Hints of Apple TV gaming platform found in iOS 4.3 beta - Page 2

Apple won't take over the smartphone market. Apple wont take over mobile computing. If Apple iPod becomes a phone platform, it will just exist. Music only.

Nokia got mobile OS right.
RIM got the keyboard right.
sony-ericsson got...ah...kinda at a loss here...right.

Apple can't compete with that.

Two decades of sub-par GPUs is kind of hard to reconcile. nVidia refuses to write drivers for Apple and ATI's aren't much better.

This is the obvious next big for apple move along with moving iTunes to the cloud.
They already have all the hardware ecosystem now they must find some smart app store integration for the Apple Tv. iPhone and iPad will be the controllers, no extra hardware for sure ! gyroscope, acceloremeter,camera, touch screen ...

If Apple designs and makes the custom CPU chips with onboard GPUs optimized for gaming, they won't need outside drivers from nVidia or ATI.

If Apple put gaming APIs into iOS and even better adds a top of the line game engine into their developer SDK, all those greedy big gaming companies will have to change their business model to complete with an iOS gaming platform.

Apple can enter this market and IMHO they can win!

Can't say I'll be crying over lack of grand theft auto on an Apple game system, if you want that garbage go spend your 300+ bucks on XBox or PS3.

I agree with you for the most part and understand what you're saying, but if they bought out the biggest developer they could keep all of those games off the ps3 and xbox and corner the market. I'm not even a huge fan of ea but that would corner the market and Sony and microsoft would be SOL for popular games. Think about how microsoft buying the halo franchise and how that huge that was for them selling consoles. And I'm talkin realgames, not like 99% of the games on iOS right now. Ea also basically owns the sports
Genre. Most of the games on iOS right now are fun little casual games and aren't nearly up to par with what's coming out on the consoles or pcs. This would 'ligitimize' apple as a real console for gaming. Look at ps2s success as well. Whomever has the best publishing deals for the best games is who wins in hardware sales...

There's room for grand theft auto and whatever games you like as well. If you don't like something don't buy it. But Rockstar makes some of the hottest games that take in hundreds of millions of $.

When Apple makes a piece of their own hardware that can go toe to toe with the current console makers, I'll be first in line.

In the intervening twenty years, however, the Apple TV will remain the Apple TV.

You don't buy a $6+ billion dollar company and then slash what amounts to probably 80-90 percent of its income. Apple would be better off buying a smaller gaming studio if they feel they must have a first-part presence in gaming. Frankly, the existing model appears to be working pretty well.

As far as a producer of the HW and the OS-level stuff, Apple is well positioned to bury Nintendo, because Apple is probably the only company in the business that actually beats them in UI and HI, hands-down. Nintendo is so stereotypically Japanese, and this may well be their undoing. The sooner they realize that they will need to focus on the software, the better, but that is just not a stereotypically Japanese thing to do.

Nintendo have always been a step behind with their hardware. They've never been one to push out state of the art hardware, they never sell a console at a loss, like MS & Sony did. The Wii and DS are nowhere near as powerful as Xbox360, PS3 or PSP. Nintendo has always just been about great games (i.e. software) that has been their focus since they got into the video game business.
I really don't understand what point you're trying to convey?

Which has what to do with PowerVR GPU for Apple TV gaming?

aTV based on the dual core A5 processor with a faster GPU makes a lot of sense and at the $99 price point could sell a lot of units.

The 243Mhz ATI Hollywood is not a screamer and pretty old tech. It is what? 6 years old now? I wouldn't be surprised if the PowerVR 545 spanks it.

A A5 based aTV should be able to go toe to toe with the Wii pretty easily.

How nice. And what of the millions with PS3s and Xbox 360s? They just don't get any more EA games, just to satisfy your fanboy dreams?

Besides, the Apple TV is massively underpowered when compared to the 360/PS3, which would make it a very uninteresting platform for any high end developer to work on. Staff would leave en masse and the company would disintegrate in weeks.

Apple have no chance at all of taking on the PS3/360. Those systems have massive fan bases and many exclusive development teams. It takes years of investment to build such platforms. Or do you think people would sooner play Angry Birds and Doodle Jump on their 60" HDTVs instead of Killzone 3, Dead Space 2, SkyRim, LA Noire, Deus Ex 3, Gears of War 3, The Last Guardian, Portal 2, or of course, the next Call of Duty...

For Apple to get into gaming, and I mean properly get into gaming, they'd have to invest many billions and really put their heart into it. As Jobs has shown next to zero interest in gaming for decades, this seems somewhat unlikely.

When you say "gadget" are you forgetting about other tech-related peripherals, such as inkjet carts or maybe alcohol wipes? Pretty sure they ship in tremendous quantity and similarly have as little to do with Microsoft's Wii/eyetoy retread camera bar as it does with a personal computing tablet.

Pretty sure Apple isn't interested in the low profit, high risk console gaming business as defined by Sony and Microsoft. Both have dumped billions into a product that is barely profitable. Nintendo at least makes a hardware profit, but not as much as Apple.

If Apple were to deliver console type games, it could bring the whole iPhone/iPad market for casual games to the TV, and that might work well. Apple TV is already sitting there, and can certainly play Angry Birds as well as other iOS devices. It doesn't have to render HD 3D graphics with trillions of polygons, it just has to be entertaining.

Who outsold the PS3 and 360? Yeah, Nintendo and its white washed version of the old GameCube with a motion controller.

It's pretty amazing that an iPad game is outselling WiiWare, XBLA, and PSN sales. That's all that matters. Bring that to the TV and you'll have three game consoles and an App Store appliance that a) makes more money b) is easier to deliver games for c) is much cheaper to get games for d) is perfectly entertaining for kids and convenient for people playing a game on iPad and what to transfer it to their TV. Or play multiplayer games with multiple iPhones. Lots of potential without ever running into competition with PS3/360.

Just to preface, I do know what I'm talking about. Plus, I'm not a "gamer" or fanboy, just an old guy with a lot of experience on the technical and business sides of this debate. Why do I still post on AI? Good question. Force of habit -- I've been here since the 90's.

The point I'm trying to convey is that Apple killed Sony's once dominant mobile audio division, and they stand a good chance at killing Nintendo's hw business should they decide to get into this market. Japanese business has proven time and time again that it doesn't understand how to leverage the internet, and, ever since maybe 1992, it stopped having any sort of advantage in the hardware space. The fact is, every year Akihabara gets more and more lame. It used to be pretty amazing, full of diverse and strange Japanese HW products that were never exported, but these days Apple HW is the main attraction.

Also, FWIW, Nintendo's consoles have been technologically on-par with the industry average, sometimes ahead, until the Wii. The Gamecube was basically just as capable as the PS2, and the N64 was actually more capable than the PS1. The SNES had better A/V than its rivals, despite an inferior CPU. In the mid eighties, everyone was using 6800's, including the NES. Moreover, Sony's gamble on the PS3, which was initially sold at a huge loss, allowed them to win the Bluray war. Bluray will be around for a long, long time, even if the internet becomes increasingly used as a distribution mechanism, so this was good business.

Definitely better than buying a single publisher but I think the key criteria for a successful gaming model is return on investment. They need to tackle the problems with the games industry to keep it profitable.

The biggest issues the industry face are development costs, piracy, game resale, distribution, marketing, platform diversity and probably a couple of others.

The best way to tackle all of those things in one go is streaming. There is no option for piracy or game resale so every sale makes the publisher money. If they assume all games are resold 3 times, they can sell a game at 1/2 the price and make more on volume.

Distribution is easy, marketing is as difficult as always and there are no platform issues.

It's not the best setup for all users but for the people buying an ATV, it's likely they'll have a fast enough connection.

Of course, we've seen the power of the NGP so if they can build a future ATV like that, you get close to PS3 quality. Even if it downgrades a bit for the TV, it's still a decent quality experience but requires storage and open to piracy. They could possibly stream assets for local rendering but that would be difficult in a lot of games.


They don't need to do that in the same way they don't need to buy Netflix. If a company is big enough and has a business model that is strong enough, it's better for it to stand on its own.

They are probably too late now anyway as TVs are going to be shipping with it built-in:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yd44A9uxUwE

Apple is doing this the right way with a separate box though because with a Vizio set, you are required to buy a new TV. Nobody wants to be throwing out the nice TV they have for some gaming feature in another TV that might not be as good quality.

The 360 and PS3 are powerful machines. They were engineered to attract hardcore gamers.
But hardcore gaming has been a flop.

It's a business model that has backfired on Sony, and to a lesser extent on Microsoft.

Anyone wanting to get into a business should not attempt to copy business models that really don't work.

C.

I would love to see Apple TV as Nintendo wii competitor. Just remove the display from the iPod Touch and use the accelerometer abilities as remote control.

I think as gambles go, the PS3 hasn't show much sign of becoming a win.

C.

define win and what objective metrics are used in such a definition, and also tell us what signs you are alluding to in your claim.

Sony Game Division Profits
2006 ($872M) loss
2007 ($2800M) loss
2008 ($1510M) loss
2009 ($700M) loss
2010 ($88M) loss

C.

... and where are the citations for these figures?

Erm . Sony's annual financial reports. They are in the public domain.

C.

i took you to task to back up your figures with specific citations (you didn't) and you declined (as i knew you would) because you simply tossed off numbers to push your agenda (as expected).

here are the real numbers
http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/IR/fina.../09q3_sony.pdf
http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/IR/fina.../10q3_sony.pdf
http://neogaf.net/forum/showpost.php...6&postcount=90

Sony is nowhere near in bad shape as you claim. significant losses were incurred, absolutely, with most hardware console launches and it takes years to recover. the main three (3) hardware console manufacturers (i.e., Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo) are all doing well with clear and distinct indications. and, for the record, i think iOS is a great platform for casual gaming. the market is large enough for the dedicated gaming devices like the Sony NGP and PS3 as well as the casual mobile gaming devices that run Android or iOS.

You need to look at YEAR END reports. Not third quarter!

C.

third link of http://forums.appleinsider.com/showp...8&postcount=66 summaries year end reports up until 2009. quarter end results of subsequent years are over at http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/IR/financial/fr/ it seems that Q4 2010 shows an operating profit http://bit.ly/hw2Z5M (with year end losses significantly reduced compared to 09). having said all this, the fact remains you exaggerate for the purposes to supporting a false claim. although i acknowledge people, including myself, do make mistakes in forum postings i simply couldn't let such a gross fallacy of Sony's problems in the console gaming arena go unchallenged.

i dislike the bashing of any company (including Apple); it's so childish.

And you need to look at just the profits of the game division - and not the entire company. Which is largely profitable.

My point is that the PS3 was a flop. Not that Sony as a whole was a flop.

C.

off-topic

i quoted year end gaming division losses by Sony. here's the link yet again http://neogaf.net/forum/showpost.php...6&postcount=90 fiscal year 2010 (which ends in April 2011 for Sony, i believe) may be a very good year for the Sony division under which the PS3 is included. and, simply put, your view on the PS3 is absolutely and totally unfounded; market realities simply do not support your agenda here. designing, manufacturing and distributing a product as complex as the PS3 is a non-trivial task. worldwide sales of almost 48 million (ending FY Q3 2010) http://www.scei.co.jp/corporate/data...s3_sale_e.html is impressive, especially with the various instances of new technology residing within the console.


on-topic

if there are indications within iOS 4.3 that gaming will have a higher profile, this will only lead to great things for Apple. recently, Ubisoft alluded to an interest in developing games for mobile devices (apart from the Nintendo 3DS and Sony NGP) http://www.joystiq.com/2011/02/14/ub...t-the-other-m/

What those number show, is that since the introduction of the PS3 - Sony's gaming division has lost money. If Sony were a ship, the PS3 would be a big hole, letting water in and letting cash out.

The majority of the 48M sales were at a loss. Sony hoped that revenues from games sales would compensate them for the loss. But the attach rates of the PS3 were very low. And so the PS3 project didn't go into profit.

There were a bunch of reasons for this.

1) The technology was too expensive to develop. Costing Sony dearly. And causing them to be late to market.

2) The technology was exotic and difficult and expensive to develop for. This slowed the production of games, and drove many developers to rival platforms. Sony failed to create an easy development environment. And often had to deploy engineers into developer teams to assist them.

3) The performance of the exotic technology was not sufficiently better than rival products. (And according to some arguably worse.)

4) The inclusion of Blu Ray had many people buying the console as a BR player. These purchasers did not buy any games. Which drove down the attach rates.

Honestly, it has been a disaster for Sony. It's possible that over the next 5 years, the PS3 will bring in gigantic profits which will erase the epic losses of the past. But I don't think many analysts think that is going to happen.

Also, I am not arguing that the 360 is without faults. It has. Plenty.

My point is a wider one. The pursuit of the hardcore gamer by Sony and Microsoft, has not turned out to be a smart move. The costs of developing games has been rising at a rate linked to Moore's law. The revenues from games has been rising much more slowly.

We are now seeing a lot of studios go out of business because of this decision.

C.

cost of business; no surprise.


your point relied on fiction to bolster an unfounded bias. this claim of "the pursuit of the hardcore label" is also myopic at best. witness the breadth of games available via the PSN and LIVE for two examples, as well as the library of games for the PlayStation brand since 1994. the likes of Sony, Nintendo, Microsoft and Apple have been and will continue to do well in the gaming industry.

What?

Successful businesses make profits. Failing businesses lose money.
The PS3, as a platform, has been a financial disaster for Sony.

Partly this was caused by a number of disastrous engineering decisions. Made by engineers who don't really understand the nature of the industry.

But also by targeting the device solely at a minority audience : the hardcore games market.


What fiction? What bias?

I have worked in the gaming industry since its inception. Costs of game production have risen explosively to keep up with increasing power in the platforms. And while costs have risen, revenues have not kept up. How could they? Hence the declining number of titles, studio closures and collapsing profits.

An average hardcore game now costs $15M to make and $15M to market. And yet typical sales are usually in the 300K to 750K area. When the money is shared out, only the stores and advertising companies are making a profit.

However there is a way to make money with games. When...
1) Production costs are kept under control
2) Products are targeted at the widest possible audience.

Nintendo understands this. Also the PSN and XBLA sub-platforms also address this common sense approach. And we are seeing the app store focus on these values.

Unfortunately targeting an industry to meet the needs of a small and demanding minority didn't work. And Sony's collapse in profitability proves this.

The future will be in downloaded mass-market titles with modest production costs.

C.

several console manufacturers sell their devices at a loss during launch and for a period of time thereafter.


http://forums.appleinsider.com/showp...3&postcount=64

Yes. I have worked in the games industry since forever. We all understand this.
But as I understand it, the idea is to sell consoles at a loss, but to eventually make an overall profit.

Sony has not done this. Even if they had five straight years of modest profits, it would not fill-in the grand-canyon sized pit of debt.
I say again, by any rational and dispassionate perspective, the PS3 has been an unparalleled commercial disaster for Sony.



My numbers came from Sony's financial reports. Take it up with them.

C.

The bluray license fees for the next 20 years will more than make up for it. As I suspect, Bluray will be around for a long time, and most locales don't have fiber to the premises to support effective video over IP, nor will they in 20 years. Doing business today is about selling to emerging markets.

Nonetheless, I am not so interested in Sony or the PS3. Sony has to fight just to stay relevant in any industry there are a part of, now. MS, well, it is increasingly the same thing. Portable games and simple games are much more interesting to me as the market goes, and you don't always need advanced HW to run them.

I'd happily take a bet against that.

C.

i checked the sources mentioned at http://forums.appleinsider.com/showp...0&postcount=68 (which are, in fact, related to their game division) and the numbers you posted don't match up at all against published results. if you're going to be critical against a non-Apple company, with quantitative means, the least you can do is be factual.

I made that table some while ago. So I thought I should go back and check my numbers. I went to the Sony website and collated the year end figures for the game division. The 2010 figure represents "Network Services" which includes games.

It turns out I *had* made an error with the Yen -> Dollar exchange rate. And I had one year totally wrong. I apologise for this.

I have redone the figures.



Anyone who wants to double check can look at
http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/IR/financial/fr/index.html

But the point I was trying to make has really not changed. These figures represent a colossal disaster for Sony. There is no imaginable scenario in which the console will repay these losses.


C.

yes. all i wanted was to ensure the facts are presented.


this is where is our opinions disagree. although it's clear the Network Products & Services division faced significant losses for several quarters, the trends indicate improvement. fiscal year ends of 2011 and 2012 should be interesting to note.