Apple Facing anti-competitive behaviour in Japan

Published on August 20, 2018

In the recent development, Japan is now investigating allegations in which it is seen that Apple has forced Yahoo Japan to pull back from the gaming platform which competes with the App Store, Nikkei learned. In the latest effort by the regulators, it addresses potentially anti-competitive behaviour by the American tech behemoths.

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The Fair Trade Commission with the industry ministry has begun to receive the reports from the Yahoo last fall about the issues which surround with the Game Plus platform. The web-based service which was launched in the year 2017 in July. The users play the games without any need to download the apps. When it comes to the developers, the service features got much looser restrictions which surrounds the sales, software updates, fees with updates than the Apple’s App Store.

In this, a total of 52 companies has agreed to participate which includes the famed role-playing game maker Square Enix Holdings which is with more expected to get on board. Yahoo can bring the data from its more than 60 million monthly active users from which it can learn history, ads or payment information. It will help the game publishers to sell the merchandise to create the new titles. It has envisioned by expanding the platform into other areas which include building a data economy as well as a business software to Japan.

Yahoo has abruptly slashed the budget for the GamePlus which is the last fall, and it has now all who stopped by promoting the service. The Square Enix in April has pulled Antique Carnevale which is said to be the new title which was developed especially for Game Plus which will be off the platform.

Yahoo has told the multiple business partners that it was forced to cut back due to the pressure which exists behind the scenes from the Apple. The Japanese company has on the US  tech giant which is a part of the profits in the form of the sales which is through the App Store.

This latest case involving the Yahoo is said to be one of the recent cases of the FTC’s. The big four US tech companies are Apple, Google, Facebook, and Amazon.com from which during the last month Apple has moved to amend the agreements with Japan’s rest three largest wireless carriers after it was found that it had forced them to accept unfavourable terms.

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