On Tue, Nov 30, 2010 at 8:58 AM, Chris Adamson <[email protected]> wrote: > Karsten's right on this point on consoles, and it goes further than is > generally recognized. The console owners also control the > manufacturing and distribution of retail game products, and only allow > titles to remain available at retail for a set time, before they are > pulled from the market to make room for new games (sometimes re- > releasing successful games under a "greatest hits" style banner). I > learned about this in the 90's from a rep for Philips, which didn't do > this, and suffered terribly when new games for their CD-i console > couldn't get shelf space because the unbought launch titles (which > were uniformly terrible) were still sitting on the shelves.
Things have changed considerably since the 90s. Mainly, Nintendo doesn't have an iron fist over the entire process like they used to. (Basically, back then you sold the game to Nintendo, then bought back the cartridges that you would then sell in retail. If you didn't sell them all, sucked to be you.) Sony managed to come in with much looser development rules and carved a huge chunk of the market with the PS. They have, predictably, tightened control since then. But I question whether any of them practice the level of control that Apple is showing here. Still, this falls foul of the other point. You are arguing as if everyone agrees with this practice. I'm sure the recreational nature of consoles adds a great deal to what people will put up with from it. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "The Java Posse" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/javaposse?hl=en.
