ThatGuy said:
How can a company have a monopoly on its own products? Does Apple have a monopoly on the iPhone as well?
Nope, because there are products that provide the same functions as the iPhone out there, thus Apple does not have a monopoly on the iPhone product. They have a monopoly on the iPhone brand name itself, because nobody else but them can call anything an iPhone, but they do not have a monopoly upon the product.
ThatGuy said:
You're saying Sony should allow other companies to produce and sell their systems. Why would they do that? There is no obligation for them to license their original IPs for cloning. Also, that would probably be worse for the consumer, since you'd have to do background research to find out which "type" of PS3/Vita you want to buy, which manufacturers make the best quality hardware, which ones offer warranties, which ones offer the best price, etc.
That would be BETTER for the industry, not worse! It would mean that Sony and companies like it would have to ensure that their products function better and have better prices than the knockoffs their competition is producing, and their competition would have try to do the same, in order to draw customers to prefer their version over anothers, or whoever didn't make enough profits would either have to abort production and switch to producing a more profitable product or close it's doors, whichever came first. It would mean better quality and cheaper prices across the board for the entire video game industry. Sure, it would be more of a pain for the consumer, but no less so than any other industry (the video game industry is the only industry to my knowledge that has this kind of monopoly on it's IPs, or rather the only one that exploits this monopoly for all it's worth.)
ThatGuy said:
The products that Sony has made are proprietary hardware and software that they developed themselves. In the case of MiniDisc (another proprietary Sony tech), Sony licensed the tech to other manufacturers. That's why you could buy differently-branded MiniDisc players. But in the case of PS3/Vita, Sony has no incentive (or obligation) to license the tech. That doesn't mean they have a monopoly on it, though.
It's a monopoly because the only ones that can legally make and sell a console capable of playing a PS3 game are Sony, ONLY Sony. I can't play, say, Infamous on any other platform except the PS3 and nobody will ever be able to make a console that is also capable of playing the PS3 exclusive except those with Sony's permission until the patents dry up, which they probably never will. THAT is a monopoly.