> Yet the anti-Nintendo sentiment in the country didn’t ultimately do much to help either of the two Ataris’ legal cases; the courts proved willing to buck that rising tide. In a landmark ruling against Tengen in March of 1991, Judge Fern Smith stated that Nintendo had the right to “exclude others” from the NES if they so chose, thus providing the legal soil on which many more walled gardens would be tilled in the years to come.
This was back in March 1991, mind you. The US courts decided that for some categories of things which compute, the manufacturer gets to control 100% of what runs on them. That makes them quite specific in my eyes.
I don't know the exact legal term, but that's what a walled garden amounts to. Yeah, you take a general computing architecture, and you lock it down by law. It doesn't need to be non-Turing complete or what have you to be "specific".
The difference is that Nintendo isn't a monopolist. When you are, you do not get as many rights to 'refuse to deal'. From the FTC itself "Under certain circumstances, there may be limits on this freedom for a firm with market power."
https://www.filfre.net/2016/04/generation-nintendo/
This was back in March 1991, mind you. The US courts decided that for some categories of things which compute, the manufacturer gets to control 100% of what runs on them. That makes them quite specific in my eyes.
I don't know the exact legal term, but that's what a walled garden amounts to. Yeah, you take a general computing architecture, and you lock it down by law. It doesn't need to be non-Turing complete or what have you to be "specific".