Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney Wants Consoles to Allow Competing Stores, But Has No Plans to Sue - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 02 May 2025 / 11,591 Views
Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney in a group media call attended by Game File is excited his company won a court battle against Apple and discussed how bad Apple and Android’s app store restrictions are.
Sweeney for many years has objected to the fees Apple and Google charge app developers and their restrictions on alternate payment methods. Both have also resisted competing app stores on their phones.
Game File asked him why he hasn't made the same complaints about stores on video game consoles that have similar fees and app store restrictions.
Sweeney would like for video game consoles to open things up, however, he isn't going to sue for this to happen.
"I think the world would be a better place if consoles allowed for competing stores, but we haven't ever seen that as an antitrust dispute-worthy issue," he said.
Epic Games Store has been available in Europe on phones thanks to the regulators in that region. Epic has also been pushing to grow Epic Games Store on PC as an alternative to Steam.
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can contact the author on Bluesky.
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Don't think he has any ground to sue, tbh.
Consoles are closed systems focused on gaming, it's the primary use of the device, it's vastly different from smartphones and PCs, so I doubt there would be a case.
It's like wanting to sue Apple to sell Samsung phones, or McDonalds to sell Burger King sandwiches.
"It's like wanting to sue Apple to sell Samsung phones"
No, its more like suing Apple/iOS or Google/Android to allow other app stores on the device...
Which is actually happening
Yeah I was thinking that lol. PC has shown that it's completely possible for competing storefronts to coexist.
The entire concept of what consoles can be is slowly being torn down before our eyes lol. Some purists are still holding on to the past.
I think this would be more likely on Xbox as they already have the infrastructure to support 3rd party stores... Plus they are pivoting away from exclusivity.
This always sounds like a good idea, increase competition and lower prices. However, nothing in life is simple and things tend to have additional consequences. Removing the walled garden status from consoles probably changes the current dynamic, in which Sony/MS(Nintendo less so) subsidise hardware prices through all the software money that hardware will capture.
Less guarenteed money from software = less likely to subsidise hardware. So in the end you might end up paying $100 more for your hardware to have stores that sell games at $4 below RRP.
Do they really subsidize console prices anymore though? Maybe with the Xbox Series S, but I would imagine the others, if not even the XSS, to be profitable even on their own.
They do
They actually don't. PS5 has been profitable for Sony since 2021 and Nintendo never sells their consoles at a loss.
2021 is after 2020(the actual launch) and they actually still wrote off console costs on their accounts after making that statement, implying it was either a misunderstanding or rising costs drove the price back up.
Either way basically every PS and Xbox is subsidised at launch, and generally for several years. The Series X/S might very well have been sold at a loss for the entire 4.5 years they’ve been available.
You sir are spot on.
If you want console prices to go way up, hope for different store fronts.
Some digital store front alternatives would be nice if for nothing more than to at least help push improvements to existing ones. The lack of competition has long since been felt in the quality, or rather the lack there of, for the console shops.
Completely agree but it's not bought in anti trust because it's easily argued by all console makers that physical media exists which is available in hundreds of retailers, something both Apple App Store and Google Play store, do not have. But if competitive pricing is going to exist, allowing us to get cheaper games, it def needs to open up more.
If they want to have their digital store on a console then they need to make one and put it on there, just like with the Steamdeck.
i agree! its business, not feelings or entitlement
