We might see console-grade games on AppleTV in the future... maybe not this generation; maybe next one, or the one after.
There are games on consoles that are more basic like Ubisoft's Rayman. Rayman Legends is about $20 just now on consoles but launched at $60 and people bought it at that price:
[VIDEO]
Rayman Adventures on the ?TV is a free-to-play game with IAPs and they look very similar:
[VIDEO]
Major console games are very large in size, a few are reaching 50GB. The ?TV is more a competitive platform to the download-only portions of the consoles with games like the following:
There are some games in those lists that wouldn't work with the remote but most of them should work ok. This is a lower revenue portion than AAA but it's a good segment for young and casual gamers. I can see movie tie-in games, trivia games etc using this platform where they wouldn't be as suitable on a console. Fitness, karaoke, board games can also feature - things like the interactive celebrity fitness DVDs that are often on sale over Christmas. It takes time to build games and developers only had 1.5 months. Most developers will be starting testing apps with the retail launch. Basic apps can be done in a couple of months or less but even basic games can take 6 months or more. It will probably become the best way for Indie developers to target the TV because the box comes with a gaming controller unlike other streaming boxes and the audience isn't distracted by the higher production values titles. They aren't having to compete with massive budget developers to get noticed.
I noticed the game Afterpulse doesn't seem to be mentioned in reviews, I wonder if that was blocked due to the controller requirement. It was a first-person shooter. One way round it would be to script an on-rails portion for the remote so the character just moves through a predefined path and the remote just aims and shoots whereas the 3rd party controller would let you control movement.
The ?TV doesn't have to convince someone with a console to get rid of it, it just needed to be a selling point to get someone to move from the $69 ?TV model to the $149 model and it'll do that easily with being an app platform. Parents can build up a whole set of TV apps to keep young kids glued to the TV and cheap games on top just adds to this.
There are games on consoles that are more basic like Ubisoft's Rayman. Rayman Legends is about $20 just now on consoles but launched at $60 and people bought it at that price:
Rayman Adventures on the ?TV is a free-to-play game with IAPs and they look very similar:
Major console games are very large in size, a few are reaching 50GB. The ?TV is more a competitive platform to the download-only portions of the consoles with games like the following:
There are some games in those lists that wouldn't work with the remote but most of them should work ok. This is a lower revenue portion than AAA but it's a good segment for young and casual gamers. I can see movie tie-in games, trivia games etc using this platform where they wouldn't be as suitable on a console. Fitness, karaoke, board games can also feature - things like the interactive celebrity fitness DVDs that are often on sale over Christmas. It takes time to build games and developers only had 1.5 months. Most developers will be starting testing apps with the retail launch. Basic apps can be done in a couple of months or less but even basic games can take 6 months or more. It will probably become the best way for Indie developers to target the TV because the box comes with a gaming controller unlike other streaming boxes and the audience isn't distracted by the higher production values titles. They aren't having to compete with massive budget developers to get noticed.
I noticed the game Afterpulse doesn't seem to be mentioned in reviews, I wonder if that was blocked due to the controller requirement. It was a first-person shooter. One way round it would be to script an on-rails portion for the remote so the character just moves through a predefined path and the remote just aims and shoots whereas the 3rd party controller would let you control movement.
The ?TV doesn't have to convince someone with a console to get rid of it, it just needed to be a selling point to get someone to move from the $69 ?TV model to the $149 model and it'll do that easily with being an app platform. Parents can build up a whole set of TV apps to keep young kids glued to the TV and cheap games on top just adds to this.
Sure. There is also GTA: Chinatown Wars which was released on PSP and GB (maybe some others), so technically it is also a console game. There are probably more.
I wasn't accurate with my original statement. When I said "console grade" games, I was referring to heavy-hitters. From technical perspective, current iOS hardware should be able to do anything last generation of consoles had... and they had quite a few. And, some of those games are still among the best in their genres. God of War, Gears of War, Halo, Uncharted, Forza, GT, GTA4 and 5, TLoU... all of those and many more are achievable on iOS hardware. Distribution/storage is the problem but not unsolvable one. Apple could/can introduce Apple TV with flash card slot - proprietary one, if needed to secure other media copyrights, prevent usage of that format for copying data over it - and offer games on physical media in Apple retails and other gaming retailers. Games can drop some parts to reduce size. GT4 was filling DVD on PS2 but was reduced to 1.2GB on PSP, by shedding some pre-rendered animations and such (cars count was maintained, if I recall).
And before the next generation of consoles is released, it is reasonable to expect that iOS hardware will reach raw performance levels of PS4 and XBO. Probably overtake them, too, considering that current consoles are quite modest by today's standards.
They also have Beats for premium gaming headsets, and they could also brand their gaming controllers under Beats, too. Even develop their own motion controllers/cameras/..., or license something that is already out (and those are handy for dance/fitness/sports/... type of casual, family oriented games).
At some point, I believe Apple will address most if not all of this. Not because they need it to stay afloat, but simply because it is new territory for them, a space to grow further when existing categories get saturated (what we are already seeing in tablets). They can afford years of not making huge success. They can afford gaming being their new "hobby" for whatever time it takes to, well, take off. And why would they not? Apple has already conquered (or, at least, is strong player in) other entertainment categories - music, video streaming, ebooks... kind of feels natural to target gaming any time soon.
3rd party devs will come if Apple offers them robust platform. User base will be there. They'd need some time to build their own exclusive devs force, but again - they have money, they have time. They are in a good place to do it.
When I said "console grade" games, I was referring to heavy-hitters. From technical perspective, current iOS hardware should be able to do anything last generation of consoles had... and they had quite a few. And, some of those games are still among the best in their genres. God of War, Gears of War, Halo, Uncharted, Forza, GT, GTA4 and 5, TLoU... all of those and many more are achievable on iOS hardware. Distribution/storage is the problem but not unsolvable one. Apple could/can introduce Apple TV with flash card slot - proprietary one, if needed to secure other media copyrights, prevent usage of that format for copying data over it - and offer games on physical media in Apple retails and other gaming retailers. Games can drop some parts to reduce size. GT4 was filling DVD on PS2 but was reduced to 1.2GB on PSP, by shedding some pre-rendered animations and such (cars count was maintained, if I recall).
It's mostly the production values that defines the line between console-quality and everything else. The ?TV should be able to run these sort of games from last-gen consoles ok. I think they'd stick to digital distribution, they allow up to 20GB per app with 2.2GB used on the device at any time and the rest switched out as needed. The remote couldn't control all of them so there would have to be some workaround figured out. The following video to me looks more like what this gaming platform is best suited for:
[VIDEO]
Young kids where a console experience is wasted because they can't control the complexity of it. Over Christmas, that kind of game is much more fun for keeping a group entertained and it keeps kids active. It would be good if Apple could commission development of more motion games and assure the quality to promote the platform. If they can get Disney games with Star Wars characters swiping lightsabers, that can tie in with the movie release. There's an article here saying Disney will release their own controller:
Maybe it will just be a toy that the remote straps onto with extra buttons so that you get the motion control and extra inputs.
There are a number of issues with getting the popular console titles. One is that the exclusives are tied to the consoles. So you'll never see TLoA, Forza, Uncharted, Halo, Gears of War, God of War outside of the consoles they are on, they don't even make it to the PC most of the time.
It can only ever be the cross-platform titles from the likes of Ubisoft, Square Enix, EA, Activision etc: Resident Evil, Splinter Cell, Tomb Raider, Hitman, Final Fantasy, Need For Speed, Deus Ex, Assassin's Creed. Most of these haven't even made it iOS in their original form, they are modified for limited controls into side-scrollers or on-rails games. This market is teen-young adult and they'll pick a console anyway because of the exclusives and games that will never reach mobile because the developers can't monetize them well enough on mobile. You couldn't sell a $20 game on mobile let alone $60. Under $10 is pretty much the buyer expectation and most are free-to-play.
To satisfy the console-type market, Apple really just needs to let people play Mac games through the ?TV, perhaps wirelessly. The ?TV would connect to a local Mac, list the games on it, be able to open them from the TV and the Mac would render the framebuffer off-screen, compress it to MP4 and send it wirelessly to the TV. The controller signal would be sent via the ?TV to the Mac. The Mac would have an option to enable game sharing so people couldn't run games without permission and it would show the status on the Mac in case someone was using it. Those games wouldn't need to be restricted to any control spec. They can stream games from Bootcamp too.
It's mostly the production values that defines the line between console-quality and everything else. The ?TV should be able to run these sort of games from last-gen consoles ok. I think they'd stick to digital distribution, they allow up to 20GB per app with 2.2GB used on the device at any time and the rest switched out as needed. The remote couldn't control all of them so there would have to be some workaround figured out. The following video to me looks more like what this gaming platform is best suited for:
Isn't 200MB limit for downloaded part of software, with rest assets being streamed over the Internet? That is a bit limiting for large games. Personally I'd go for some sort of local media - even if Apple unlocks this storage limit in firmware update, Apple TV does not come with too much storage in a first place. 32GB and 64GB, right? I've run out of my PS4 500GB HDD in a year time - even with local media, I want more and more games to be available as the library grows - and replaced it with 2GB drive. When games are 20 - 50GB size, any storage is limitation, and frequent re-downloading is pain in the... so... yeah... as Apple digs deeper into gaming, I think we will see some different options and solutions. Again, not necessarily in this generation of AppleTV, but in a year or two, I think (and I underline, I THINK) we will see this happening. At least much larger local storage and/or games distribute on physical media.
Young kids where a console experience is wasted because they can't control the complexity of it. Over Christmas, that kind of game is much more fun for keeping a group entertained and it keeps kids active. If they can get Disney games with Star Wars characters swiping lightsabers, that can tie in with the movie release. There's an article here saying Disney will release their own controller:
Maybe it will just be a toy that the remote straps onto with extra buttons so that you get the motion control and extra inputs.
Yep. AppleTV remote does have motion sensor but does not track full body motion in this release, much as I can see. So you can hit the ball, but you cannot move across the virtual playground. An add-on or next gen of AppleTV controller should go further.
There are a number of issues with getting the popular console titles. One is that the exclusives are tied to the consoles. So you'll never see TLoA, Forza, Uncharted, Halo, Gears of War, God of War outside of the consoles they are on, they don't even make it to the PC most of the time.
Sure. I didn't mean exactly those games, but games in that categories and with comparable production values and execution quality. Most of them are just takes on already established genres - hack&slash, driving, shooters and whatnot. Just very well executed takes.
It can only ever be the cross-platform titles from the likes of Ubisoft, Square Enix, EA, Activision etc: Resident Evil, Splinter Cell, Tomb Raider, Hitman, Final Fantasy, Need For Speed, Deus Ex, Assassin's Creed. Most of these haven't even made it iOS in their original form, they are modified for limited controls into side-scrollers or on-rails games. This market is teen-young adult and they'll pick a console anyway because of the exclusives and games that will never reach mobile because the developers can't monetize them well enough on mobile. You couldn't sell a $20 game on mobile let alone $60. Under $10 is pretty much the buyer expectation and most are free-to-play.
It really depends where Apple sees themselves in gaming in 1, 3 , 5 years time. I somehow cannot imagine them going for modest goals - when they enter market, they go for blood. If (or, say, when?) they enter this market with guns blazing - what they do now is more like scouting new territory - I think they will be investing into their own exclusive franchises. They might decide to go for Nintendo vibe and have their exclusives more family-friendly than what Sony and MS do, but either way, I do believe that in the future, we will be seeing big Apple exclusives.
To satisfy the console-type market, Apple really just needs to let people play Mac games through the ?TV, perhaps wirelessly. The ?TV would connect to a local Mac, list the games on it, be able to open them from the TV and the Mac would render the framebuffer off-screen, compress it to MP4 and send it wirelessly to the TV. The controller signal would be sent via the ?TV to the Mac. The Mac would have an option to enable game sharing so people couldn't run games without permission and it would show the status on the Mac in case someone was using it. Those games wouldn't need to be restricted to any control spec. They can stream games from Bootcamp too.
I'm not sure about this. Wireless TV gaming is still a bit laggy - at least those solutions I had a chance to try. Well, wireless streaming to TV in general, but lag doesn't hurt for media streaming - it does for interactive content. Also... not many consumer Apple computers have gaming-friendly hardware. MBA, MB, lower MBP and iMacs are all limited to integrated graphics, if memory serves. People who do buy high end machines with discrete GPUs are more likely to use them for professional needs - they are quite expensive for kids, students and casuals on average - and pros will probably not use their work tools for gaming if they can have much more affordable gaming devices, be it a console or gaming PC. Unless Apple does not introduce iMacs and MacBooks designed with gaming in mind (which somehow just doesn't sound right in my mind), I think keeping gaming on iOS/AppleTV hardware is safer bet, and hardware can already provide more (gaming-related) than majority Apple PC hardware for fraction of the price. I think that releasing game-centric hardware based on AppleTV, or expanding AppleTV platform with gaming-friendly features makes most sense.
20GB maximum can be hosted online and the assets are switched out in the 2GB allocation. You wouldn't switch out the 200MB because that part is controlling everything. An example of how this would work would be games from TellTaleGames where they have episodes ( ).
At the start you pick the episode to play so the initial game could be a launcher and you download the episode and remove old ones when you progress. That particular game would probably fit entirely within 2GB but people can start the game quicker if they split the parts up so they could have a very small launcher e.g <50MB, mark 400MB as an initial episode download and so the player can start playing after downloading <450MB. The other episodes can be marked for download later and can be downloaded in the background or when they need the next level.
It's good encouraging developers to split things up because massive multi-GB updates are annoying. Apple does this themselves sometimes. XCode updates always come down as massive files because they keep adding device profiles, they should apply the same splitting to that and leave documentation, device profiles on-demand.
It really depends where Apple sees themselves in gaming in 1, 3 , 5 years time. I somehow cannot imagine them going for modest goals - when they enter market, they go for blood. If (or, say, when?) they enter this market with guns blazing - what they do now is more like scouting new territory - I think they will be investing into their own exclusive franchises. They might decide to go for Nintendo vibe and have their exclusives more family-friendly than what Sony and MS do, but either way, I do believe that in the future, we will be seeing big Apple exclusives.
They've been doing mobile for a while now - 8 years for the iPhone, 5 for the iPad - and they haven't ventured into exclusive games. They have even said a couple of times they don't plan to be a content company. I think commissioning exclusives from outside developers would be something they can look at but it can't just be a money pit.
Look at the XBox One exclusive Quantum Break, it has been in development for years, the developer's last game was 5 years ago:
It looks ok but not worth waiting that long for. Apple updates hardware every year, developers on 2-3 year development cycles would have to target hardware that doesn't exist every time and the successes so far on mobile are inexpensive or free-to-play so recouping investment is hard. There are high-end Indie developers Apple can target like the following:
(Vanishing of Ethan Carter - Unreal Engine) (DreamFall Chapters - Unity Engine)
These teams are small (<20 people) so they need a low budget to support them. Red Thread worked on funds from KickStarter and government funding totalling low single digit millions of dollars. Apple has $200 billion or so sitting around. They could pass $1-5m to 100 different teams worldwide to develop high quality Indie games and port older titles and they could get 100% of the sales until it was repaid and 30% after.
Wireless TV gaming is still a bit laggy - at least those solutions I had a chance to try. Well, wireless streaming to TV in general, but lag doesn't hurt for media streaming - it does for interactive content.
There's latency with wireless but they could even try wifi-direct so that it cuts out the router. Companies successfully stream games over the internet, doing it locally would be faster that this. It's a quick way to get those higher-end games onto the TV using hardware people already own.
Also... not many consumer Apple computers have gaming-friendly hardware. MBA, MB, lower MBP and iMacs are all limited to integrated graphics, if memory serves.
Entry PC graphics are competitive with mobile. Here's GTA V on the Macbook: - the FPS drops at times to 15fps on normal quality and low resolution but everything below GTA V's requirements would work ok. Skylake should improve graphics in that model quite a bit this year too. Some people are already gaming on Macs, this would just be a quick and easy way to move that to the TV.
What are you playing them with? Siri remote or Nimbus?
So far just the remote but I have a controller ordered and should be here in a few days. Some games will definitely work better with a dedicated controller.
20GB maximum can be hosted online and the assets are switched out in the 2GB allocation. You wouldn't switch out the 200MB because that part is controlling everything. An example of how this would work would be games from TellTaleGames where they have episodes ( ).
At the start you pick the episode to play so the initial game could be a launcher and you download the episode and remove old ones when you progress. That particular game would probably fit entirely within 2GB but people can start the game quicker if they split the parts up so they could have a very small launcher e.g <50MB, mark 400MB as an initial episode download and so the player can start playing after downloading <450MB. The other episodes can be marked for download later and can be downloaded in the background or when they need the next level.
It's good encouraging developers to split things up because massive multi-GB updates are annoying. Apple does this themselves sometimes. XCode updates always come down as massive files because they keep adding device profiles, they should apply the same splitting to that and leave documentation, device profiles on-demand.
That is OK for episodic, linear level-based games. It wouldn't do well for open world or any other non-linear game where you re-visit locations with or without changes - like racers, where you will race same tracks but in different categories. Eventually, it can be best practice but if it is only practice, it will limit possible scenarios - all that presuming that large games with such requests are being considered.
They've been doing mobile for a while now - 8 years for the iPhone, 5 for the iPad - and they haven't ventured into exclusive games. They have even said a couple of times they don't plan to be a content company. I think commissioning exclusives from outside developers would be something they can look at but it can't just be a money pit.
They haven't, true. Does not mean they will not. Microsoft was already around - a lot - before they released first console. Eventually, it boils down to where they can grow that is not completely alien to their already successful endeavors, and can benefit each other. Gaming fits well in both computing and entertainment. AppStore is well established. Apple has sub-brand capable of offering premium gaming controllers and other hardware. And new gaming related products are unlikely to cannibalize existing products in any meaningful way. Again, it does not mean that Apple will release "hard-core" console... but I think that they will at some point. After all, back in the days - at some point - no one imagined that Apple will release MP3 player. Or a phone. Or watch.
Look at the XBox One exclusive Quantum Break, it has been in development for years, the developer's last game was 5 years ago:
It looks ok but not worth waiting that long for. Apple updates hardware every year, developers on 2-3 year development cycles would have to target hardware that doesn't exist every time and the successes so far on mobile are inexpensive or free-to-play so recouping investment is hard. There are high-end Indie developers Apple can target like the following:
(Vanishing of Ethan Carter - Unreal Engine) (DreamFall Chapters - Unity Engine)
Well... it is new franchise, so I don't think that many are really waiting for it 5 years. If it turns out great, only then will people wait for next installment
It is good to have exclusives. They define platform. It does take time to get there... but I think it is worthy, in the long run. Apple does not need to have exclusive studios under their roof, but they can still long-term contract studios to do exclusive franchises for their platform(s).
These teams are small (<20 people) so they need a low budget to support them. Red Thread worked on funds from KickStarter and government funding totalling low single digit millions of dollars. Apple has $200 billion or so sitting around. They could pass $1-5m to 100 different teams worldwide to develop high quality Indie games and port older titles and they could get 100% of the sales until it was repaid and 30% after.
They have more than enough money to contract handful of teams for big exclusive franchises while still investing into good Indies for smaller exclusive titles. Exclusives are good for the brand - they draw attention, create hype. Differentiate. Look at Sony, quite in financial troubles, but holding onto their exclusive devs like a drowner to a driftwood.
There's latency with wireless but they could even try wifi-direct so that it cuts out the router. Companies successfully stream games over the internet, doing it locally would be faster that this. It's a quick way to get those higher-end games onto the TV using hardware people already own.
I have been playing a bit with two MiraCast devices which do use Wifi-direct. There is still slight but visible lag. Never tried game streaming... not sure how is that done. Depending on Internet connection, time of the day etc., there must be some compression artifacting and general visual degradation, but I really don't know how noticeable it is.
Entry PC graphics are competitive with mobile. Here's GTA V on the Macbook: - the FPS drops at times to 15fps on normal quality and low resolution but everything below GTA V's requirements would work ok. Skylake should improve graphics in that model quite a bit this year too. Some people are already gaming on Macs, this would just be a quick and easy way to move that to the TV.
With Intel on Windows, problem is often with stability of the drivers, rather than raw performance. A lot of older but still good looking games - Left 4 Dead, for example - will run on almost anything, and still look fine. Intel drivers, though, are still quite prone on rendering artifacts, crashes... much more than Nvidia and AMD. It is something you can play if you have to, but not something you really want to bet on. Maybe it is different on OSX... still; AppleTV sits at home, plugged to large TV, and costs a fraction of MacBook price. Price is usually very important factor with consoles.It also already does other means of entertainment - TV and music - which is common for desktop consoles nowadays. I think it is just much nicer base platform for Apple gaming project than Macs. Image fits better, too - it is entertainment/consumption device in it's core. Macs are more productivity/creativity machines. Eventually, Apple doesn't have to choose - they can have gaming console AND nurture gaming on their OSX machines as well.
Comments
There are games on consoles that are more basic like Ubisoft's Rayman. Rayman Legends is about $20 just now on consoles but launched at $60 and people bought it at that price:
[VIDEO]
Rayman Adventures on the ?TV is a free-to-play game with IAPs and they look very similar:
[VIDEO]
Major console games are very large in size, a few are reaching 50GB. The ?TV is more a competitive platform to the download-only portions of the consoles with games like the following:
http://www.stuff.tv/features/10-best-ps4-download-only-games-right-now
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_download-only_PlayStation_4_games
There are some games in those lists that wouldn't work with the remote but most of them should work ok. This is a lower revenue portion than AAA but it's a good segment for young and casual gamers. I can see movie tie-in games, trivia games etc using this platform where they wouldn't be as suitable on a console. Fitness, karaoke, board games can also feature - things like the interactive celebrity fitness DVDs that are often on sale over Christmas. It takes time to build games and developers only had 1.5 months. Most developers will be starting testing apps with the retail launch. Basic apps can be done in a couple of months or less but even basic games can take 6 months or more. It will probably become the best way for Indie developers to target the TV because the box comes with a gaming controller unlike other streaming boxes and the audience isn't distracted by the higher production values titles. They aren't having to compete with massive budget developers to get noticed.
I noticed the game Afterpulse doesn't seem to be mentioned in reviews, I wonder if that was blocked due to the controller requirement. It was a first-person shooter. One way round it would be to script an on-rails portion for the remote so the character just moves through a predefined path and the remote just aims and shoots whereas the 3rd party controller would let you control movement.
The ?TV doesn't have to convince someone with a console to get rid of it, it just needed to be a selling point to get someone to move from the $69 ?TV model to the $149 model and it'll do that easily with being an app platform. Parents can build up a whole set of TV apps to keep young kids glued to the TV and cheap games on top just adds to this.
Sure. There is also GTA: Chinatown Wars which was released on PSP and GB (maybe some others), so technically it is also a console game. There are probably more.
I wasn't accurate with my original statement. When I said "console grade" games, I was referring to heavy-hitters. From technical perspective, current iOS hardware should be able to do anything last generation of consoles had... and they had quite a few. And, some of those games are still among the best in their genres. God of War, Gears of War, Halo, Uncharted, Forza, GT, GTA4 and 5, TLoU... all of those and many more are achievable on iOS hardware. Distribution/storage is the problem but not unsolvable one. Apple could/can introduce Apple TV with flash card slot - proprietary one, if needed to secure other media copyrights, prevent usage of that format for copying data over it - and offer games on physical media in Apple retails and other gaming retailers. Games can drop some parts to reduce size. GT4 was filling DVD on PS2 but was reduced to 1.2GB on PSP, by shedding some pre-rendered animations and such (cars count was maintained, if I recall).
And before the next generation of consoles is released, it is reasonable to expect that iOS hardware will reach raw performance levels of PS4 and XBO. Probably overtake them, too, considering that current consoles are quite modest by today's standards.
They also have Beats for premium gaming headsets, and they could also brand their gaming controllers under Beats, too. Even develop their own motion controllers/cameras/..., or license something that is already out (and those are handy for dance/fitness/sports/... type of casual, family oriented games).
At some point, I believe Apple will address most if not all of this. Not because they need it to stay afloat, but simply because it is new territory for them, a space to grow further when existing categories get saturated (what we are already seeing in tablets). They can afford years of not making huge success. They can afford gaming being their new "hobby" for whatever time it takes to, well, take off. And why would they not? Apple has already conquered (or, at least, is strong player in) other entertainment categories - music, video streaming, ebooks... kind of feels natural to target gaming any time soon.
3rd party devs will come if Apple offers them robust platform. User base will be there. They'd need some time to build their own exclusive devs force, but again - they have money, they have time. They are in a good place to do it.
It's mostly the production values that defines the line between console-quality and everything else. The ?TV should be able to run these sort of games from last-gen consoles ok. I think they'd stick to digital distribution, they allow up to 20GB per app with 2.2GB used on the device at any time and the rest switched out as needed. The remote couldn't control all of them so there would have to be some workaround figured out. The following video to me looks more like what this gaming platform is best suited for:
[VIDEO]
Young kids where a console experience is wasted because they can't control the complexity of it. Over Christmas, that kind of game is much more fun for keeping a group entertained and it keeps kids active. It would be good if Apple could commission development of more motion games and assure the quality to promote the platform. If they can get Disney games with Star Wars characters swiping lightsabers, that can tie in with the movie release. There's an article here saying Disney will release their own controller:
http://www.polygon.com/2015/9/10/9297769/disney-infinity-3-0-hits-apple-tv-later-this-year-with-its-own
Maybe it will just be a toy that the remote straps onto with extra buttons so that you get the motion control and extra inputs.
There are a number of issues with getting the popular console titles. One is that the exclusives are tied to the consoles. So you'll never see TLoA, Forza, Uncharted, Halo, Gears of War, God of War outside of the consoles they are on, they don't even make it to the PC most of the time.
It can only ever be the cross-platform titles from the likes of Ubisoft, Square Enix, EA, Activision etc: Resident Evil, Splinter Cell, Tomb Raider, Hitman, Final Fantasy, Need For Speed, Deus Ex, Assassin's Creed. Most of these haven't even made it iOS in their original form, they are modified for limited controls into side-scrollers or on-rails games. This market is teen-young adult and they'll pick a console anyway because of the exclusives and games that will never reach mobile because the developers can't monetize them well enough on mobile. You couldn't sell a $20 game on mobile let alone $60. Under $10 is pretty much the buyer expectation and most are free-to-play.
To satisfy the console-type market, Apple really just needs to let people play Mac games through the ?TV, perhaps wirelessly. The ?TV would connect to a local Mac, list the games on it, be able to open them from the TV and the Mac would render the framebuffer off-screen, compress it to MP4 and send it wirelessly to the TV. The controller signal would be sent via the ?TV to the Mac. The Mac would have an option to enable game sharing so people couldn't run games without permission and it would show the status on the Mac in case someone was using it. Those games wouldn't need to be restricted to any control spec. They can stream games from Bootcamp too.
Isn't 200MB limit for downloaded part of software, with rest assets being streamed over the Internet? That is a bit limiting for large games. Personally I'd go for some sort of local media - even if Apple unlocks this storage limit in firmware update, Apple TV does not come with too much storage in a first place. 32GB and 64GB, right? I've run out of my PS4 500GB HDD in a year time - even with local media, I want more and more games to be available as the library grows - and replaced it with 2GB drive. When games are 20 - 50GB size, any storage is limitation, and frequent re-downloading is pain in the... so... yeah... as Apple digs deeper into gaming, I think we will see some different options and solutions. Again, not necessarily in this generation of AppleTV, but in a year or two, I think (and I underline, I THINK) we will see this happening. At least much larger local storage and/or games distribute on physical media.
Yep. AppleTV remote does have motion sensor but does not track full body motion in this release, much as I can see. So you can hit the ball, but you cannot move across the virtual playground. An add-on or next gen of AppleTV controller should go further.
Sure. I didn't mean exactly those games, but games in that categories and with comparable production values and execution quality. Most of them are just takes on already established genres - hack&slash, driving, shooters and whatnot. Just very well executed takes.
It really depends where Apple sees themselves in gaming in 1, 3 , 5 years time. I somehow cannot imagine them going for modest goals - when they enter market, they go for blood. If (or, say, when?) they enter this market with guns blazing - what they do now is more like scouting new territory - I think they will be investing into their own exclusive franchises. They might decide to go for Nintendo vibe and have their exclusives more family-friendly than what Sony and MS do, but either way, I do believe that in the future, we will be seeing big Apple exclusives.
I'm not sure about this. Wireless TV gaming is still a bit laggy - at least those solutions I had a chance to try. Well, wireless streaming to TV in general, but lag doesn't hurt for media streaming - it does for interactive content. Also... not many consumer Apple computers have gaming-friendly hardware. MBA, MB, lower MBP and iMacs are all limited to integrated graphics, if memory serves. People who do buy high end machines with discrete GPUs are more likely to use them for professional needs - they are quite expensive for kids, students and casuals on average - and pros will probably not use their work tools for gaming if they can have much more affordable gaming devices, be it a console or gaming PC. Unless Apple does not introduce iMacs and MacBooks designed with gaming in mind (which somehow just doesn't sound right in my mind), I think keeping gaming on iOS/AppleTV hardware is safer bet, and hardware can already provide more (gaming-related) than majority Apple PC hardware for fraction of the price. I think that releasing game-centric hardware based on AppleTV, or expanding AppleTV platform with gaming-friendly features makes most sense.
The documentation says that 200MB maximum is the initial download and you can specify up to 2GB for initial install once the base app is installed:
http://www.imore.com/how-new-apple-tv-uses-demand-resources-host-great-apps-and-games
https://developer.apple.com/library/prerelease/tvos/documentation/FileManagement/Conceptual/On_Demand_Resources_Guide/PlatformSizesforOn-DemandResources.html
20GB maximum can be hosted online and the assets are switched out in the 2GB allocation. You wouldn't switch out the 200MB because that part is controlling everything. An example of how this would work would be games from TellTaleGames where they have episodes (
At the start you pick the episode to play so the initial game could be a launcher and you download the episode and remove old ones when you progress. That particular game would probably fit entirely within 2GB but people can start the game quicker if they split the parts up so they could have a very small launcher e.g <50MB, mark 400MB as an initial episode download and so the player can start playing after downloading <450MB. The other episodes can be marked for download later and can be downloaded in the background or when they need the next level.
It's good encouraging developers to split things up because massive multi-GB updates are annoying. Apple does this themselves sometimes. XCode updates always come down as massive files because they keep adding device profiles, they should apply the same splitting to that and leave documentation, device profiles on-demand.
They've been doing mobile for a while now - 8 years for the iPhone, 5 for the iPad - and they haven't ventured into exclusive games. They have even said a couple of times they don't plan to be a content company. I think commissioning exclusives from outside developers would be something they can look at but it can't just be a money pit.
Look at the XBox One exclusive Quantum Break, it has been in development for years, the developer's last game was 5 years ago:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_Break#Development
It looks ok but not worth waiting that long for. Apple updates hardware every year, developers on 2-3 year development cycles would have to target hardware that doesn't exist every time and the successes so far on mobile are inexpensive or free-to-play so recouping investment is hard. There are high-end Indie developers Apple can target like the following:
These teams are small (<20 people) so they need a low budget to support them. Red Thread worked on funds from KickStarter and government funding totalling low single digit millions of dollars. Apple has $200 billion or so sitting around. They could pass $1-5m to 100 different teams worldwide to develop high quality Indie games and port older titles and they could get 100% of the sales until it was repaid and 30% after.
There's latency with wireless but they could even try wifi-direct so that it cuts out the router. Companies successfully stream games over the internet, doing it locally would be faster that this. It's a quick way to get those higher-end games onto the TV using hardware people already own.
Entry PC graphics are competitive with mobile. Here's GTA V on the Macbook:
So far just the remote but I have a controller ordered and should be here in a few days. Some games will definitely work better with a dedicated controller.
That is OK for episodic, linear level-based games. It wouldn't do well for open world or any other non-linear game where you re-visit locations with or without changes - like racers, where you will race same tracks but in different categories. Eventually, it can be best practice but if it is only practice, it will limit possible scenarios - all that presuming that large games with such requests are being considered.
They haven't, true. Does not mean they will not. Microsoft was already around - a lot - before they released first console. Eventually, it boils down to where they can grow that is not completely alien to their already successful endeavors, and can benefit each other. Gaming fits well in both computing and entertainment. AppStore is well established. Apple has sub-brand capable of offering premium gaming controllers and other hardware. And new gaming related products are unlikely to cannibalize existing products in any meaningful way. Again, it does not mean that Apple will release "hard-core" console... but I think that they will at some point. After all, back in the days - at some point - no one imagined that Apple will release MP3 player. Or a phone. Or watch.
Well... it is new franchise, so I don't think that many are really waiting for it 5 years. If it turns out great, only then will people wait for next installment
It is good to have exclusives. They define platform. It does take time to get there... but I think it is worthy, in the long run. Apple does not need to have exclusive studios under their roof, but they can still long-term contract studios to do exclusive franchises for their platform(s).
They have more than enough money to contract handful of teams for big exclusive franchises while still investing into good Indies for smaller exclusive titles. Exclusives are good for the brand - they draw attention, create hype. Differentiate. Look at Sony, quite in financial troubles, but holding onto their exclusive devs like a drowner to a driftwood.
I have been playing a bit with two MiraCast devices which do use Wifi-direct. There is still slight but visible lag. Never tried game streaming... not sure how is that done. Depending on Internet connection, time of the day etc., there must be some compression artifacting and general visual degradation, but I really don't know how noticeable it is.
With Intel on Windows, problem is often with stability of the drivers, rather than raw performance. A lot of older but still good looking games - Left 4 Dead, for example - will run on almost anything, and still look fine. Intel drivers, though, are still quite prone on rendering artifacts, crashes... much more than Nvidia and AMD. It is something you can play if you have to, but not something you really want to bet on. Maybe it is different on OSX... still; AppleTV sits at home, plugged to large TV, and costs a fraction of MacBook price. Price is usually very important factor with consoles.It also already does other means of entertainment - TV and music - which is common for desktop consoles nowadays. I think it is just much nicer base platform for Apple gaming project than Macs. Image fits better, too - it is entertainment/consumption device in it's core. Macs are more productivity/creativity machines. Eventually, Apple doesn't have to choose - they can have gaming console AND nurture gaming on their OSX machines as well.