Apple being probed for pressing Game developer rivals in Japan

Regulators in Japan are probing into alleged coercion by US manufacturer Apple Inc, the company is said to be unfairly pressing game developer rivals and Yahoo Japan Corp to slow down its online games platform that is directly competing Apple’s App Store, Japan’s news sources reported today.

According to Nikkei newspaper, Apple is under investigation by the Fair Trade Commission (FTC) Japan, in order to find out what Apple actually did to press Yahoo Japan in order to keep it back from developing web services and games that allow users to stream games without having to download apps.

Apple was not immediately available to comment on the requests, meanwhile a spokesperson at Yahoo Japan also declined to comment on the report, however, Yahoo said it continues developing and adding the game titles.

Yahoo shares were also affected amid the report declined by 2.5% in early trade session, however, the broader market declined by 0.5%. The Fair Trade Commission of Japan said last month, Apple has broken antitrust laws by compelling mobile operators to sell iPhones cheaper and charge higher monthly bills which is against consumers fair choice.

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Square Enix Holding Co and other game publishers have developed Game Plus which offers free as well as paid games, some of the games are available on the Apple Play Store for Japanese users. Yahoo’s gaming website has more than a million users on monthly basis, which the company and game publishers can use for history and other data.

Yahoo has reported sliced down its budget for the development of platform last year, and also the company has stopped promoting the service, the game publisher Square Enix has also removed game which was exclusively developed for the platform in April, said the newspaper.