Epic could market the device at first to their own customers, many of whom are kids who don’t need banking apps.
Network effects are strong, but not impossible to overcome. All they need to do is sell the device to users who don’t care about banking apps for long enough for banking apps to be uploaded to their store.
As for the the deal with OnePlus and LG. I don’t believe it was anything like what I am suggesting - that was just a co-marketing effort.
They weren’t going to create a new and open platform based on Android.
The argument that nobody can ever compete against Android no matter what they do is a weak one.
The iPod was an incredibly niche device when it was launched.
There is a proven market for handheld gaming platforms that don’t run banking apps. Epic could start there and build out, just like Apple did.
They could create a device targeting kids with games, nice controls and everything but it would just be another kind of PSVita at the end with Sony and Nintendo as competitors... It would never be a device competing in the mobile app market.
So yeah, they could do that but it would be pointless.
That's not what defines the mobile app market, what makes the mobile app market is that the device can replace a computer. Even if you could put a SIM card into a Nintendo Switch, that would still just be a Nintendo Switch.
Network effects are strong, but not impossible to overcome. All they need to do is sell the device to users who don’t care about banking apps for long enough for banking apps to be uploaded to their store.
As for the the deal with OnePlus and LG. I don’t believe it was anything like what I am suggesting - that was just a co-marketing effort.
They weren’t going to create a new and open platform based on Android.
The argument that nobody can ever compete against Android no matter what they do is a weak one.
The iPod was an incredibly niche device when it was launched.
There is a proven market for handheld gaming platforms that don’t run banking apps. Epic could start there and build out, just like Apple did.