Sadly, with these locked down hardware platforms like Xbox, PS, Switch, or even something like an iPhone, the buyer doesn’t own the hardware. You’re at the whims of the platform holder and what they decide: case in point this story. These platforms, which have grown evermore popular because of their ease of use, are gilded cages. You just noticed the bars.

If they don’t give you access to the bootloader and an option to install whatever OS you like, you’re beholden to the company.

This video from a real lawyer explains the Dolphin Steam situation better than anyone I’ve seen: https://youtu.be/wROQUZDCIMI

That’s true but a company like Sega using an outside emulator - something they, Nintendo, and Sony fought hard against in the 90s (and still do today) - is I think somewhat taboo for them.

I’m glad their appealing. I mean the judge’s son literally works for Microsoft. Talk about fair and impartial.

-https://open.substack.com/pub/mattstoller/p/will-the-biggest-tech-merger-of-all?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web -https://open.substack.com/pub/mattstoller/p/judge-rules-for-microsoft-mergers?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

The reason ActiBliz + MS deal it is getting scrutinized more is because Lina Khan became head of the FTC, and she looks at mergers and acquisitions with the same dislike that everyone had towards Standard Oil monopoly and AT&T monopoly back in the day.

The Obama Administration had a very lax antitrust policy. For example, they approved the Ticketmaster + Live Nation merger despite it clearly being a vertical merger that gave a single company control of the majority of both the venues concerts were held at and the tickets being sold for those concerts, ultimately resulting in the Taylor Swift fiasco that was in the news a couple months ago. Monopolies like Ticketmaster are complacent because there is no one to compete against and therefore no reason to make things better for the consumer. Things have changed because the head of the FTC (and many other government agencies) changes when a new president gets elected.

People like to only focus on how prices change as a result of mergers, but until the 1980s everyone including judges also considered the political and social cost of mergers, in addition to the monetary cost to consumers. Maybe if we continued to do that and didn’t largely stop in the 1980s we would not have too-big-to-fail banks or a mobile app store duopoly.