A quick Google search shows at least a dozen PS5 controllers.
Don't you see the big "SONY licensed" on the product page? And even the very expensive ones like the Victrix one is missing dualsense feature like the adaptive triggers, just like the 3rd party switch controllers missing HD rumble. You can say "Oh they can use", but I highly doubt. If they can and it is easy to implement why it is missing and only imeplemented in the official one? Just a google search claiming them do exist does not mean those works as good as the first party one. If you really did the research and tried to use 3rd party controllers on PS5 you would get what I meant. Anyway, the 3rd party controller market is now explicitly controlled and licensed by console vendors and it is not that free as you think it is, and 3rd party controllers does not work as good as you think they are. It used to be loose in the previous gen, but the control is more strict now.
Software licencing still exists but then Microsoft still requires this to run Windows on the open PC platform as do Valve to publish on Steam.
This is irrelevant. Console and PC are different markets and they don't even compete. This is something like comparing iOS to macOS where you can even install alternate OS on the Mac even on Apple Silicon.
Innovation isn't about regulation, it's about competition and you don't find that on closed off platforms.
All gaming consoles are closed off platforms by your standard and I can hardly agree with you that there is no competition on the console, plus there is no alternate game stores on game consoles either. If you want to play Super Smash Bros you have to buy Nintendo Switch because that is not on PlayStation and Xbox and that is an Nintendo first party title. So technically nobody can compete with Nintendo making Super Mario games legally. But the problem is, they don't have to because there are tons of other games that people can make.
And no, I would not call the relationship between 1st party controllers and 3rd party controllers "competition". There is no competition but only collaboration because technically you have to be approved first to even make a controller for the console.
And if we look back at the iPad accessories it is already much better than gaming consoles or at least on par. You don't have to be licensed by Apple to make Bluetooth and USB accessories. For pencils, you are using the Apple technology built into iPad and it screen which means it is unreasonable to provide you the technologies that made by Apple. The same applies to Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo. A lot of the third party pencils are actually reusing Logitech Crayon's protocol which Logitech paid the license for, and Logitech did not pay for the pressure stroke or Apple does not want to sell that, we don't know, just like we don't know why adaptive triggers are missing on 3rd party PS5 controllers. But I think you already see the problem here. There is no competition but pure collaboration because you are asking to use a technology invented by another company.
And just FYI: wacom introduced bamboo pencils for iPad that does support pressure stroke in their own Apps and selected apps. Of cause it is not like the Apple pencil that is guaranteed to work everywhere.
IMHO the case is just:
- You can do your best to not use Apple technology to make an accessory
- You can only do that good without Apple's proprietary techs
- Now you need to pay for a license to do better, and that cost would make your accessory to have a less competitive price
- You give up, just make a worse but much cheaper accessory
It moved from being proactive to reactive and we all lost out. There seems to be a feedback loop around here with people not wanting Apple to have competition but complaining about a lack of innovation. You can't have both.
But the problem is Apple is facing intensive competition and the iPhone sales is struggling to improve in recent years. Yes the market share is still stable but denying the existence of competition is just not reasonable to me. It is very easy to switch smartphone brands nowadays.
Our old friend Steve Jobs knew this first and foremost with the old quote about 'showing people what they never knew they needed'.
This requires good vision for the product guy to find something that people want before everybody else, and unfortunately this is not for Tim Cook's Apple. They tried with the Vision Pro but they failed.
