robertson<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Wright says Spotify has many songs and Netflix has many films. “Why could we not have a single app with many games?” Microsoft spent 3-4 months trying to “understand what this was.”<\/p>

Microsoft decided the logistics didn’t work — if you wanted to push an update, for instance, every single game in the catalog would have to update. “All your apps would just be constantly spinning.”<\/p>

If Microsoft took a game from the catalog, the way Netflix does, “there’d be a dead app on the phone. We thought this was a really inelegant way for players to experience this.”<\/p>

[…]<\/p>

Apple’s lawyer is not necessarily in the wrong here but is coming off as being pretty snide — asking next if Wright is aware the App Store had guidelines.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Of course, Apple didn’t change the guidelines to ban xCloud until after Microsoft had submitted it.<\/p>\n\n

Previously:<\/p>\n