Frankly I think they can allow this without hurting their business. I mean “allowing other stores” was the default before online stores - i.e. vast majority of games used to be sold by retailers that aren’t Sony.
How does Sony/Nintendo/Sega make money back in the day? Royalty fees. Every copy of a game sold on their platform, they get 10-20%. If you refuse then you don’t publish at all - all consoles have lockout mechanisms; NES/SNES has a lockout chip you can only get from Nintendo, modern consoles require all executables to be digitally signed or they won’t run and guess who has the keys, …
Apple would be hurt by allowing alt stores though since they don’t charge royalties. But if forced to open up iOS to alt stores, I think they will start charging royalties like consoles do.
How does Sony/Nintendo/Sega make money back in the day? Royalty fees. Every copy of a game sold on their platform, they get 10-20%. If you refuse then you don’t publish at all - all consoles have lockout mechanisms; NES/SNES has a lockout chip you can only get from Nintendo, modern consoles require all executables to be digitally signed or they won’t run and guess who has the keys, …
Apple would be hurt by allowing alt stores though since they don’t charge royalties. But if forced to open up iOS to alt stores, I think they will start charging royalties like consoles do.