Hints of Apple TV gaming platform found in iOS 4.3 beta
References to gaming and a possible controller for the Apple TV have been discovered in the iOS 4.3 beta code, suggesting that Apple could be planning to take on traditional gaming consoles over control of the TV.
Prior to Apple's announcement of the new $99 streaming Apple TV, rumors swirled that the device, which runs a variant of iOS, could gain support for third-party iOS apps in the next revision. Those rumors failed to materialize, but a new report claims to have found evidence of future gaming features for the Apple TV in an iOS 4.3 beta.
Engadget reports that a tipster has notified them of references to online gaming support in a recent iOS 4.3 beta. "Several references have been found pertaining to "ATVGames" and "ATVThunder" that point to a controller of some sort, leaderboards (think Game Center), a way to schedule games (multiplayer?), and a store front (think App Store, iTunes)," the report noted.
Two strings, "com.apple.appletv.play.live.thunder" and ".play.archive.thunder," may point to the possibility of streaming games to the Apple TV or archiving them for offline play. The report's source speculated that "the OpenGL is mature and thoroughly implemented enough that streaming low bandwidth data and computing locally could happen," though the report was quick to disclaim that there's nothing in the code to suggest that will be the case.
Two more codenames, Sedona and Flagstaff, named after cities in Arizona, were also discovered in the beta. With references to director, episode and season, Sedona may be a new "video merchandising and streaming" feature, according to the report. The Flagstaff code references "Account Types and Merchants," but otherwise remains a mystery.
Apple in the living room
The addition of gaming to the Apple TV could create further inroads for Apple into consumers' living rooms and provide fierce competition to incumbents like Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo. After Apple unveiled the revamped Apple TV in September of last year, Wall Street analysts viewed it as a small "step in the right direction."
Rumors of an Apple HDTV have persisted for years. Analyst Gene Munster with Piper Jaffray has long believed that Apple will release an Apple-branded HDTV as early as by the end of calendar year 2012. Munster recently pointed to Apple's $3.9 billion pre-pay investment as possible evidence of an upcoming Apple HDTV set.
In September of last year, analyst Maynard Um of UBS analyzed the state of the "Global Digital Living Room" and pegged Apple as the front runner. The report did, however, note that TV is the one platform in Apple's ecosystem that needs substantial improvement.
iOS gaming
The popularity of games on iOS has contributed to the runaway success of the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch, while also putting handheld gaming device makers like Sony and Nintendo on the defensive. Apple CEO Steve Jobs boasted in September last year that the iPod touch had become the "world's most popular game player."
Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime told reporters last year that Apple is a bigger threat than Xbox maker and rival Microsoft. Sony and Google will team up against Apple in a new PlayStation Suite for Android platform that will bring PlayStation games to Google's mobile OS.
According to a December 2010 report by Interpret, Apple's iOS devices are displacing standalone gaming devices, as the proportion of games played on the Nintendo DS and Sony PSP have declined 13 percent over the last year.
Prior to Apple's announcement of the new $99 streaming Apple TV, rumors swirled that the device, which runs a variant of iOS, could gain support for third-party iOS apps in the next revision. Those rumors failed to materialize, but a new report claims to have found evidence of future gaming features for the Apple TV in an iOS 4.3 beta.
Engadget reports that a tipster has notified them of references to online gaming support in a recent iOS 4.3 beta. "Several references have been found pertaining to "ATVGames" and "ATVThunder" that point to a controller of some sort, leaderboards (think Game Center), a way to schedule games (multiplayer?), and a store front (think App Store, iTunes)," the report noted.
Two strings, "com.apple.appletv.play.live.thunder" and ".play.archive.thunder," may point to the possibility of streaming games to the Apple TV or archiving them for offline play. The report's source speculated that "the OpenGL is mature and thoroughly implemented enough that streaming low bandwidth data and computing locally could happen," though the report was quick to disclaim that there's nothing in the code to suggest that will be the case.
Two more codenames, Sedona and Flagstaff, named after cities in Arizona, were also discovered in the beta. With references to director, episode and season, Sedona may be a new "video merchandising and streaming" feature, according to the report. The Flagstaff code references "Account Types and Merchants," but otherwise remains a mystery.
Apple in the living room
The addition of gaming to the Apple TV could create further inroads for Apple into consumers' living rooms and provide fierce competition to incumbents like Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo. After Apple unveiled the revamped Apple TV in September of last year, Wall Street analysts viewed it as a small "step in the right direction."
Rumors of an Apple HDTV have persisted for years. Analyst Gene Munster with Piper Jaffray has long believed that Apple will release an Apple-branded HDTV as early as by the end of calendar year 2012. Munster recently pointed to Apple's $3.9 billion pre-pay investment as possible evidence of an upcoming Apple HDTV set.
In September of last year, analyst Maynard Um of UBS analyzed the state of the "Global Digital Living Room" and pegged Apple as the front runner. The report did, however, note that TV is the one platform in Apple's ecosystem that needs substantial improvement.
iOS gaming
The popularity of games on iOS has contributed to the runaway success of the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch, while also putting handheld gaming device makers like Sony and Nintendo on the defensive. Apple CEO Steve Jobs boasted in September last year that the iPod touch had become the "world's most popular game player."
Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime told reporters last year that Apple is a bigger threat than Xbox maker and rival Microsoft. Sony and Google will team up against Apple in a new PlayStation Suite for Android platform that will bring PlayStation games to Google's mobile OS.
According to a December 2010 report by Interpret, Apple's iOS devices are displacing standalone gaming devices, as the proportion of games played on the Nintendo DS and Sony PSP have declined 13 percent over the last year.
Comments
They could steal the biggest developer and keep it to themselves.
Apple should buy EA.
They could steal the biggest developer and keep it to themselves.
Why not have all the big developers and smaller developers selling games for the AppleTV with Apple taking a 30% cut without the need for additional overhead? If Apple feels they need a breakaway title or something extra special to demonstrate the platform they can do what they?ve done every year in the past with iOS and had select developers have early access to the SDK, sometimes within the halls of Cupertino, so they can get a demo ready for a Special Event along with Apple?s engineers helping them along.
Apple should buy EA.
They could steal the biggest developer and keep it to themselves.
Yuk. Making a professional set of Gaming APIs is a better solution.
Saw this coming 2 years ago: http://argentumstudio.com/2009/03/ap...gaming-system/
If you haven't heard of this yet, or don't have it, you can read about
and get it here:
http://www.onlive.com/
http://www.onlive.com/service
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onlive
Mac Client D/L:
https://www.onlive.com/download/client/mac.zip
PC Client D/L:
https://www.onlive.com/download/client/Setup.exe
Apple needs to get OnLive. Before they become too big,
arrogant and expensive, and before someone else does.
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
gee, you mean no de-humanizing virtual sadism and sociopathy packaged excitingly as entertainment for adolescents of all ages on Apple iOS products? how terrible! yes, MS should indeed take that "honor." or even Android. after all, It's Open!
Maybe this is going to be the amazing fall iOS update, rather than an iPad 3?
enabling Apple TV's much bigger iOS potential has to be in Apple's near term plans - i mean this year - and prior to the Holiday season is obviously the right time. remember, first we will see iOS 5 coming with iPhone 5 in June. presumably it will come to the iPad and iPod touch a few months later in the Fall too.
i don't know if this literally means a new third category of iOS apps for AppleTV, or it will something to be projected via Airplay from iPads, or some combination. but the content has to be in 16:9 720p format, at least as processed in AppleTV.
so instead of the dumb "guess" of a new iPad 3 in the Fall, what is really cooking and starting the rumor mill is very possibly iOS 5 - which has to now be in fairly advanced pre-beta development - and its new iPad/AppleTV features.
games would be the obvious thing to hype. Apple would already be talking now to some key game developers about it.
I'm pretty sure developers could come up with some awesome ideas for the Apple TV given the chance.
Finally! Apple TV will be an awesome platform for gaming. They should have done this years ago.
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.
Apple should buy EA.
They could steal the biggest developer and keep it to themselves.
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.
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
The iPhone is the most popular game platform in the world. Casual gaming is a big market. Any Apple TV game platform is not likely to compete with PS3/Xbox. Wii should worry, though. Nintendo is the sort of operation I could see Apple just burying.
So... will the AppleTV for games go back to the PPC? The PPC dominates the game market. And by dominates, I mean it's the only game in town (pun intended).
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
You mean like the Grand Theft Auto Chinatown Wars port already on the iPhone and iPad?
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/grand...386183589?mt=8
Yeah, Apple would never allow that
Ok, but now give us the ability to plug in a hard drive, give us apps and I'm willing to pay $$$ more for it.
These people who insult should be banned, instead I am being ignored or belittled.
If these moderators cannot do their job properly, I think they should step down.
Come one ban me, this will be just like censorship, because you don't like criticism right.
http://developer.apple.com/library/i...aCore/MVC.html
i.e. it's just a software engineering term!