Every time I read one of these stories, I think of Nintendo in the 1980s and 90s. Back then, Nintendo was the undisputed king of video games with an install base of over 60 million NES consoles. They had a trusted brand, a massive library of titles, and money coming in hand-over-fist. They even managed to keep that success rolling, and the SNES was the top console through the early 90s.

Developers hated doing business with Nintendo. Nintendo put every game through a rigorous review process, and stripped out anything that they found objectionable. This castrated a lot of games like Mortal Kombat and Final Fight, and ensured that some titles never came to market at all.

Nintendo also charged a licensing fee, and ensured that only licensed games could be played. In order to distribute games, publishers had to buy the cartridges from Nintendo at pretty hefty prices.

This system worked great until Sony came along, and told publishers that they'd cut a better deal. Much more relaxed terms, and a far fewer restrictions on content. Suddenly, developers migrated en masse to the Playstation. Square became Sony-only. Capcom suddenly concentrated on Playstation games like Metal Gear Solid. All of a sudden, all the big new games were Playstation exclusives, and the only big games for N64 were Nintendo's own first-party titles. At the time, it felt like a switch had been flipped.

I feel a similar dynamic starting to play out with the App Store and Android. History seldom repeats itself, but it tends to rhyme.