When the prices for console can compete with AppleTV and games are either free or $0.99 then we can talk competition. Otherwise AppleTV can steamroll the consoles.
Woz says iPhones are behind in some areas and the haters take it as gospel, since he, you know, co-founded Apple.
Now watch them come out and claim this former employee knows nothing since he said something positive about Apple.
Let's see.
The person who invented the XBox is talking about products that might compete with the XBox. Yes, he knows something about it.
Woz left Apple decades before the iPhone was even envisioned and therefore never had any involvement with the iPhone. He has no more credibility than a layman.
The person who invented the XBox is talking about products that might compete with the XBox. Yes, he knows something about it.
Woz left Apple decades before the iPhone was even envisioned and therefore never had any involvement with the iPhone. He has no more credibility than a layman.
See the weakness of your silly comparison?
I didn't think what Woz said was all that bad, and being a person unlike us that carries around multiple devices and uses them extensively would have a proper opinion of them.
I don't care if the Pope said it. It's still a wild speculation about what might happen if a company might do something. The frivolity of my post matches the airy conjecture of the article.
When the prices for console can compete with AppleTV and games are either free or $0.99 then we can talk competition. Otherwise AppleTV can steamroll the consoles.
Except that view is disconnected 100% from reality. The reality is that gamers (the people who spend billions yearly in this industry) have panned the notion of taking 10 steps backwards to accommodate iOS gaming in the living room, look for this same article in gaming sites and you can see the vitriol and crucifying he received for his comments, they are out of touch with the industry and the people spending their money.
The difference between console gaming and ios gaming is like the difference between Hollywood and some horrific day time soap. The production values are nowhere near the same, and Apple stands very little chance to sway the core audience from established platforms.
This is very interesting news! An Xbox founder said that maybe if Apple added games to the Apple TV it might kill off the XBox.
I heard that another XBox founder said, if BMW started making toothbrushes, they might just drive Oral B out of the space.
And yet another XBox founder said, maybe if like Ferrari started putting peanut butter cookies in their cars, they might drive Nabisco out of business.
I can't wait to read what someone else said might happen if something else might happen!
Why are you on a rumors site if you're not interested in reading...well, rumors?
It couldn't be the same setup as the current Apple TV, though. I mean, I'm starting to like the idea of Apple side-stepping into this industry, but the Apple TV (box) would have to be changed fairly drastically if it's going to be doing this, too. For one, it would have to have greatly expanded internal storage, and that would need to be listed instead of a silent spec. I'd imagine it would need more RAM, too (what does it have now, 1GB?).
It would need to change some things but it's not that big of a leap. The PS3 and XBox 360 have 512MB of total RAM. The XBox has a 3-core 3.2GHz Xenon PPC. The PS3 has 7 SPEs running at 3.2GHz with 1 dedicated to the OS, again PPC. Both CPUs over 6 years old.
The PS3 GPU is based on a 7900GTX, which as you can see here:
I think it would be safe to say the iPad 4 is on par with the PS3 and 360. Mobile graphics are behind in features though compared to DirectX and OpenGL. This should be fixed somewhat with OpenGL ES 3 in the PowerVR 6 series - the demos they show off are quite bad as they are limiting the GPU bandwidth with the setup they use to about 1/10th or so of what it should be:
A gaming Apple TV would need about 32GB of flash memory (32GB iPod Touch = $249) and games could be up to a DVD size of about 8GB. Games can be split too. A game like Mass Effect 2, which is 15GB on the PC can be split into 2 parts for the Apple TV like it is for the XBox or there can be exceptions for some games. They can even have in-game purchases for levels and stories.
There can be a non-gaming 8GB Apple TV at $99 and a 32GB one with a controller at $199 with additional controllers at $29. The gaming one would have a dual-core CPU and quad-core PowerVR 6 graphics.
The great thing is that when people buy content from the iTunes Store, the games can work on their iPads and iPhones too and savegames can go into iCloud. They can also upgrade their Apple TV every year and all the games still work.
They'd get Disney exclusive games for the kids. It would be pretty serious competition for the Wii U and it wouldn't have to be all that aggressively marketed. Apple can pay for game ports of old games and they just get 50-100 major AAA titles on there and it's done.
What about people wanting Blue Ray and or DVD? I'd assume they already have a player. Moreover his point is Apple could kill those systems for casual gamers. Microsoft has already said the X-Box is currently mostly used as a non-gaming entertainment device. If Apple added an App Store for the Apple TV, I would not use my X-Box. I agree with the guy.
Now is an optimal time for Apple to move into this space if they are going to do it.
The xbox is at the end of a cycle. The Wii U (just launched) and 3DS are convoluted and underwhelming products that will set Nintendo back and possibly result in them going the way of SEGA and losing their hardware business.
If Apple can integrate some light multitouch elements to a traditional "eyes-free" controller and create a vibrant application platform that really showcases premium (~$30) AAA games to help them stand out from the 99c or free-to-play crowd (so that the entire gaming industry doesn't succumb to death by micropurchase) then they have another industry on a lock.
It's not that hard, the sequencing just needs to be done properly by someone who understand what good gaming is. Why Nintendo had it, misunderstood it and lost it. I would gladly show them.
Except since the Apple TV seems to be receiving a yearly update, games will be made during the standard "five year" lifecycle that the earliest Apple TVs won't be able to play.
Meaning $495 for Apple TVs to play all the games in the same timeframe that a standalone console would be able to play.
OR you're asking developers to hold their games back for the old models, which Apple never does.
Originally Posted by ifail
The reality is that gamers [who?] (the people who spend billions yearly in this industry) have panned [citation needed] the notion of taking 10 steps backwards [citation needed] to accommodate iOS gaming in the living room…
Your replies?
Originally Posted by Dunks
The Wii U (just launched) and 3DS are convoluted and underwhelming products that will set Nintendo back and possibly result in them going the way of SEGA and losing their hardware business.
A lot of variables will need to be worked out on the Apple TV if they want to run games on it. It's not over in a long shot for the console makers.
Playstation bought Gaikai...you can figure out what they are going to do with that acquisition. Just need to make sure there is enough bandwidth out there for the average user to take gaming to another level.
Too bad the first(OnLive) that tried this didn't figure out how much it's going to cost them until they are going BK. Apple has a long way to go in this sector if they choose to jump in.
A lot of variables will need to be worked out on the Apple TV if they want to run games on it. It's not over in a long shot for the console makers.
I disagree with the first part and agree with the second.
It doesn't appear that it would be all that difficult for Apple to get games working on the Apple TV. It's running the same OS and the same CPU as the iPhone, iPad, etc. The current version is somewhat limited (single core, very limited storage, etc), but it doesn't appear that it would be very hard for Apple to offer a Gaming version with A6 processor and enough storage to keep a few games on hand.
However, I agree that the console makers still have a significant window of opportunity. Some percentage of the population wants to run games at high resolution with very high frame rates and the Apple TV can't catch those. That, however, creates a major problem for the console makers - their development cost is large and they count on huge volumes to recover their cost. If the volume is reduced by even a modest amount, that could hurt them significantly. Still, there appears to be time to address the issue.
I disagree with the first part and agree with the second.
It doesn't appear that it would be all that difficult for Apple to get games working on the Apple TV. It's running the same OS and the same CPU as the iPhone, iPad, etc. The current version is somewhat limited (single core, very limited storage, etc), but it doesn't appear that it would be very hard for Apple to offer a Gaming version with A6 processor and enough storage to keep a few games on hand.
However, I agree that the console makers still have a significant window of opportunity. Some percentage of the population wants to run games at high resolution with very high frame rates and the Apple TV can't catch those. That, however, creates a major problem for the console makers - their development cost is large and they count on huge volumes to recover their cost. If the volume is reduced by even a modest amount, that could hurt them significantly. Still, there appears to be time to address the issue.
Consoles are usually basically super computers when first released, they're usually years ahead in computing power. They could never sell a console for profit because very few people would be able to afford it. So how to they stave off competition from Apple? Less powerful devices that are more affordable and refresh them quicker?
There's a major flaw in your logic - to become an Apple Developer, all you need is $99 and a Mac. For Xbox and PS3, to get a dev kit it's thousands of dollars. I believe the PS Move SDK is $200, and the Kinect is around the same.
What Apple did was more than revolutionize a certain product or create one of the biggest ecosystems in tech, they also created a platform that is VERY easily to develop for and sell on. Turning the AppleTV into a casual gaming console (even by proxy) is a much more modern solution than Sony or Microsoft can come up with - because they just don't have the same sort of open platform that iOS is. I'm sure that sounds ironic when talking about Apple, but you don't have over 750,000 apps because its inaccessible...
…to become an Apple Developer, all you need is $99 and a Mac. For Xbox and PS3, to get a dev kit it's thousands of dollars.
So… also roughly a thousand dollars…
But no, you're right, the testing hardware for the dedicated consoles is quite expensive. With iOS development, there's no barrier beyond owning hardware that runs OS X.
But no, you're right, the testing hardware for the dedicated consoles is quite expensive. With iOS development, there's no barrier beyond owning hardware that runs OS X.
Trust me - I am completely aware of how much it takes to buy into the Mac life. We just switched to a 100% Apple household, including a new iPad, iMac, and rMBP. Total for everything was about $8,000
That being said, we could almost run an entire development studio off this hardware - can't really run Photoshop of an Xbox Dev Kit...
There's a major flaw in your logic - to become an Apple Developer, all you need is $99 and a Mac. For Xbox and PS3, to get a dev kit it's thousands of dollars. I believe the PS Move SDK is $200, and the Kinect is around the same.
What Apple did was more than revolutionize a certain product or create one of the biggest ecosystems in tech, they also created a platform that is VERY easily to develop for and sell on. Turning the AppleTV into a casual gaming console (even by proxy) is a much more modern solution than Sony or Microsoft can come up with - because they just don't have the same sort of open platform that iOS is. I'm sure that sounds ironic when talking about Apple, but you don't have over 750,000 apps because its inaccessible...
But I think there's a method to that seemingly madness. They keep games to a manageable amount thus giving those that spend a great amount of money developing a gamebbetter chance to be profitable. I've read stories of people who spent their life savings to make a iOS app only to fail because their app got lost in a sea of competition. What percentage of games on iOS are almost copies of each other. How many Temple Run type games are out there? How many Angry Birds copies? It's not much different with consoles but it's much better. Every once in a while a innovative game like Heavy Rain comes out. Does the high start up cost hinder innovation or does it drive a developer to make something new and fresh?
But I think there's a method to that seemingly madness. They keep games to a manageable amount thus giving those that spend a great amount of money developing a gamebbetter chance to be profitable. I've read stories of people who spent their life savings to make a iOS app only to fail because their app got lost in a sea of competition. What percentage of games on iOS are almost copies of each other. How many Temple Run type games are out there? How many Angry Birds copies? It's not much different with consoles but it's much better. Every once in a while a innovative game like Heavy Rain comes out. Does the high start up cost hinder innovation or does it drive a developer to make something new and fresh?
You're absolutely correct, but what helps a game or app stand out is the uniqueness of the app in the sea of redundancy. Not to be confused with originality, but really more to do with innovation and design. Not every developer has the means to create a beautiful feature rich app in an efficient way, but those who can usually thrive. If you put a developer like Naughty Dog to develop a game for iOS and you can be sure that they have plenty of resources to do so (take away the PS3/PS4 for a moment). There really aren't any games that come close to the popularity of Temple Run or Angry Birds, and apps like Google Maps proved old dogs can learn new tricks and make a simple and elegant app that solves a problem well. There are games, like Real Racing, that push the hardware to the limit and prove that there's a gap to be filled. There are NOT a huge amount of crap apps for iPad... at least not nearly as many as there are for iPhone/iPod touch. I think that has more to do with the curated nature of the iPad platform. It's a different screensize, different design process, and often a different customer. I think getting Games and Apps on an AppleTV would do the same - create a self-governing sub-market of games that are really dedicated for that screen and experience.
AND - most importantly - Apple can sell more iPhones, iPods, and iPads in a year than both MS and Sony consoles combined. Turn that market towards a gaming-by-proxy mini-console, and you'll get the Wii market in a year, that doesn't get stale because of the annual updates expected of the ecosystem.
Comments
AppleTV $99
PS3 $299
XBox $199
WiiU $299
Game Prices...
When the prices for console can compete with AppleTV and games are either free or $0.99 then we can talk competition. Otherwise AppleTV can steamroll the consoles.
Let's see.
The person who invented the XBox is talking about products that might compete with the XBox. Yes, he knows something about it.
Woz left Apple decades before the iPhone was even envisioned and therefore never had any involvement with the iPhone. He has no more credibility than a layman.
See the weakness of your silly comparison?
I didn't think what Woz said was all that bad, and being a person unlike us that carries around multiple devices and uses them extensively would have a proper opinion of them.
I don't care if the Pope said it. It's still a wild speculation about what might happen if a company might do something. The frivolity of my post matches the airy conjecture of the article.
Except that view is disconnected 100% from reality. The reality is that gamers (the people who spend billions yearly in this industry) have panned the notion of taking 10 steps backwards to accommodate iOS gaming in the living room, look for this same article in gaming sites and you can see the vitriol and crucifying he received for his comments, they are out of touch with the industry and the people spending their money.
The difference between console gaming and ios gaming is like the difference between Hollywood and some horrific day time soap. The production values are nowhere near the same, and Apple stands very little chance to sway the core audience from established platforms.
Quote:
Originally Posted by 512ke
This is very interesting news! An Xbox founder said that maybe if Apple added games to the Apple TV it might kill off the XBox.
I heard that another XBox founder said, if BMW started making toothbrushes, they might just drive Oral B out of the space.
And yet another XBox founder said, maybe if like Ferrari started putting peanut butter cookies in their cars, they might drive Nabisco out of business.
I can't wait to read what someone else said might happen if something else might happen!
Why are you on a rumors site if you're not interested in reading...well, rumors?
It would need to change some things but it's not that big of a leap. The PS3 and XBox 360 have 512MB of total RAM. The XBox has a 3-core 3.2GHz Xenon PPC. The PS3 has 7 SPEs running at 3.2GHz with 1 dedicated to the OS, again PPC. Both CPUs over 6 years old.
The PS3 GPU is based on a 7900GTX, which as you can see here:
http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu.php?gpu=GeForce+7900+GTX&id=1254
is about 60% as fast as the 6630M in the Mac Mini. According to John Carmack, the iPad 2 was around half the performance of the PS3 and 360:
http://www.maclife.com/article/news/carmack_ipad_2_about_half_powerful_xbox_360_ps3
I think it would be safe to say the iPad 4 is on par with the PS3 and 360. Mobile graphics are behind in features though compared to DirectX and OpenGL. This should be fixed somewhat with OpenGL ES 3 in the PowerVR 6 series - the demos they show off are quite bad as they are limiting the GPU bandwidth with the setup they use to about 1/10th or so of what it should be:
[VIDEO]
[VIDEO]
Instancing, deferred shading, displacement mapping, OpenCL compute:
http://withimagination.imgtec.com/index.php/news/introducing-the-brand-new-opengl-es-3-0
A gaming Apple TV would need about 32GB of flash memory (32GB iPod Touch = $249) and games could be up to a DVD size of about 8GB. Games can be split too. A game like Mass Effect 2, which is 15GB on the PC can be split into 2 parts for the Apple TV like it is for the XBox or there can be exceptions for some games. They can even have in-game purchases for levels and stories.
There can be a non-gaming 8GB Apple TV at $99 and a 32GB one with a controller at $199 with additional controllers at $29. The gaming one would have a dual-core CPU and quad-core PowerVR 6 graphics.
The great thing is that when people buy content from the iTunes Store, the games can work on their iPads and iPhones too and savegames can go into iCloud. They can also upgrade their Apple TV every year and all the games still work.
They'd get Disney exclusive games for the kids. It would be pretty serious competition for the Wii U and it wouldn't have to be all that aggressively marketed. Apple can pay for game ports of old games and they just get 50-100 major AAA titles on there and it's done.
What games are you paying on Xbox?
The Gears of War series is great.
The xbox is at the end of a cycle. The Wii U (just launched) and 3DS are convoluted and underwhelming products that will set Nintendo back and possibly result in them going the way of SEGA and losing their hardware business.
If Apple can integrate some light multitouch elements to a traditional "eyes-free" controller and create a vibrant application platform that really showcases premium (~$30) AAA games to help them stand out from the 99c or free-to-play crowd (so that the entire gaming industry doesn't succumb to death by micropurchase) then they have another industry on a lock.
It's not that hard, the sequencing just needs to be done properly by someone who understand what good gaming is. Why Nintendo had it, misunderstood it and lost it. I would gladly show them.
Originally Posted by I.P.Freely
AppleTV $99
PS3 $299
XBox $199
WiiU $299
Except since the Apple TV seems to be receiving a yearly update, games will be made during the standard "five year" lifecycle that the earliest Apple TVs won't be able to play.
Meaning $495 for Apple TVs to play all the games in the same timeframe that a standalone console would be able to play.
OR you're asking developers to hold their games back for the old models, which Apple never does.
Originally Posted by ifail
The reality is that gamers [who?] (the people who spend billions yearly in this industry) have panned [citation needed] the notion of taking 10 steps backwards [citation needed] to accommodate iOS gaming in the living room…
Your replies?
Originally Posted by Dunks
The Wii U (just launched) and 3DS are convoluted and underwhelming products that will set Nintendo back and possibly result in them going the way of SEGA and losing their hardware business.
Not in the slightest.
Playstation bought Gaikai...you can figure out what they are going to do with that acquisition. Just need to make sure there is enough bandwidth out there for the average user to take gaming to another level.
Too bad the first(OnLive) that tried this didn't figure out how much it's going to cost them until they are going BK. Apple has a long way to go in this sector if they choose to jump in.
I disagree with the first part and agree with the second.
It doesn't appear that it would be all that difficult for Apple to get games working on the Apple TV. It's running the same OS and the same CPU as the iPhone, iPad, etc. The current version is somewhat limited (single core, very limited storage, etc), but it doesn't appear that it would be very hard for Apple to offer a Gaming version with A6 processor and enough storage to keep a few games on hand.
However, I agree that the console makers still have a significant window of opportunity. Some percentage of the population wants to run games at high resolution with very high frame rates and the Apple TV can't catch those. That, however, creates a major problem for the console makers - their development cost is large and they count on huge volumes to recover their cost. If the volume is reduced by even a modest amount, that could hurt them significantly. Still, there appears to be time to address the issue.
Consoles are usually basically super computers when first released, they're usually years ahead in computing power. They could never sell a console for profit because very few people would be able to afford it. So how to they stave off competition from Apple? Less powerful devices that are more affordable and refresh them quicker?
What Apple did was more than revolutionize a certain product or create one of the biggest ecosystems in tech, they also created a platform that is VERY easily to develop for and sell on. Turning the AppleTV into a casual gaming console (even by proxy) is a much more modern solution than Sony or Microsoft can come up with - because they just don't have the same sort of open platform that iOS is. I'm sure that sounds ironic when talking about Apple, but you don't have over 750,000 apps because its inaccessible...
Originally Posted by tazinlwfl
…to become an Apple Developer, all you need is $99 and a Mac. For Xbox and PS3, to get a dev kit it's thousands of dollars.
So… also roughly a thousand dollars…
But no, you're right, the testing hardware for the dedicated consoles is quite expensive. With iOS development, there's no barrier beyond owning hardware that runs OS X.
Trust me - I am completely aware of how much it takes to buy into the Mac life. We just switched to a 100% Apple household, including a new iPad, iMac, and rMBP. Total for everything was about $8,000
That being said, we could almost run an entire development studio off this hardware - can't really run Photoshop of an Xbox Dev Kit...
But I think there's a method to that seemingly madness. They keep games to a manageable amount thus giving those that spend a great amount of money developing a gamebbetter chance to be profitable. I've read stories of people who spent their life savings to make a iOS app only to fail because their app got lost in a sea of competition. What percentage of games on iOS are almost copies of each other. How many Temple Run type games are out there? How many Angry Birds copies? It's not much different with consoles but it's much better. Every once in a while a innovative game like Heavy Rain comes out. Does the high start up cost hinder innovation or does it drive a developer to make something new and fresh?
You're absolutely correct, but what helps a game or app stand out is the uniqueness of the app in the sea of redundancy. Not to be confused with originality, but really more to do with innovation and design. Not every developer has the means to create a beautiful feature rich app in an efficient way, but those who can usually thrive. If you put a developer like Naughty Dog to develop a game for iOS and you can be sure that they have plenty of resources to do so (take away the PS3/PS4 for a moment). There really aren't any games that come close to the popularity of Temple Run or Angry Birds, and apps like Google Maps proved old dogs can learn new tricks and make a simple and elegant app that solves a problem well. There are games, like Real Racing, that push the hardware to the limit and prove that there's a gap to be filled. There are NOT a huge amount of crap apps for iPad... at least not nearly as many as there are for iPhone/iPod touch. I think that has more to do with the curated nature of the iPad platform. It's a different screensize, different design process, and often a different customer. I think getting Games and Apps on an AppleTV would do the same - create a self-governing sub-market of games that are really dedicated for that screen and experience.
AND - most importantly - Apple can sell more iPhones, iPods, and iPads in a year than both MS and Sony consoles combined. Turn that market towards a gaming-by-proxy mini-console, and you'll get the Wii market in a year, that doesn't get stale because of the annual updates expected of the ecosystem.
- the gaming industry is a much easier industry for Apple to conquer compared to the mobile phone industry.
- Apple already is a major player in this business. Not a new comer.
- performance wise, A6X is probably already faster than the Cell processor in the PS3 - capable of 76 GFLOPS.
- there is a large market for casual gaming and for simpler games with good visual appeal.
- this will happen, no two ways about it. It is criminal that AppleTV does not allow 3rd party apps and games already.
- not just games, this could also usher in interactive TV.