Game consoles don't have the kind of monopoly market that smartphone makers have. Firstly, because smartphones have evolved to become a generally indispensable item for most people, whereas game consoles don't have the same broad appeal and necessity. But also, secondly, game developers don't feel the same impetus to release on any individual platform, including the most popular closed-down platform, PS4. On the contrary, most games are released as exclusives, or otherwise intentionally limit their release platforms to ease engineering burden (example: Hollow Knight Silksong, an upcoming indie game from the very small Team Cherry (3 people last I checked), is intentionally only releasing on Steam and Switch at launch because supporting PS and Xbox is too difficult).

Valorant will do fine despite not being on PS4 or Xbox. Halo Infinite will do fine despite not being on PS4. The Last of Us II will do fine despite not being on Xbox or PC. This is the story for practically every game; net revenue from a specific title rarely increases enough to compensate for the additional effort of supporting a new platform, especially when platform exclusivity checks come in to play.

Speaking on platform exclusivity checks: They're an indispensable part of the industry and the production process for new games. Naughty Dog starts working on TLOU2 six years ago; they don't start seeing revenue from it until yesterday, after multiple delays and setbacks. Where does the money come from to pay developers until then? The publisher, which most commonly nowadays, is also a platform holder. Where does their money come from? The most sustainable, long-term revenue source is a storefront cut for already released games; Sony's 30% on every game funds Naughty Dog's development team.

What about the 70% from, say, the first Last of Us? Sure, that forms a critical component, but unless you're a studio that can consistently release mega-hit after mega-hit, that money will dry up. There are maybe 10 studios out there who can do this (Naughty Dog is one of them, so imagine we're instead talking about, lets say, Remedy with their recent game Control). In other words, this is investing in individual stocks versus market indices; the 30% cut from every game is more sustainable than the 70% cut from individual games, because not every game releases to massive success. Think Mass Effect Andromeda, No Mans Sky, Fallout 76, etc.

Take Fortnite; it funded Epic's ability to launch the Epic Games Store, and write exclusivity checks to companies like Remedy to secure Control. While I do believe Epic is being honest when they push their 12/88% revenue split and shit on Steam for their 30/70, lets be realistic: Fortnite enables them to do it, not morality. Epic paid $10M for Control [1]. Sony also paid some undisclosed amount for PS4-exclusive content, though the game also released on Xbox. Would Control exist, at least in its current awesome form, without those massive checks? Absolutely not. At best, development would have had to been rushed, or specific nice-to-haves would have been cut. At worst, who knows. But Remedy's previous release, Quantum Break (2016), was a keystone exclusive release for Xbox One, for which they likely also paid millions upfront, and it did not perform well.

Now, what you may be thinking is, what about companies like EA, Ubisoft, Rockstar, the "AAA third party studios". Yet, even these companies get huge checks from Sony and Microsoft. Sony paid Activision what was likely several million dollars for 1 year PS4 exclusivity on a multiplayer mode for Modern Warfare. Red Dead 2 had exclusive PS4 content at launch. When Destiny 2 releases a new map, it at least used to come to PS4 before anyone else. Xbox likely cut a special deal with EA for Access exclusivity on Xbox for years. Every company out there gets checks from these platforms at some point.

When Apple takes its 30%, app developers see none of it. But, with game consoles, to some significant degree that 30% is paying into a a bank account that you may, at some point in the future, be able to withdraw from if you promise a platform holder a bit (or a lot) of exclusive content. The hardware is a loss-leader. The subscription services (XBLG, PSN+, Game Pass) contribute some, but a lot of that money is already earmarked. That 30% cut is critical. The games industry is far more of a cycle than the App Store, and hurting the platform holders' ability to push this cycle along would have huge, unpredictable ramifications for the industry. Its not all good, but its far more necessary than Apple's 30% cut.

[1] https://www.pcgamer.com/epic-paid-dollar1045-million-for-con...