Mostly because Microsoft doesn't really gatekeep Windows and is actually compliant with the DMA; they were motioning to the same tricks as the other gatekeepers (main one is forced bundling), but the DMA caused them to retract on all of those changes.
Right now, you can properly remove all Windows apps from W11, which was really the big one that they started doing with Windows 10 alongside the Microsoft account push in OOBE (dunno if that one is still required). They also supposedly made actually disabling the Windows telemetry much more feasible than it used to be.
You can? Last I tried I couldn't remove Edge, could not change search engine used in the Windows search to anything other than Bing, every new windows update would default install new apps like Candy Crush and Amazon Prime I never wanted, and so on, and disabling Windows telemetery seems impossible without registry hacks. Ever installed a new Win11? Riddled with dark pattern UX to deceive you into extra telemetry.
The way MS did this was kind of dodge but fits the letter of the law.
On a new install of Windows 11, if you select an EU region, you will have the options to remove things like edge in the OS. You can move off that region because this flag is set only on install. If you install with a non-eu region, you don't have access to those options.
Being slightly late to the party with this comment, but according to XDA, the entire thing is just controlled by a JSON file in System32 (why it's not the registry is beyond me)[0].
Just for future reference if you want to disable it later.
To get Europe's protections, you need to be in Europe (or faking it somehow). If you live in the US or somewhere else outside of Europe, these companies will continue to screw you because you don't have Europe working on behalf of your privacy and choice.
I am unable to uninstall Edge although I see from news briefs it will be possible in April. I am unable to even see Defender listed although it is clearly separable and I do not think they are going to enable uninstallation; if not then I would say they are still not compliant, but I understand how browsers are more of a focus at the moment.
They do, but Xbox isn't considered a large enough market to be considered a gatekeeper affected by the DMA. None of the major console makers are.
The platform must have any of the following to be a DMA gatekeeper:
* Market capitalization of at least €75 billion.
* More than €7.5 billion turnover from EEA residents.
* At least 45 million customers in EEA.
* At least 4.5 million business customers in EEA.
Once any of those criteria are met for 3 years, they qualify as a Gatekeeper. While the gaming market is massive, any individual console platform still sits pretty comfortably below those criteria. You can find the customer number by googling around a bit - Xbox only has around 3 million active customers if I'm not mistaken (counted by Xbox Live accounts that were active in the past year).
A platform truly needs to be collosal to be considered a Gatekeeper. This law is specifically for the large platforms, not small fry.
Mind that Xbox is much smaller outside the US and the UK compared to the other console makers.
From the top of my head, the percentage counts for Europe in console market share are around 50/40/10 (Nintendo/Sony/Xbox).
So yes, they probably have 120 million MAUs globally, but the overwhelming majority of those will be coming from the US, where Xbox controls about half the console market. (Just for completeness sake: Xbox has almost no presence in Asia, South America or Africa - their failures in Asia are well documented and Xbox does no advertising whatsoever in South America whilst the African gaming market isn't large enough to be worth considering since there are other priorities there). And of course, those users aren't considered for EU legislation since the US isn't part of the EEA.
Interesting enough, back in the ps3/ps4 days everyone in my corner of Eastern Europe seemed to have gone for an xbox (and maybe even an xbox 360).
In the past few years, the xboxes were always in stock while people were joining waiting lists and lotteries * for the PS5.
* One large electronics chain actually had a lottery for the PS5 preorders at launch, because they weren't getting enough to cover what was already paid for! Some lucky people got a PS5 the rest got their money back :)
That too. I guess people have got used to paying for games now and are picking the console based on exclusives/general experience.
In my mind the xbox is for dudebro shooters and the playstation is for original, creative games. Things may have changed from the original xbox but it's too late for me.
> Halo and XBMC really shaped (at least) my perception of the consoles even to this day; but I got an Xbox X because it plays blu-ray and was in stock.
Sorry. I played the windows port of the first Halo until some level with a jeep. I got lost in it, didn't know where to go, and I abandoned it. I kinda weaned myself off shooters (except Serious Sam) about then, or with some return to castle wolfenstein game which i found about as boring. And that was even before cover based shooters...
As for XBMC... I don't like having a noisy power hungry box on when I watch a movie. Had different solutions, right now using a Chromecast.
> Of course, most of the actual gaming happens on the Switch
It's interesting from the outside how Nintendo has captured the minds of gamers everywhere where they grew up with those gameboys and NESes...
Me, I grew up with ZX Spectrum clones that were 'just a computer'. Then I got different computers. Fine. Not really a fan of a platform.
They seem to be going to PC, at least assuming few people are replacing consoles with mobile gaming. [1] I gamed on consoles for nearly 3 decades, but I don't understand the current appeal. 'Back in the day', consoles were heavily subsidized loss leaders, and launched with extremely high end hardware. The video card in the original XBox was not only a beast, but also worth substantially more than the entire console was sold for!
At the same time PC gaming was pretty tough. Steam didn't even exist until 2003, and in it's early days - it was little more than a DRM wrapper for Counterstrike. And that was also the era when a new PC was outdated in a few months, and completely obsolete in a few years. Now we're in the era where consoles launch with midrange PC hardware sold at a markup to hit profitability ASAP, console games have things like day 1 patches/ad-filled dashboards/pay to use your own internet/etc, PC gaming has become amazingly convenient, and a decent PC from 5 years ago can still run nearly all new games today, with no performance issues whatsoever.
Well I don't have a gaming video card atm. If i were to get one it would cost as much as i paid for the ps5.
So I play indies and strategy on my pcs and macs (amd APU and a M2) and i get the few AAAs I'm interested in on console. For one a good bunch of them are Sony stuff and either show up on the playstation first or the pc ports are problematic.
For two, if i ever got another Rockstar game, for example, I'll get it on console because Sony doesn't allow the mandatory account crap.
This is what I was getting at. You don't need anywhere even remotely near the cost of a PS5 video card to play AAA at high settings now a days. A quick search for 'ps5 equivalent video card' turns up a Radeon RX 5700 XT, with some people suggesting even less. An RX 5700 XT shows up for $230 on Amazon, so you can probably get it for much less. You can build an entire 'gaming PC' (which is IMO mostly an obsolete term, given what we're talking about here) for less than the cost of a PS5, because all consoles are now a days is midrange PCs at the time they launch.
I also think the era of terribad ports is largely over. PC used to be a relatively small market, and consoles used to run on relatively esoteric hardware which really reached peak weird at the PS3, which greatly complicated ports, even for skilled teams. But since the PS4 era PCs now have more marketshare, and consoles are running lightly customized generic PC hardware, and so porting is much less of an issue. There can definitely be lazy ports, where the devs do things like keep the frame-rate rocked at 30 or whatever, or fail to support ultra-wide resolutions. But in the worst case scenario, you're generally just getting the 'console experience' there.
> An RX 5700 XT shows up for $230 on Amazon, so you can probably get it for much less.
You forgot the noise and maintaining drivers. I'm the kind that used to replace video card fans with passive radiators when that was still possible. If you can't hear the vacuum cleaner because you play with headphones, good for you :)
> I also think the era of terribad ports is largely over.
There are a few gaming companies that "have console in their DNA". No matter if the port does 15 or 1500 fps, they clearly designed for the controller and the 10ft distance on the couch. And there's always some quirk on PC that annoys you if you know how things work on a playstation. I'm not talking about frame rate here.
For example soulsbornes and kojima games. Clearly best enjoyed on a console (Bloodborne is still a Playstation exclusive, and their best IMO), unless you have the 1200 fps fetish.
Edit: hey, looky what I was just reading:
Some of the Nvidia GPUs we tested initially showed rather poor performance, and if you experience serious stuttering you might want to try a full driver clean (we use Display Driver Uninstaller) followed by a reinstall of the latest drivers. We also tested in exclusive fullscreen mode, which seemed to give slightly better performance than the default fullscreen setting.
A review on Tom's Hardware of the Horizon Forbidden West PC port. Needless to say, I've finished it ages ago and had no problems... on the PS5.
The 5700XT seems to do 54 fps average at 1080p, so no 1200 fps fetish for me either if i get one.
Again I think you're going on a bit dated stuff - a lot has changed. Most video cards now a days pretty much silent most of the time - they generally just run a lot cooler than in the past, even when being pushed pretty decently. NVidia has also really dropped the ball in the gaming ___domain, perhaps because both Sony and Microsoft both use AMD now a days. So take everything I say to have a sort of implied [on AMD] attached at the end.
As for that game you mentioned, the 5700XT is doing 54FPS average on 'very high quality' settings at 1080p - so substantially better than a PS5! The PS4/PS5 uses a checkerboard upscaling to make their resolution claims. So half the pixels are 'real' and half are fudged. So for e.g. '1800p' the hardware itself is only directly rendering a 1600x900 image at well below 'very high' settings, and then interpolating the other half. In general, though, it seems like they did a top notch port - ultra wide resolution, multi monitor support, and more - all at much better performance, and for much less $$$.
> So for e.g. '1800p' the hardware itself is only directly rendering a 1600x900 image at well below 'very high' settings, and then interpolating the other half.
I don't have a 4K TV yet :) That's how much I care about having larger numbers.
I can tell you what the appeal is - watching "normies" try to use the Xbox/PS5 compared to the Switch (and even the Switch is sometimes complicatedly annoying for them).
Consoles are still way closer to "plug and play" than even the best PCs. Phones have them beat, however.
In what way? Gaming on Steam is now: 'search for game', click buy, click play. In 'big picture mode' the entire system becomes console style and all of this can be completely controlled with a controller which is quite handy for couch play! Of course you still have the option of going and fidgeting with config files, installing mods, and tweaking things to your heart's content, but none of this is mandatory.
genshin is fun on its own but a friend of mine spends so much money on it that it's honestly terrifying, puts me off of playing it all that much. i would love it if it were $60 and everything was unlockable with a reasonable time investment, or even if it were a sub model like a lot of MMOs
I wonder if the monetary values will be regularly adjusted for inflation. If not, then it’s only a matter of time, waiting for money to be devalued and then the platforms qualify.
Why can’t an Xbox run general purpose applications? Windows 11 can run both video games and general purpose applications on Xen 2 CPUs and RDNA2 GPUs. The current Xbox OS is a Windows NT kernel running under Hyper-V, same as desktop Windows 11. Microsoft even claims the Xbox OS is based on Windows (because why wouldn’t it be). It can even run Universal Windows apps installed from the Microsoft store.
So, what makes it not a general purpose computing platform? Unless you mean to argue that a computer with a Xen 2 CPU, RDNA 2 GPU, running an OS based off of Windows 11 that can run Universal Windows applications is not general-purpose.
> So, what makes it not a general purpose computing platform?
Public perception. An overwhelming majority of people who buy an Xbox (or a PlayStation, or a Switch) buy one just to play games. They don't expect it to do anything else. The manufacturers don't market their consoles as general-purpose devices either, they market them specifically as appliances for playing video games. Their SDKs also aren't publicly available.
If building iOS apps in 2008 was the same process as console games, would the iPhone be as successful as it is today? Imagine having to be a company, proving that your app idea is worthwhile, signing a million NDAs, and finally getting a devkit just so you could make a farting app (those were popular in the early days of the app store). The app review process back then was also much more forgiving and sensible than it is today. Things Apple does when it has to compete on its own merits!
> The Commission has also adopted five retention orders addressed to Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, and Microsoft, asking them to retain documents which might be used to assess their compliance with the DMA obligations, so as to preserve available evidence and ensure effective enforcement.
So, they are not under active investigation at the moment, but they are being monitored.
I think it's because while Microsoft tries their hardest to nag people about their products (like Edge ads forcible injected into Chrome somehow), they don't prevent alternatives like Apple, as an example.
Microsoft is a very open platform regards many of the aspects of the DMA. There is app sideloading, alternative app stores, alternative browsers, alternative payment methods, alternative hardware, license-free ports, and there are now more laptops than ever offered without windows. In the cloud, they have valid competition (Google, AWS) in both IaaS, PaaS and SaaS (Office).
Microsoft got regulated since before Google was founded (to put in context).
For browser bundling, Chrome has beaten Edge out handily, so there's no case there. For Office bundling, they charge separately for it, so there's no real case their either
Good point. I guess the world recognizes that MS isn't quite as dominant as it was before - aleast on the operating systems side with Apple and Linux gaining reasonable share
Also Windows is comparably open to other environments. The Windows and Xbox stores exist, but you are not forced to use them or does MS take a cut on software sold.
Only potential issue I see is bundling of Office 365 and Teams. And they already fixed that one. So they are the least worst player on market.
That would destroy the console industry as we know it.
Consoles are sold at close to break even with money made back through game sales.
If EU allowed third party stores and stripped their commissions it would trigger a mass consolidation where Sony, Nintendo etc would buy developers, game engine vendors etc en masse and force exclusivity.
Indie developers in particular would have no way to compete. And consumers would be forced to buy multiple consoles.
Mandating consoles be opened up would destroy the console industry as we know it, but that would be a good thing - the only reason consoles were a good thing in the first place was because they were specialist devices that drove hardware innovation that simply wasn't feasible otherwise. Nowadays consoles aren't specialist hardware; they're PCs that have been slightly modified. The value proposition for consoles have almost nothing to do with new hardware capabilities like the N64 or PS3 promised (PS3 promised; the PS3's launch flopped due to Sony's arrogance and failure to cater to devs, not due to lack of power in the hardware itself - as later PS3 games demonstrate).
So suppose consoles were forced to open up - if Sony and Nintendo bought devs en masse, then 1) that sounds like an end-run and could easily open them up to a product-tying suit, 2) that would lose them tons of money, because now they're losing money on their hardware and their devs (because forcing exclusives loses more than half of your potential sales base), and 3) indies wouldn't give a shit, because Steam already exists and in fact could be one of those third-party stores that the EU specifically forced consoles to allow, in this hypothetical.
This wouldn't catch the industry completely flatfooted either, because back in the Windows 8 era Microsoft managed to scare Valve enough that they started investing in Linux as a backstop. The Steam Machines were a flop, but they've since released the Steam Deck to fill the portable console niche, and they've kept working on SteamOS and Big Picture mode to fill the gaming HTPC niche.
Also, you're claiming that Microsoft might buy Unreal Engine or Unity in order to force it to be Xbox-exclusive; that would bring the antitrust hammer down like nothing else. The only result of consequence in the 0.0002ns before the EU carpetbombs Redmond, would be a huge upsurge in suppport for Godot. Godot isn't ready for primetime just yet (especially in 3D) and games can't practically switch engine mid-development, but people are already on edge from Unity's recent "charge per download" (scandal? controversy? worrying incident? whatever you call it.)
Also, there are entire markets where game consoles don't have all that much penetration. China, in particular, who had banned consoles entirely until 2015, and restricted them until at least 2018. Convincing the Chinese market to buy even one console, let alone multiple, is unrealistic and platform holders know it.
> the only reason consoles were a good thing in the first place was because they were specialist devices that drove hardware innovation that simply wasn't feasible otherwise. Nowadays consoles aren't specialist hardware; they're PCs that have been slightly modified
Not just that. They're a standard spec that people build to, and wring performance out of, and consult to game/engine manufacturers, and they sponsor tournaments and do marketing. They're also sold below cost, both because they can order in bulk, but also because they can assume future components will be cheaper for the same spec, and they might be able to lower their internal costs eventually.
You can already buy a PC and play games on it. Consoles are an additional thing you can buy, and removing them removes choice.
> Also, you're claiming that Microsoft might buy Unreal Engine or Unity in order to force it to be Xbox-exclusive; that would bring the antitrust hammer down like nothing else. The only result of consequence in the 0.0002ns before the EU carpetbombs Redmond, would be a huge upsurge in suppport for Godot.
It won't be this simple. It'll just be better support on Microsoft platforms, and cross-play between PC and Xbox, to drown out Steam a little and Playstation a lot.
There are people out there - typically classed as "console warriors", who primarily having seen the Microsoft-Activision purchase - who genuinely believe console companies should buy major third-parties, to bolster their first party line-up, because first party titles typically meant console exclusivity. On other hand, I consider platform exclusives, including that coming as byproduct of being made by a first party dev, as well as exclusive sports/brand licenses[1] as anti-competitive.
[1] See Electronic Arts holding the exclusive Porsche license for several years, or how they were basically monopolizing American/gridiron football market by having the exclusive NFL license.
Also: (I originally replied this part only)
>Convincing the Chinese market to buy even one console, let alone multiple, is unrealistic and platform holders know it.
The greater Asian market is more of a mobile game continent, to be fair. Look at Japan with their "gacha" game subculture; on top of the standard stuff surrounding mobile games, there's also the parasocial aspect associated with them that makes them popular.
I don't know how you arrive at those conclusions. None of this make sense to me. The thing you fear is already reality. Console manufacturers have always been trying to force exclusivity. Which they can because they own the store. For a long time exclusives were the only thing carrying console sales, and forcing customers to buy multiple consoles.
Why would anyone want to be bought? There would be nothing to gain for devs. No one would need to accept any deals to get on a platform since they wouldn't need to use the manufacturer's store. Currently the deal is "Money + Access to the platform". Third party stores would cut this deal down to just "Money". Thus exclusivity deals would get a lot more expensive for Sony, Nintendo etc. Thus they would be able to buy less "developers, game engine vendors etc en masse".
Indie devs would have a much easier time competing without having to bow to the gatekeepers demands. I really don't get your reasoning.
Things have pretty visibly been getting pushed away from exclusivity by the console makers. MS commits to bringing all first party Xbox games to PC and Sony has ported over a lot of its most popular titles as well.
>The question you should answer is: how much would an unsubsidised console cost?
(I'm not the person you replied to, but)
About as much as a gaming PC, because that's exactly what it is these days. Except actual gaming PCs of the same price would have lower TCO, since you don't need to pay for an Xbox Live/PSN subscription.
> Except actual gaming PCs of the same price would have lower TCO, since you don't need to pay for an Xbox Live/PSN subscription.
Gaming PCs should still cost a bit more, because:
1. they aren't sold in vast quantities with the same spec, and so supplier can't negotiate vast discounts
2. they often don't have games nearly as optimised for them, because different PCs have different configurations, so you need to buy much specs for the same performance
3. consoles likely factor in total procurement costs over the lifetime of the console, and so they can be cheaper initially and lower price more slowly than they lower costs, to recoup some of the deficit
However of course in practice if you can't subsidise your game console with game sales, then (2) and (3) probably vanish.
That is what i am saying. It already happens. Opening more markets makes it less attractive for games companies to accept getting bought, doesn't it? If manufactures had the money to buy all the devs on masse they would already. Third party markets would only lessen their negotiation power. Devs could just go somewhere else. Especially with your other point below.
> how much would an unsubsidised console cost?
More and they would sell less of them? Making it less attractive for game devs to develop for said console. So what am i missing?
> Opening more markets makes it less attractive for games companies to accept getting bought, doesn't it?
Not really, unless it suddenly becomes easy to develop and market a game for all platforms. Pushing your code to a shop instead 3 shops won't be an amazing saving.
> More and they would sell less of them? Making it less attractive for game devs to develop for said console. So what am i missing?
Well - if fewer consoles exist, each with 10 different store fronts you have to now push to, presumably that means games cost more, as they're selling fewer units, and (less important, but still painful) they have to figure out which store should have which integrations / price / deals/ etc.
The EU can't fix what isn't broken. They can break what's working, perhaps, but I doubt they'll do it as the results would be too obviously bad in this case.
My real point is in asking: why are people not allowed to sell what they want, without massive fines coming their way (that don't come the way of others doing what they do)?
The more uncharitable interpretation of this would be that Microsoft has enmeshed itself to such an extent such that the bundling of Office365+Entra+Azure+Teams isn’t worth the loss of these services to governments who may potentially want to launch an investigation.
They are "on both lists". The DMA is about platform gatekeeping, and the EU did designate Microsoft a gatekeeper with Windows.
Microsoft's DMA changes include allowing Edge to be uninstalled, interoperability in Search and Widgets, asking users for consent before syncing content through the connected Microsoft account, and more strictly respecting browser defaults.
For Amazon, they’ve been unable to enmesh themselves in the same way, and with the EU DATA act passed, I’d assume they’d make quick work of the egress fees which are the main barrier towards multi-cloud architectures.
Citation needed as they say. Even if it's true that's it more than 0, my estimate would be far in excess of 90% (of governmental employees who do their work inside of the Microsoft ecosystem).
But your other point about not focusing on B2B is probably more true. However recent stuff like the cloud egress fees (EU Data ACT) shows that they do care about B2B sometimes at least.
Maybe there isn't anything that the commission wants to investigate there because they did a good enough job complying. But future can bring more probes.
Microsoft didn't really have much to change on Windows outside of restoring the ability to uninstall system apps in the EEA and turning things off, and making users aware of such ability.
They don't control distribution of software on Windows (no one uses MS Store), it already has major stores owned by different companies such as Steam, Epic etc that have as much access to the OS that the MS Store does.
I’m not in support of the DMA and I’m not in favor of the US suit against Apple, and I too have been wondering how Microsoft - who I’d argue is the most anticompetitive of all, with the longest history of doing so - has escaped all of this lately. They really must be funding some important people’s pockets.
Microsoft has been through this before. EU windows has a browser choice screen and you can buy it without windows media player (I think for the same price or darn near as with). Microsoft is good at painting in or near the lines, from decades of practice. They probably also respond to new regulations without an excess of foot dragging.
Also, they weren't able to turn their dominant position in desktops into anything in mobile.
Maybe the EU Commission hasn’t received DMA-related complaints from other companies about Microsoft. The Commission seems to be careful to base investigations on competitor statements.
