(Reuters) – Apple Inc. said it plans to argue that it faces stiff competition in the market for video game transactions to defend itself against antitrust allegations by maker “Fortnite” Epic Games, the maker said on Thursday. ‘iPhone.
Epic sued Apple last year in a California federal court, alleging the 15% to 30% fees Apple charges for using its in-app payment systems and long practice Apple’s date of exercising control over which applications can be installed on its devices. anti-competitive behavior. The dispute arose after Epic tried to implement its own payment system from the app in the popular game Fortnite and Apple later banned the game from its App Store.
The case will be heard in May in Oakland, California, by U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, who will have to rule on which notion of “market” is right to analyze Apple’s moves to detect signs of anti-competitive behavior .
Epic has based its case on the idea that Apple iPhones, with an installed base of more than 1 billion users, represent their own market for software developers. Epic has argued that Apple has the power of monopoly over this market because it decides how users can install software on devices and says it abuses that power by forcing developers to deliver their software through the App Store, where developers are subject to fees on some transactions.
In a presentation Apple planned to make on Thursday, the company rejected that notion and said the right market to analyze the case is the video game transaction market, which includes platforms like Nintendo Co Ltd and Microsoft Corp’s Xbox game consoles. , which also limit software that can run on your hardware and charge developers.
Apple said it plans to argue that consumers have many options on how to conduct video game transactions, including buying virtual chips from game developers on other platforms, such as Windows computers, and using iPhone chips without no cost to the game developer.
Reports from Stephen Nellis to San Francisco; Edited by Leslie Adler