Apple's new gaming console - amazing idea!!!

Posted:
in Future Apple Hardware edited January 2014
Why Apple needs a gaming console.



I was talking with a member of the London Business School who specialises in digital companies and especially Apple.



I?ve been reading a lot about Microsoft and the current pink project and the Zune HD. One massive thing struck me, Apple needs a console.My friend also agreed and offered some amazing strategic opportunities.



Now I?m not talking about a revisiting of the Pippin, but Apple really do need a standout gaming device which is hooked up to TVs and is an enhanced Apple TV.



Apple TV needs a killer app and tivo like DVR functionality will not cut it today!



My rational for this is, that Apple?s biggest threat as far as I can see is not the Xbox, but rather the current library of titles. At any point Microsoft could and might drop a device which is capable of leveraging their gaming library. I?m not talking about cut down games or the so called drop in drop out style games but a fully featured games on mobile devices, such as Halo. This is a massive threat and currently Apple has not had any massive standout gaming hits on mobile devices bar a few casual titles. Microsoft having done fantastic things with the xbox and I personally think it?s going to take some doing to potentially derail the momentum they have in this space.



However my friend asserts that Apple needs to get games on any startup platform quick, it can?t risk doing a Dreamcast and struggling for developers but it could do with capturing a large audience of gamers quickly.



So why does Apple need a console to achieve this? Put plainly critical mass. Apple needs to introduce regular Apple ipod users and iphone users to an alternate gaming platform which enables them to synch and do all the other stuff we associate with Apple TV/itunes. it needs to consolidate a number of devices and do something disruptive.



By making development dead cheap on such a device and the ease of access to titles Apple could effectively buy in to the big three and really offer them a run for their money. Rather than wait for companies to drop a Mac version, Apple need to proactively be part of the development consideration process. But how does it do this? It needs to be a console developer like no other and in effect build the infrastructure al?a App store and let the gaming companies deal with you and me direct. Taking their % on game sales and hardware.



So this is my friends big idea:

Apple needs to make one very important strategic acquisition, and no we?re not talking a game studio yet or someone like Nintendo.



Onlive - the new gaming streaming company. Here we have a device which is massively disruptive to the industry, something that requires one thing to perform, a decent broadband connection and not a lot else. Tie into this all of the itunes and Apple TV functionality and make Mobile Me a enhanced version of Live with Avatars and music/movie data and you?ve got yourself a serious contender.



Think then of the potential halo effect for the Apple brand and the immediate chance of winning more market share. Also because of the way the device would function, Apple could price these things at the same sort of money as the current iteration of the Apple TV as Apple don?t need to add any additional hardware to make the thing run. Imagine Crysis running at full tilt.



Would love to know what people think about this idea.





Comments

  • Reply 1 of 12
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by smartz View Post


    Onlive - the new gaming streaming company. Here we have a device which is massively disruptive to the industry, something that requires one thing to perform, a decent broadband connection and not a lot else. Tie into this all of the itunes and Apple TV functionality and make Mobile Me a enhanced version of Live with Avatars and music/movie data and you?ve got yourself a serious contender.









    a lot of the us does not have a decent broadband connection and this will run up your caped cable to the cap fast and it's unlikely a node will able to handle a full block of homes hinting this at same time and LAG is a big thing as well.

    Dsl links of 1.5 - 3.0 may not be able get a full hd stream of the game.



    also you will need a lot of hardware for this aka 1 high end pc per user for most of the big games + back end / menu viewing systems + video encoding systems.
  • Reply 2 of 12
    winterwinter Posts: 1,238member
    If a Dragon Quest or Final Fantasy game were to be made for it, I would be sold.
  • Reply 3 of 12
    As attractive as the idea is, it's very limited.



    For one thing, in that profile, you'd probably have trouble packing in a lot of horsepower; you could probably come close to matching the 360 in terms of graphics capability, (not difficult with today's tech). For another thing- It's relatively quick and easy to download a 1-1.5 GB movie file; It takes a lot longer to download and store a 6+ GB game. Unless you've got Fios or something equally fast, downloading current generation video games simply isn't an option unless the person is willing to wait for a very long time.



    When it comes to games, physical media (i.e. DVDs) is still highly preferable to a lot of folks because you don't have to deal with glacial internet speeds.



    Of course, I'm assuming that Apple would actually start giving a damn about "real" games. Knowing Apple they'd do something like the iPhone/iPod Touch and have the market flooded with penny candy games of the sort that entertain you when you're sitting in a waiting room.
  • Reply 4 of 12
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by John French View Post


    Unless you've got Fios or something equally fast, downloading current generation video games simply isn't an option unless the person is willing to wait for a very long time.



    You completely missed the point of what he was saying. OnLive is entirely cloud based. It's designed to run on the simplest of hardware, from netbooks to a tiny set top box. You don't download the game, and the game doesn't run locally. The system streams an HD quality video of the game running on their servers back to your screen (a 2mb connection for 480p, 6 for 720p). This means that you get all the high quality graphics and sound without having to own an expensive console.
  • Reply 5 of 12
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by infinitespecter View Post


    You completely missed the point of what he was saying. OnLive is entirely cloud based. It's designed to run on the simplest of hardware, from netbooks to a tiny set top box. You don't download the game, and the game doesn't run locally. The system streams an HD quality video of the game running on their servers back to your screen (a 2mb connection for 480p, 6 for 720p). This means that you get all the high quality graphics and sound without having to own an expensive console.



    Ah, I see what you're saying.



    Still doesn't help me much; I've got a 0.08 Mbps download speed and 0.015 Mbps upload. I think my connection would die if I tried streaming HD video live. XD
  • Reply 6 of 12
    There was an article about game response time in AnandTech and how the milli seconds the LCD display takes to refresh adds to the total bag-of-hurt in FPS games. With games pushing the envelope at that end, even if OnLive can stream, the latency and the responsiveness will suffer. What if the user isn't in the same continent or country?



    I get up to 8Mbps with my DSL, but it means little to stuff running on US servers.
  • Reply 7 of 12
    MarvinMarvin Posts: 15,309moderator
    This kind of technology is developing very well. There's a guy called Jules Urbach whose company is pushing a lot of the tech forward alongside AMD. They have a browser plugin that lets you view streamed content over the web and they have a demo of it playing GTA4 on a Macbook Pro here:



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



    They demo the lag between the click and the punch but to be honest, I think you'd get used to it so long as it wasn't variable by a large amount. I've often considered buying a console but I really don't have that much interest in gaming any more to invest close to £400-500 and keep up with which games are good. A monthly subscription of £10 a month so that I could drop into a GTA4 game or Bioshock 2 right in my browser and I'd be pretty happy. The lag really wouldn't bother me at all, I've played far worse in virtualization software.



    Concerning bandwidth, you would generally need a minimum 2Mbps connection for decent desktop gaming but they scale it down even for mobile phones. I doubt they'd exclude anyone so if you were happy with a smaller window, you might get away with it.



    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFzOMjjlBds
  • Reply 8 of 12
    Hi guys, thanks for your responses. See the beauty of this device is that it uses very powerful servers and does not require anything remotely powerful to run the games. The device the user uses is purely for audio, display and input. The hard work is done as someone else rightly said in the cloud.



    I've been fortunate to see this thing running on a very modest 4mbps setup here in the UK and I honestly feel it could replace a standard console setup. The lag is very small and I believe with further investment and quicker broadband speeds it would become impossible to tell the difference.



    The other great thing is that OnLive has signed deals with EA and other large game publishers to ensure all content is supported. The demo I saw running was Burnout and it looked great and ran very smoothly. It also works from within a special browser so is pretty much platform agnostic meaning an ibook g4 with a decent connection on the net could play the latest and greatest games at full fps and with all hardware accelerated options on!
  • Reply 9 of 12
    vineavinea Posts: 5,585member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by smartz View Post


    Hi guys, thanks for your responses. See the beauty of this device is that it uses very powerful servers and does not require anything remotely powerful to run the games. The device the user uses is purely for audio, display and input. The hard work is done as someone else rightly said in the cloud.



    I've been fortunate to see this thing running on a very modest 4mbps setup here in the UK and I honestly feel it could replace a standard console setup. The lag is very small and I believe with further investment and quicker broadband speeds it would become impossible to tell the difference.



    The other great thing is that OnLive has signed deals with EA and other large game publishers to ensure all content is supported. The demo I saw running was Burnout and it looked great and ran very smoothly. It also works from within a special browser so is pretty much platform agnostic meaning an ibook g4 with a decent connection on the net could play the latest and greatest games at full fps and with all hardware accelerated options on!



    I think that it would work great for Verizon and Comcast but a lot less so for Apple. Games would be local to their FiOS or DOCSIS networks. Apple, with no pipe of their own, would depend on whatever ping times are to their servers. Even with an Akamai like mirror it's not going to be as fast or close as the local loop to the ISP servers.



    Unless apple actually pays for co-lo at the ISP...the 4Mbps gameplay isn't impressive if the server is running on the ISP's co-lo farm.



    Better to do DVD sized casual games on the aTV and compete with Nintendo vs MS or Sony in the hard core market.
  • Reply 10 of 12
    ...how about licensing the Apple TV S/W to Sony for the PS3? [ducks]



    I know, it would never happen.



    I wish Apple would enable DNLA on the Apple TV. I've stopped transcoding TV shows for use on the Apple TV and use the PS3 with Media Lilnk.



    Apple TV is starting to gather dust...



    lb
  • Reply 11 of 12
    ..deleted
  • Reply 12 of 12
    That's weird; I had the SAME idea last week. Apple taking over OnLive would be the kind of breakthrough that propels Apple in a post-iPod era.



    I think an acquisition is unlikely, and though the BEST play for Apple, not entirely necessary. A partnership that turns the next AppleTV into an OnLive client might just be enough.
Sign In or Register to comment.