Are consoles "closed" platforms?

Pynda

I recently got severely bawled out for allegedly incorrectly saying that console developers need to buy licenses and enter into profit sharing agreements to develop games for them (no poor indies allowed), and that theoretically a developer with contrary political opinions - say one who wanted to make the game "Adventures in  Wife Beating" - would not be allowed to for the same reasons. Was I wrong?

karmath

As a developer you cant just decide 'hey I'm gonna make a ps4 game and ship it'. Its a lot more complex than that, but in essence you are right.

Ridelynn

Consoles are pretty much the definition of closed platforms.

Quizzical

Yes, game consoles are closed platforms.  In some cases, console manufacturers intend to lose money on building and selling each unit of the console, and make it back by taking a cut of sales of games from other developers.  This has some benefits for developers, too, as consoles have much stronger anti-piracy protections than PC.

If you really want to poke a bees nest, then you could use the iPad as your primary example of a game console rather than any version of PlayStation or Xbox.

Kilrain

Microsoft has recently opened indie development up, but I believe it's for UWP apps only. Too tired to search for it

Wizardry

UWP was what Tim Sweeney was all fired up about,said Microsoft is trying to monopolize the whole industry by getting a share on every single game/app sold that uses UWP.

This is the latest article i can find on it.

Funny you will see in the first paragraph the word CLOSED platform.

http://www.digitaltrends.com/gaming/tim-sweeney-microsoft-uwp-steam-closed-walled/