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 ...
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.
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!
Apple would ruin gaming. Imagine the ridiculous guidelines games would have to follow. No grand theft auto I imagine. Also do you really think apple can compete with the big boys? Xbox kinect is the fastest selling gadget of all time, taking that honor from apple themselves
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've been saying it for months now on these forums - all Apple needs to do is double the CPU and put in a decent GPU and bam! PS3 competitor. Sony is doing this with their PSP2.
This I don't agree with. It's pretty simple. As it is, Apple is attracting major developers to iOS. An AppleTV game console running triple-A console titles on iOS that also runs iPhone, iPad apps etc. would attract all the developers you would ever need.
Apple doesn't have to get involved with all these shenanigans of feeding the fat cats of game development. That model is broken. Why waste money on EA when EA itself + everyone else will come banging on Apple's door to release AppleTV games.
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...
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.
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 $.
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...
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.
If you think Apple could come close to burying Nintendo in the gaming market then you need a big wake-up call
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.
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?
They could steal the biggest developer and keep it to themselves.
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.
Apple would ruin gaming. Imagine the ridiculous guidelines games would have to follow. No grand theft auto I imagine. Also do you really think apple can compete with the big boys? Xbox kinect is the fastest selling gadget of all time, taking that honor from apple themselves
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
Yuk. Making a professional set of Gaming APIs is a better solution.
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.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Digital Guy
Apple needs to get OnLive. Before they become too big,
arrogant and expensive, and before someone else does.
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:
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I think as gambles go, the PS3 hasn't show much sign of becoming a win.
Comments
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 ...
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.
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!
Apple would ruin gaming. Imagine the ridiculous guidelines games would have to follow. No grand theft auto I imagine. Also do you really think apple can compete with the big boys? Xbox kinect is the fastest selling gadget of all time, taking that honor from apple themselves
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've been saying it for months now on these forums - all Apple needs to do is double the CPU and put in a decent GPU and bam! PS3 competitor. Sony is doing this with their PSP2.
This I don't agree with. It's pretty simple. As it is, Apple is attracting major developers to iOS. An AppleTV game console running triple-A console titles on iOS that also runs iPhone, iPad apps etc. would attract all the developers you would ever need.
Apple doesn't have to get involved with all these shenanigans of feeding the fat cats of game development. That model is broken. Why waste money on EA when EA itself + everyone else will come banging on Apple's door to release AppleTV games.
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...
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.
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 $.
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.
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.
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...
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.
If you think Apple could come close to burying Nintendo in the gaming market then you need a big wake-up call
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
Apple should buy EA.
They could steal the biggest developer and keep it to themselves.
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.
Apple would ruin gaming. Imagine the ridiculous guidelines games would have to follow. No grand theft auto I imagine. Also do you really think apple can compete with the big boys? Xbox kinect is the fastest selling gadget of all time, taking that honor from apple themselves
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
Yuk. Making a professional set of Gaming APIs is a better solution.
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.
Apple needs to get OnLive. Before they become too big,
arrogant and expensive, and before someone else does.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I think as gambles go, the PS3 hasn't show much sign of becoming a win.
C.
I think as gambles go, the PS3 hasn't show much sign of becoming a win.
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.