Saweet. While it seems overkill for a streaming box, I hope this means Apple still sees potential in it as a microconsole. Keep updating it with the last X chip and it would be breathing down the 8th gen base consoles necks in a few years.
A bundle in controller would go a long way, but it helps that they dropped the wand controller requirement
I'm not sure that this is a harbinger of constant updates to the product. Instead, I think that the A10X in it is probably a "design it now, update it in a few years" mentality.
It’s hard to understand where Apple is going with this. Now that console manufacturers have broken their upgrade to new machines every 5 to 8 years, depending on sales, routine, it’s questionable as to whether Apple can j=keep up. Before, it looked like they could, after a few years.
the thing is that Apple has been pushing this as a gaming console, but in all the wrong ways. Underpowered, requiring the remote as a basic controller, failing to have major franchises, etc.
so, what will be different this time? Before Microsoft and Sony upgraded their consoles recently, this could compete, but now? It’s doubtful. So the upgrade every few years isn’t going to work for that. They better have something spectacular to announce that the leak hasn’t already provided. After all, one can already stream 4K with a $50 device, and that’s all many people want.
Apple TV never could compete with the PS4 or XBox One. Heck, it couldn't compete with the PS3 or XBox 360. I never expected ATV to compete with consoles but I would actually use it for gaming if there was something even somewhat decent to play. Unfortunately, all the games I've tried are crap. Hopefully with a more powerful ATV, you don't get awful frame rate drops like you currently do on the ATV4.
If the new Apple TV supports both Dolby Vision and HDR10, that will be huge. No other streaming player on the market supports Dolby Vision. To me, that's pretty big. Dolby Vision is way better than HDR10.
The Nintendo Switch seems to be doing a good job of holding its own vs the PS4 / Xbox One and it doesn't even do 4K, not even just for video playback, let alone games. So ATV 5 can compete if Apple puts more focus on gaming - and making its own gaming controller.
Saweet. While it seems overkill for a streaming box, I hope this means Apple still sees potential in it as a microconsole. Keep updating it with the last X chip and it would be breathing down the 8th gen base consoles necks in a few years.
A bundle in controller would go a long way, but it helps that they dropped the wand controller requirement
I'm not sure that this is a harbinger of constant updates to the product. Instead, I think that the A10X in it is probably a "design it now, update it in a few years" mentality.
It’s hard to understand where Apple is going with this. Now that console manufacturers have broken their upgrade to new machines every 5 to 8 years, depending on sales, routine, it’s questionable as to whether Apple can j=keep up. Before, it looked like they could, after a few years.
the thing is that Apple has been pushing this as a gaming console, but in all the wrong ways. Underpowered, requiring the remote as a basic controller, failing to have major franchises, etc.
so, what will be different this time? Before Microsoft and Sony upgraded their consoles recently, this could compete, but now? It’s doubtful. So the upgrade every few years isn’t going to work for that. They better have something spectacular to announce that the leak hasn’t already provided. After all, one can already stream 4K with a $50 device, and that’s all many people want.
Apple TV never could compete with the PS4 or XBox One. Heck, it couldn't compete with the PS3 or XBox 360. I never expected ATV to compete with consoles but I would actually use it for gaming if there was something even somewhat decent to play. Unfortunately, all the games I've tried are crap. Hopefully with a more powerful ATV, you don't get awful frame rate drops like you currently do on the ATV4.
If the new Apple TV supports both Dolby Vision and HDR10, that will be huge. No other streaming player on the market supports Dolby Vision. To me, that's pretty big. Dolby Vision is way better than HDR10.
The Nintendo Switch seems to be doing a good job of holding its own vs the PS4 / Xbox One and it doesn't even do 4K, not even just for video playback, let alone games. So ATV 5 can compete if Apple puts more focus on gaming - and making its own gaming controller.
Have you played the Nintendo Switch? The majority of the limited games suffer from inconsistent frame rates. I couldn't even play Zelda that long it was so awful. I know there was an update to fix it but still has frame rate issues. Zelda isn't exactly a graphical masterpiece when you compare it to games such as Uncharted 4 on the PS4. It's pretty embarrassing when you have to patch so many games for frame rate issues.
I wish Apple would get some bigger game studios on board and release games for the Apple TV. I think some of the older Assassin's Creed titles would be playable on the ATV5. I bought the Nimbus controller when the ATV4 came out. That worked well. If Apple were to focus more on gaming, they should release a controller.
The ATV doesn't have to equal the XBONE or PS4 in raw CPU+GPU power. There are diminishing returns to CPU+GPU power in games. Nintendo has shown that it's possible to innovate in other ways and succeed in this area. I think the A10X is sufficient to make Apple competitive here, so long as they can offer some other compelling feature.
The problem, as I keep saying, and I will say it again, is that without franchise support from major console developers, this will never get off the ground as a serious game machine.
Nah, they don't really need console franchise support. if they really wanted to push the gaming aspect you'd see 1st party titles. If we don't then they still aren't serious about gaming.
That said, gaming on aTV is better than most posters here, who likely never tried it, say it is. I got the Minecraft/Steelseries Nimbus bundle and the controller works well with many of the universal iPad apps that also works on aTV.
Also, if folks really wanted live TV it's a $100 purchase for a HDHomeRun. I found it Meh and returned it but my house is in mulitpath hell for at least 2 of the stations near me. None of the TVs work all that well with the antennas I've bought and I'm not going to pony up for a roof one.
Depending on price I'll get a 5 but I have two 4s I'm happy with.
The ATV doesn't have to equal the XBONE or PS4 in raw CPU+GPU power. There are diminishing returns to CPU+GPU power in games. Nintendo has shown that it's possible to innovate in other ways and succeed in this area. I think the A10X is sufficient to make Apple competitive here, so long as they can offer some other compelling feature.
The problem, as I keep saying, and I will say it again, is that without franchise support from major console developers, this will never get off the ground as a serious game machine.
Nah, they don't really need console franchise support. if they really wanted to push the gaming aspect you'd see 1st party titles. If we don't then they still aren't serious about gaming.
That said, gaming on aTV is better than most posters here, who likely never tried it, say it is. I got the Minecraft/Steelseries Nimbus bundle and the controller works well with many of the universal iPad apps that also works on aTV.
Also, if folks really wanted live TV it's a $100 purchase for a HDHomeRun. I found it Meh and returned it but my house is in mulitpath hell for at least 2 of the stations near me. None of the TVs work all that well with the antennas I've bought and I'm not going to pony up for a roof one.
Depending on price I'll get a 5 but I have two 4s I'm happy with.
Nah? No, they really do. If Apple is expecting us to pay more than now, then they’ve got to offer something that’s worth it. Saying that you can play games with this is ok, but it’s not going to draw anyone who isn’t already interested in a high priced Tv streaming device. Yes, if apple isn’t really interested in gaming, then they shouldn’t have made such a big deal of it.
But what will we do with all that power? It’s not needed to stream 4K/60, even with HDR. So it’s got to be gaming.
The ATV doesn't have to equal the XBONE or PS4 in raw CPU+GPU power. There are diminishing returns to CPU+GPU power in games. Nintendo has shown that it's possible to innovate in other ways and succeed in this area. I think the A10X is sufficient to make Apple competitive here, so long as they can offer some other compelling feature.
The problem, as I keep saying, and I will say it again, is that without franchise support from major console developers, this will never get off the ground as a serious game machine.
Nah, they don't really need console franchise support. if they really wanted to push the gaming aspect you'd see 1st party titles. If we don't then they still aren't serious about gaming.
That said, gaming on aTV is better than most posters here, who likely never tried it, say it is. I got the Minecraft/Steelseries Nimbus bundle and the controller works well with many of the universal iPad apps that also works on aTV.
Also, if folks really wanted live TV it's a $100 purchase for a HDHomeRun. I found it Meh and returned it but my house is in mulitpath hell for at least 2 of the stations near me. None of the TVs work all that well with the antennas I've bought and I'm not going to pony up for a roof one.
Depending on price I'll get a 5 but I have two 4s I'm happy with.
Nah? No, they really do. If Apple is expecting us to pay more than now, then they’ve got to offer something that’s worth it. Saying that you can play games with this is ok, but it’s not going to draw anyone who isn’t already interested in a high priced Tv streaming device. Yes, if apple isn’t really interested in gaming, then they shouldn’t have made such a big deal of it.
But what will we do with all that power? It’s not needed to stream 4K/60, even with HDR. So it’s got to be gaming.
You don't think that decoding an active 2160p60+HDR stream in HEVC with multi-channel surround sound being synced to various wired and/or wireless speakers doesn't need a beefier processor than the current Apple TV? How could you possibly know what the maximum performance limitations are for the HW and what the maximum MPEG profile they're willing to support for their upcoming device? Why prof do you have that the A9 is perfectly fine for the aforementioned likely features?
This sounds like a price bump for the Apple TV, to me. I'm sure some of you will cringe at the thought of any price hike but I honestly don't care either way as the cost will be inconsequential to my overall benefit for the life of the appliance.
I dunno. The price was what deterred me from updating our ATV3 units.
We don't fully exploit the capability of the ATV in our house. It's primarily just a way to play our local library of content. Since we already use it for that we also made it our portal to Netflix, but that's it. We don't game and don't need apps, so the high-priced ATV was a poor value for us.
I would probably pay what they cost now to get 4K, but if the price goes up I may decide to skip it again.
Saweet. While it seems overkill for a streaming box, I hope this means Apple still sees potential in it as a microconsole. Keep updating it with the last X chip and it would be breathing down the 8th gen base consoles necks in a few years.
A bundle in controller would go a long way, but it helps that they dropped the wand controller requirement
I'm not sure that this is a harbinger of constant updates to the product. Instead, I think that the A10X in it is probably a "design it now, update it in a few years" mentality.
It’s hard to understand where Apple is going with this. Now that console manufacturers have broken their upgrade to new machines every 5 to 8 years, depending on sales, routine, it’s questionable as to whether Apple can j=keep up. Before, it looked like they could, after a few years.
the thing is that Apple has been pushing this as a gaming console, but in all the wrong ways. Underpowered, requiring the remote as a basic controller, failing to have major franchises, etc.
so, what will be different this time? Before Microsoft and Sony upgraded their consoles recently, this could compete, but now? It’s doubtful. So the upgrade every few years isn’t going to work for that. They better have something spectacular to announce that the leak hasn’t already provided. After all, one can already stream 4K with a $50 device, and that’s all many people want.
The ATV doesn't have to equal the XBONE or PS4 in raw CPU+GPU power. There are diminishing returns to CPU+GPU power in games. Nintendo has shown that it's possible to innovate in other ways and succeed in this area. I think the A10X is sufficient to make Apple competitive here, so long as they can offer some other compelling feature.
The problem, as I keep saying, and I will say it again, is that without franchise support from major console developers, this will never get off the ground as a serious game machine. And in order to get those franchises, at a minimum, they need to play similarly to the other console systems, which means similar performance. And this machine is close enough to the 360,and the PS3 so that differences won’t matter. In fact last year’s iPad Pro 12.9” was close enough to those consoles already, and this year’s is more than good enough.
Its even fairly close to the XBox One and the ps4. But not the new upgrades.
nintendo has shown the way to make failed consoles after the surprising success (mostly due to the 10 month late arrival of the ps3, and the extra $100 for the Blue Ray player). We don’t need a lesson from them.
It seems to me that your argument also applies to mobile gaming, yet iOS has done very well in mobile gaming, to the point that Apple seriously damaged the GameBoy franchise.
Why is an iPhone preferable to a mobile gaming device for many people? Because (1) they want a mobile device that can do things in addition to playing games and (2) iOS games are pretty darned cheap.
The ATV has the potential to be a similar story -- "good enough" games at a low price combined with a lot of other useful functionality.
The analogy isn't perfect because these days the XBONE has other functionality too (it's not just a gaming console). But for anyone invested in the Apple ecosystem (and there are a lot of those people), the ATV extends that ecosystem to the TV. Make it a better gaming device and many of those folks might be happy to have the ATV be the only device connected to their TVs.
This sounds like a price bump for the Apple TV, to me. I'm sure some of you will cringe at the thought of any price hike but I honestly don't care either way as the cost will be inconsequential to my overall benefit for the life of the appliance.
I dunno. The price was what deterred me from updating our ATV3 units.
We don't fully exploit the capability of the ATV in our house. It's primarily just a way to play our local library of content. Since we already use it for that we also made it our portal to Netflix, but that's it. We don't game and don't need apps, so the high-priced ATV was a poor value for us.
I would probably pay what they cost now to get 4K, but if the price goes up I may decide to skip it again.
If you don't have UHDTVs and you don't care about the App Store or the Siri Remote there's little reason to upgrade past the 2nd gen Apple TV. For me, the price and usage window makes it inconsequential to the benefit I'll get with my setup.
A more concerned purchase will be whether I buy one or two HomePods, and if I also need 3rd-party speakers for my home entertainment setup.
If you don't have UHDTVs and you don't care about the App Store or the Siri Remote there's little reason to upgrade past the 2nd gen Apple TV. For me, the price and usage window makes it inconsequential to the benefit I'll get with my setup.
A more concerned purchase will be whether I buy one or two HomePods, and if I also need 3rd-party speakers for my home entertainment setup.
Our Vizio TV has developed a dark area after only 20 months of use, so 4K/HDR is on the horizon for us. I just don't need, and am reluctant to pay for, a bunch of other stuff we'll never use. Especially with it still not having any way to access locally-stored content. Apple's continuous nudging towards a cloud-based ecosystem is sometimes frustrating.
A more concerned purchase will be whether I buy one or two HomePods
I'll buy one just out of curiosity, and if I like it I'll get another for stereo. I'm honestly not expecting much though. If the Beats Pill+ I picked up to take on vacation this year is an example of Apple's audio prowess, I am apparently not part of Apple's target demographic. At three times the price of competing products I expected more.
EDIT: I wonder if the HomePod supports using five of them for surround?
If you don't have UHDTVs and you don't care about the App Store or the Siri Remote there's little reason to upgrade past the 2nd gen Apple TV. For me, the price and usage window makes it inconsequential to the benefit I'll get with my setup.
A more concerned purchase will be whether I buy one or two HomePods, and if I also need 3rd-party speakers for my home entertainment setup.
Our Vizio TV has developed a dark area after only 20 months of use, so 4K/HDR is on the horizon for us. I just don't need, and am reluctant to pay for, a bunch of other stuff we'll never use. Especially with it still not having any way to access locally-stored content. Apple's continuous nudging towards a cloud-based ecosystem is sometimes frustrating.
A more concerned purchase will be whether I buy one or two HomePods
I'll buy one just out of curiosity, and if I like it I'll get another for stereo. I'm honestly not expecting much though. If the Beats Pill+ I picked up to take on vacation this year is an example of Apple's audio prowess, I am apparently not part of Apple's target demographic. At three times the price of competing products I expected more.
EDIT: I wonder if the HomePod supports using five of them for surround?
1) I always buy the maximum in-home extended warranty for a TV. They lose value so quickly but can restrain a usefulness for a long time that even I have no issues I’llilely sell it a year before the transferable warranty is up and get a great return on the purchase with that built-in protection.
2) If HomePods are as intelligent as they should be then I don’t think you need one for each channel.
Saweet. While it seems overkill for a streaming box, I hope this means Apple still sees potential in it as a microconsole. Keep updating it with the last X chip and it would be breathing down the 8th gen base consoles necks in a few years.
A bundle in controller would go a long way, but it helps that they dropped the wand controller requirement
I'm not sure that this is a harbinger of constant updates to the product. Instead, I think that the A10X in it is probably a "design it now, update it in a few years" mentality.
It’s hard to understand where Apple is going with this. Now that console manufacturers have broken their upgrade to new machines every 5 to 8 years, depending on sales, routine, it’s questionable as to whether Apple can j=keep up. Before, it looked like they could, after a few years.
the thing is that Apple has been pushing this as a gaming console, but in all the wrong ways. Underpowered, requiring the remote as a basic controller, failing to have major franchises, etc.
so, what will be different this time? Before Microsoft and Sony upgraded their consoles recently, this could compete, but now? It’s doubtful. So the upgrade every few years isn’t going to work for that. They better have something spectacular to announce that the leak hasn’t already provided. After all, one can already stream 4K with a $50 device, and that’s all many people want.
The ATV doesn't have to equal the XBONE or PS4 in raw CPU+GPU power. There are diminishing returns to CPU+GPU power in games. Nintendo has shown that it's possible to innovate in other ways and succeed in this area. I think the A10X is sufficient to make Apple competitive here, so long as they can offer some other compelling feature.
The problem, as I keep saying, and I will say it again, is that without franchise support from major console developers, this will never get off the ground as a serious game machine.
They tried, and mostly failed on iOS. I mean, major console developers. Many mainstream games have iOS counterparts, mostly unplayable, with crappy controls or miserable graphics. That's all they can deliver. They ignore Metal, they don't code from scratch, they all act with the obsolete cross-platform mentality: write once, run everywhere. No, one can't win on mobile like that. They must code from scratch and use Metal.
Soli said: 1) I always buy the maximum in-home extended warranty for a TV.
Consumer advocates are always telling us how extended warranties are a scam so I never buy them.
When I complained to Vizio about how quickly our TV died the answer was "You should have purchased the extended warranty!" My answer was "I shouldn't HAVE to!" but I'll know better than to tilt at that particular windmill next time...
The more I deal with other companies, the more I appreciate Apple.
2) If HomePods are as intelligent as they should be then I don’t think you need one for each channel.
That assumes that the software has a plan for multi-channel sources being reproduced by fewer HomePods than there are source channels. I suppose the tweeter array may be able to fake a certain amount of left/right perception, but no amount of psychoacoustic wizardry is going to make it sound like something is coming from behind you if the speaker is in front of you. It might be possible to pull off a fairly convincing experience with only two HomePods -- one in front, one behind -- but again, only if Apple has bothered to create steering software for that scenario. That doesn't seem likely to me.
People are missing the point of gaming on iOS/TVOS: it's not intended by Apple to be a "me too" experience that clones the Playstation/Xbox approach. They're more interested in having something unique that encourages a wider range of developers and game ideas vs. being primarily reliant on console ports. Does that mean that ports or adaptations of console games/franchise on iOS/TVOS are a bad idea? No. One of my favorite iOS games of the last year was a simplified version of NBA 2K17 that I played with a standard controller and an iPad. And obviously mega-popular franchises like GTA and Minecraft have had successful iOS adaptations too. So it works to do that, but it's not what Apple wants to center everything around.
The problem, as I keep saying, and I will say it again, is that without franchise support from major console developers, this will never get off the ground as a serious game machine.
They tried, and mostly failed on iOS. I mean, major console developers. Many mainstream games have iOS counterparts, mostly unplayable, with crappy controls or miserable graphics. That's all they can deliver. They ignore Metal, they don't code from scratch, they all act with the obsolete cross-platform mentality: write once, run everywhere. No, one can't win on mobile like that. They must code from scratch and use Metal.
The graphics intensive games aren't the ones making the revenue on mobile, it's a different business model.
When you look at the number of units, Apple TV is comparable to the big consoles in install base (~40m units) but it doesn't sell premium software. Console gamers will spend $60 on a console game so just 10m buyers gets $600m revenue and this can happen in the first week of sales. The business model on mobile is free-to-play.
When you look at the financials of the biggest gaming companies: Ubisoft, EA, Activision, Tencent, the mobile revenues come from very few titles that make a lot of money. These are the same titles you see constantly in the top grossing lists and you can see how quickly the revenue falls off:
Ubisoft only makes 7% of sales from mobile, 93% from PC/console. They make about 1.5b euros per year. Activision makes 70% of their revenue from Call of Duty, Candy Crush, World of Warcraft, and Overwatch. EA makes 20% of their revenue from mobile and the top earners just now are Madden NFL, Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes and The Sims.
The way that companies succeed in mobile is addiction. They need high monthly active users who keep paying. They essentially need to get the small percentage of people who pay on mobile to match the revenues of their other platforms e.g get 100m monthly active users, get 2% (2m) paying and get them to pay e.g $5/month for $120m/year revenue.
Getting a single game over 100m monthly active users is hard even with a mobile base of ~3b mobile users. Now consider the numbers on Apple TV with an install base likely below 50m units. If you got 1/5th of the worldwide install base playing your game, that's still just 10m monthly actives and 2% of them paying is 200k players = $1m/month, to cover both development costs and marketing. The user engagement changes too because it's not someone with their mobile device with them all the time playing at any opportunity, it's when they are sitting at home in front of the TV so it's competing with TV viewing.
Console gaming can compete better with TV viewing because of the depth of the experience with AAA games but developers would have to be crazy to produce AAA games on a massive budget ~$50-100m to then market it to a free-to-play audience with a small install base.
The style of game that would probably work best is the MMO/online-multiplayer games like League of Legends, Overwatch, Titanfall, Destiny, Dota 2, Starcraft, Hearthstone. These can work using the controller inputs, they don't need to be the highest quality graphics (these games have versions on last-gen consoles), they can make revenue from subscriptions and IAPs and they will have long-lasting user engagement.
If Apple could get something like Overwatch ported over, they'd get a few million players that way. Star Wars Battlefront is another but titles like that would have to lose or significantly lower the upfront fee and push the in-game purchases. This isn't easy to do because their partners will ask why they are dropping prices on a competing platform and not theirs.
Another style of game that works well on TV would be the experience games where it's like interactive/emotional storytelling. These would be games like Unravel, Inside, Limbo, Ori, Little Nightmares, Vanishing of Ethan Carter, Life is Strange, What Remains of Edith Finch, the Telltale games franchises. Telltale put one on Apple TV already: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/minecraft-story-mode-a-telltale-games-series/id1069464603?mt=8. Some of these games can tie-in with TV/movie franchises. They are pretty much one-off experiences e.g <5 hours gameplay but they are lower budget so just getting a few million sales at a low upfront cost is good enough. They just need convincing that it would be worthwhile, maybe Apple covers the cost of porting to Apple TV and recoups it from the sales.
The other aspect to think about is the development time for the games. The A10x chip should be faster than the Nintendo Switch. The Switch's sales have been driven by Zelda. This game took 4 years to make with 300 developers:
The Apple TV could run a game just like this but development would have had to start 4 years ago and target the current Apple TV. If a similar development started now, they'd be targeting the next Apple TV. This is why the multiplayer games work better because players interact with each other. Maps and content can be added over time and revenue is more predictable.
I don't think the Apple TV is suited to either AAA single player console games or mobile iOS games, it's somewhere in between where it's a connected device that works best with controllers and needs quick turnaround, low budget games with high user engagement.
The ATV doesn't have to equal the XBONE or PS4 in raw CPU+GPU power. There are diminishing returns to CPU+GPU power in games. Nintendo has shown that it's possible to innovate in other ways and succeed in this area. I think the A10X is sufficient to make Apple competitive here, so long as they can offer some other compelling feature.
The problem, as I keep saying, and I will say it again, is that without franchise support from major console developers, this will never get off the ground as a serious game machine.
Nah, they don't really need console franchise support. if they really wanted to push the gaming aspect you'd see 1st party titles. If we don't then they still aren't serious about gaming.
That said, gaming on aTV is better than most posters here, who likely never tried it, say it is. I got the Minecraft/Steelseries Nimbus bundle and the controller works well with many of the universal iPad apps that also works on aTV.
Also, if folks really wanted live TV it's a $100 purchase for a HDHomeRun. I found it Meh and returned it but my house is in mulitpath hell for at least 2 of the stations near me. None of the TVs work all that well with the antennas I've bought and I'm not going to pony up for a roof one.
Depending on price I'll get a 5 but I have two 4s I'm happy with.
Nah? No, they really do. If Apple is expecting us to pay more than now, then they’ve got to offer something that’s worth it. Saying that you can play games with this is ok, but it’s not going to draw anyone who isn’t already interested in a high priced Tv streaming device. Yes, if apple isn’t really interested in gaming, then they shouldn’t have made such a big deal of it.
But what will we do with all that power? It’s not needed to stream 4K/60, even with HDR. So it’s got to be gaming.
You don't think that decoding an active 2160p60+HDR stream in HEVC with multi-channel surround sound being synced to various wired and/or wireless speakers doesn't need a beefier processor than the current Apple TV? How could you possibly know what the maximum performance limitations are for the HW and what the maximum MPEG profile they're willing to support for their upcoming device? Why prof do you have that the A9 is perfectly fine for the aforementioned likely features?
Because I’ve seen demos of 4K HDR being performed on much less hardware than this. Sony has shown a demo in the audio show, in California, in June, that ran on a 4 core Atom chip with much lower specs, using 1GB RAM.
and it’s already been shown that the A9 could run 4K. We discussed this when it first came out. The iPhone 6 shoots, and runs 4K without breaking a sweat. It doesn’t do HDR because the screen isn’t capable of it. Running at 60fps isn’t something that we’ve been seeing with broadcast 4K, in general. People are ok with that, so far. Can the A9 do it, I’m not sure. We would have to look at the other devices out there to see what they’re doing. I haven’t looked. But shooting 4K 60fps is more difficult than running it. My OPPO 203, which is a 4K 60fps HDR model, doesn’t have an exceedingly high performance core either.
Saweet. While it seems overkill for a streaming box, I hope this means Apple still sees potential in it as a microconsole. Keep updating it with the last X chip and it would be breathing down the 8th gen base consoles necks in a few years.
A bundle in controller would go a long way, but it helps that they dropped the wand controller requirement
I'm not sure that this is a harbinger of constant updates to the product. Instead, I think that the A10X in it is probably a "design it now, update it in a few years" mentality.
It’s hard to understand where Apple is going with this. Now that console manufacturers have broken their upgrade to new machines every 5 to 8 years, depending on sales, routine, it’s questionable as to whether Apple can j=keep up. Before, it looked like they could, after a few years.
the thing is that Apple has been pushing this as a gaming console, but in all the wrong ways. Underpowered, requiring the remote as a basic controller, failing to have major franchises, etc.
so, what will be different this time? Before Microsoft and Sony upgraded their consoles recently, this could compete, but now? It’s doubtful. So the upgrade every few years isn’t going to work for that. They better have something spectacular to announce that the leak hasn’t already provided. After all, one can already stream 4K with a $50 device, and that’s all many people want.
The ATV doesn't have to equal the XBONE or PS4 in raw CPU+GPU power. There are diminishing returns to CPU+GPU power in games. Nintendo has shown that it's possible to innovate in other ways and succeed in this area. I think the A10X is sufficient to make Apple competitive here, so long as they can offer some other compelling feature.
The problem, as I keep saying, and I will say it again, is that without franchise support from major console developers, this will never get off the ground as a serious game machine. And in order to get those franchises, at a minimum, they need to play similarly to the other console systems, which means similar performance. And this machine is close enough to the 360,and the PS3 so that differences won’t matter. In fact last year’s iPad Pro 12.9” was close enough to those consoles already, and this year’s is more than good enough.
Its even fairly close to the XBox One and the ps4. But not the new upgrades.
nintendo has shown the way to make failed consoles after the surprising success (mostly due to the 10 month late arrival of the ps3, and the extra $100 for the Blue Ray player). We don’t need a lesson from them.
It seems to me that your argument also applies to mobile gaming, yet iOS has done very well in mobile gaming, to the point that Apple seriously damaged the GameBoy franchise.
Why is an iPhone preferable to a mobile gaming device for many people? Because (1) they want a mobile device that can do things in addition to playing games and (2) iOS games are pretty darned cheap.
The ATV has the potential to be a similar story -- "good enough" games at a low price combined with a lot of other useful functionality.
The analogy isn't perfect because these days the XBONE has other functionality too (it's not just a gaming console). But for anyone invested in the Apple ecosystem (and there are a lot of those people), the ATV extends that ecosystem to the TV. Make it a better gaming device and many of those folks might be happy to have the ATV be the only device connected to their TVs.
It doesn’t apply to mobile gaming. That shows that you’re not a gamer. If you were, you would go to the sites that involve themselves with that. If you did, you’d see the low esteem gamers hold for mobile gaming. They call mobile gamers casual gamers. That, by the way, is an insult.
gamers take gaming very seriously. They are very involved in the machines and the franchises. If Apple doesn’t take this seriously, they won’t either. Apple has never shown any real interest in gaming. They have had bursts of interest over the decades, but it never lasts.
Saweet. While it seems overkill for a streaming box, I hope this means Apple still sees potential in it as a microconsole. Keep updating it with the last X chip and it would be breathing down the 8th gen base consoles necks in a few years.
A bundle in controller would go a long way, but it helps that they dropped the wand controller requirement
I'm not sure that this is a harbinger of constant updates to the product. Instead, I think that the A10X in it is probably a "design it now, update it in a few years" mentality.
It’s hard to understand where Apple is going with this. Now that console manufacturers have broken their upgrade to new machines every 5 to 8 years, depending on sales, routine, it’s questionable as to whether Apple can j=keep up. Before, it looked like they could, after a few years.
the thing is that Apple has been pushing this as a gaming console, but in all the wrong ways. Underpowered, requiring the remote as a basic controller, failing to have major franchises, etc.
so, what will be different this time? Before Microsoft and Sony upgraded their consoles recently, this could compete, but now? It’s doubtful. So the upgrade every few years isn’t going to work for that. They better have something spectacular to announce that the leak hasn’t already provided. After all, one can already stream 4K with a $50 device, and that’s all many people want.
The ATV doesn't have to equal the XBONE or PS4 in raw CPU+GPU power. There are diminishing returns to CPU+GPU power in games. Nintendo has shown that it's possible to innovate in other ways and succeed in this area. I think the A10X is sufficient to make Apple competitive here, so long as they can offer some other compelling feature.
The problem, as I keep saying, and I will say it again, is that without franchise support from major console developers, this will never get off the ground as a serious game machine.
They tried, and mostly failed on iOS. I mean, major console developers. Many mainstream games have iOS counterparts, mostly unplayable, with crappy controls or miserable graphics. That's all they can deliver. They ignore Metal, they don't code from scratch, they all act with the obsolete cross-platform mentality: write once, run everywhere. No, one can't win on mobile like that. They must code from scratch and use Metal.
It’s the chicken and the egg syndrome. When Nintendo was riding high with the Wii, they got major franchise support, the Microsoft 360 too. But then, next generation, Sony was back on top, and we see that not only has Nintendo seen major defections, but Microsoft is seeing it too. It’s all about sales and marketshare, though some people have their heads in the sand about marketshare.
the problem Apple has here is that there’s no real evidence that the aTV has had any impact on gaming at all. When I bought mine, right after it came out, I tried. I really did. I have several controllers for my iPhone and iPad. I mostly use them with the iPad. But though I downloaded all the major games for the aTV, none were really interesting. I’m willing to bet that most people felt the same way.
in order to gain games for the XBox, Microsoft bought a couple of major game developers. If Apple were serious, I see no reason why they couldn’t do the same. Its not like they can’t afford to do so.
Saweet. While it seems overkill for a streaming box, I hope this means Apple still sees potential in it as a microconsole. Keep updating it with the last X chip and it would be breathing down the 8th gen base consoles necks in a few years.
A bundle in controller would go a long way, but it helps that they dropped the wand controller requirement
I'm not sure that this is a harbinger of constant updates to the product. Instead, I think that the A10X in it is probably a "design it now, update it in a few years" mentality.
It’s hard to understand where Apple is going with this. Now that console manufacturers have broken their upgrade to new machines every 5 to 8 years, depending on sales, routine, it’s questionable as to whether Apple can j=keep up. Before, it looked like they could, after a few years.
the thing is that Apple has been pushing this as a gaming console, but in all the wrong ways. Underpowered, requiring the remote as a basic controller, failing to have major franchises, etc.
so, what will be different this time? Before Microsoft and Sony upgraded their consoles recently, this could compete, but now? It’s doubtful. So the upgrade every few years isn’t going to work for that. They better have something spectacular to announce that the leak hasn’t already provided. After all, one can already stream 4K with a $50 device, and that’s all many people want.
Apple TV never could compete with the PS4 or XBox One. Heck, it couldn't compete with the PS3 or XBox 360. I never expected ATV to compete with consoles but I would actually use it for gaming if there was something even somewhat decent to play. Unfortunately, all the games I've tried are crap. Hopefully with a more powerful ATV, you don't get awful frame rate drops like you currently do on the ATV4.
If the new Apple TV supports both Dolby Vision and HDR10, that will be huge. No other streaming player on the market supports Dolby Vision. To me, that's pretty big. Dolby Vision is way better than HDR10.
The Nintendo Switch seems to be doing a good job of holding its own vs the PS4 / Xbox One and it doesn't even do 4K, not even just for video playback, let alone games. So ATV 5 can compete if Apple puts more focus on gaming - and making its own gaming controller.
Have you played the Nintendo Switch? The majority of the limited games suffer from inconsistent frame rates. I couldn't even play Zelda that long it was so awful. I know there was an update to fix it but still has frame rate issues. Zelda isn't exactly a graphical masterpiece when you compare it to games such as Uncharted 4 on the PS4. It's pretty embarrassing when you have to patch so many games for frame rate issues.
I wish Apple would get some bigger game studios on board and release games for the Apple TV. I think some of the older Assassin's Creed titles would be playable on the ATV5. I bought the Nimbus controller when the ATV4 came out. That worked well. If Apple were to focus more on gaming, they should release a controller.
IMO, Apple needs to buy a couple game studios.
Then give developers major incentives to port iOS games to the ATV4.
Then get super aggressive on acquiring rights on classic games from the 80's and 90's. Get games like Pacman, Street Fighter 2, ect.
Those 3 moves could make the ATV an amazing retro/casual gaming machine.
I just said that too. Apple needs to kick this to a higher level. People aren’t going to come just because it’s Apple. My daughter and her friends, all of who’ve are major gamers in their mid twenties, have consoles. Even though they play games on their iPhones, which most of them have, all the “real” gaming is done on the PlayStation or XBox.
Saweet. While it seems overkill for a streaming box, I hope this means Apple still sees potential in it as a microconsole. Keep updating it with the last X chip and it would be breathing down the 8th gen base consoles necks in a few years.
A bundle in controller would go a long way, but it helps that they dropped the wand controller requirement
I'm not sure that this is a harbinger of constant updates to the product. Instead, I think that the A10X in it is probably a "design it now, update it in a few years" mentality.
It’s hard to understand where Apple is going with this. Now that console manufacturers have broken their upgrade to new machines every 5 to 8 years, depending on sales, routine, it’s questionable as to whether Apple can j=keep up. Before, it looked like they could, after a few years.
the thing is that Apple has been pushing this as a gaming console, but in all the wrong ways. Underpowered, requiring the remote as a basic controller, failing to have major franchises, etc.
so, what will be different this time? Before Microsoft and Sony upgraded their consoles recently, this could compete, but now? It’s doubtful. So the upgrade every few years isn’t going to work for that. They better have something spectacular to announce that the leak hasn’t already provided. After all, one can already stream 4K with a $50 device, and that’s all many people want.
Apple TV never could compete with the PS4 or XBox One. Heck, it couldn't compete with the PS3 or XBox 360. I never expected ATV to compete with consoles but I would actually use it for gaming if there was something even somewhat decent to play. Unfortunately, all the games I've tried are crap. Hopefully with a more powerful ATV, you don't get awful frame rate drops like you currently do on the ATV4.
If the new Apple TV supports both Dolby Vision and HDR10, that will be huge. No other streaming player on the market supports Dolby Vision. To me, that's pretty big. Dolby Vision is way better than HDR10.
The Nintendo Switch seems to be doing a good job of holding its own vs the PS4 / Xbox One and it doesn't even do 4K, not even just for video playback, let alone games. So ATV 5 can compete if Apple puts more focus on gaming - and making its own gaming controller.
Have you played the Nintendo Switch? The majority of the limited games suffer from inconsistent frame rates. I couldn't even play Zelda that long it was so awful. I know there was an update to fix it but still has frame rate issues. Zelda isn't exactly a graphical masterpiece when you compare it to games such as Uncharted 4 on the PS4. It's pretty embarrassing when you have to patch so many games for frame rate issues.
I wish Apple would get some bigger game studios on board and release games for the Apple TV. I think some of the older Assassin's Creed titles would be playable on the ATV5. I bought the Nimbus controller when the ATV4 came out. That worked well. If Apple were to focus more on gaming, they should release a controller.
IMO, Apple needs to buy a couple game studios.
Then give developers major incentives to port iOS games to the ATV4.
Then get super aggressive on acquiring rights on classic games from the 80's and 90's. Get games like Pacman, Street Fighter 2, ect.
Those 3 moves could make the ATV an amazing retro/casual gaming machine.
I wish Apple could work out a deal with Nintendo to port over all those old classic titles to the ATV. Unfortunately, Nintendo is too stupid by siting on a gold mine and doing nothing with it.
Then give developers major incentives to port iOS games to the ATV4.
Then get super aggressive on acquiring rights on classic games from the 80's and 90's. Get games like Pacman, Street Fighter 2, ect.
Those 3 moves could make the ATV an amazing retro/casual gaming machine.
I just said that too. Apple needs to kick this to a higher level. People aren’t going to come just because it’s Apple. My daughter and her friends, all of who’ve are major gamers in their mid twenties, have consoles. Even though they play games on their iPhones, which most of them have, all the “real” gaming is done on the PlayStation or XBox.
You and Sog always saying the world's most valuable company "needs" to do. I appreciate comments like Boltsfan where he expresses what he "wishes" Apple would do. I can't think of a single thing that I believe Apple needs to do to be successful, but if you ask me for my wishlist we're going to need a bigger Internet.
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I wish Apple would get some bigger game studios on board and release games for the Apple TV. I think some of the older Assassin's Creed titles would be playable on the ATV5. I bought the Nimbus controller when the ATV4 came out. That worked well. If Apple were to focus more on gaming, they should release a controller.
That said, gaming on aTV is better than most posters here, who likely never tried it, say it is. I got the Minecraft/Steelseries Nimbus bundle and the controller works well with many of the universal iPad apps that also works on aTV.
Also, if folks really wanted live TV it's a $100 purchase for a HDHomeRun. I found it Meh and returned it but my house is in mulitpath hell for at least 2 of the stations near me. None of the TVs work all that well with the antennas I've bought and I'm not going to pony up for a roof one.
Depending on price I'll get a 5 but I have two 4s I'm happy with.
But what will we do with all that power? It’s not needed to stream 4K/60, even with HDR. So it’s got to be gaming.
We don't fully exploit the capability of the ATV in our house. It's primarily just a way to play our local library of content. Since we already use it for that we also made it our portal to Netflix, but that's it. We don't game and don't need apps, so the high-priced ATV was a poor value for us.
I would probably pay what they cost now to get 4K, but if the price goes up I may decide to skip it again.
Why is an iPhone preferable to a mobile gaming device for many people? Because (1) they want a mobile device that can do things in addition to playing games and (2) iOS games are pretty darned cheap.
The ATV has the potential to be a similar story -- "good enough" games at a low price combined with a lot of other useful functionality.
The analogy isn't perfect because these days the XBONE has other functionality too (it's not just a gaming console). But for anyone invested in the Apple ecosystem (and there are a lot of those people), the ATV extends that ecosystem to the TV. Make it a better gaming device and many of those folks might be happy to have the ATV be the only device connected to their TVs.
A more concerned purchase will be whether I buy one or two HomePods, and if I also need 3rd-party speakers for my home entertainment setup.
I'll buy one just out of curiosity, and if I like it I'll get another for stereo. I'm honestly not expecting much though. If the Beats Pill+ I picked up to take on vacation this year is an example of Apple's audio prowess, I am apparently not part of Apple's target demographic. At three times the price of competing products I expected more.
EDIT: I wonder if the HomePod supports using five of them for surround?
2) If HomePods are as intelligent as they should be then I don’t think you need one for each channel.
When I complained to Vizio about how quickly our TV died the answer was "You should have purchased the extended warranty!" My answer was "I shouldn't HAVE to!" but I'll know better than to tilt at that particular windmill next time...
The more I deal with other companies, the more I appreciate Apple.
That assumes that the software has a plan for multi-channel sources being reproduced by fewer HomePods than there are source channels. I suppose the tweeter array may be able to fake a certain amount of left/right perception, but no amount of psychoacoustic wizardry is going to make it sound like something is coming from behind you if the speaker is in front of you. It might be possible to pull off a fairly convincing experience with only two HomePods -- one in front, one behind -- but again, only if Apple has bothered to create steering software for that scenario. That doesn't seem likely to me.
When you look at the number of units, Apple TV is comparable to the big consoles in install base (~40m units) but it doesn't sell premium software. Console gamers will spend $60 on a console game so just 10m buyers gets $600m revenue and this can happen in the first week of sales. The business model on mobile is free-to-play.
https://venturebeat.com/2016/03/23/half-of-all-mobile-games-revenue-comes-from-only-0-19-of-players-report/
When you look at the financials of the biggest gaming companies: Ubisoft, EA, Activision, Tencent, the mobile revenues come from very few titles that make a lot of money. These are the same titles you see constantly in the top grossing lists and you can see how quickly the revenue falls off:
https://thinkgaming.com/app-sales-data/
Ubisoft only makes 7% of sales from mobile, 93% from PC/console. They make about 1.5b euros per year.
Activision makes 70% of their revenue from Call of Duty, Candy Crush, World of Warcraft, and Overwatch.
EA makes 20% of their revenue from mobile and the top earners just now are Madden NFL, Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes and The Sims.
The way that companies succeed in mobile is addiction. They need high monthly active users who keep paying. They essentially need to get the small percentage of people who pay on mobile to match the revenues of their other platforms e.g get 100m monthly active users, get 2% (2m) paying and get them to pay e.g $5/month for $120m/year revenue.
Getting a single game over 100m monthly active users is hard even with a mobile base of ~3b mobile users. Now consider the numbers on Apple TV with an install base likely below 50m units. If you got 1/5th of the worldwide install base playing your game, that's still just 10m monthly actives and 2% of them paying is 200k players = $1m/month, to cover both development costs and marketing. The user engagement changes too because it's not someone with their mobile device with them all the time playing at any opportunity, it's when they are sitting at home in front of the TV so it's competing with TV viewing.
Console gaming can compete better with TV viewing because of the depth of the experience with AAA games but developers would have to be crazy to produce AAA games on a massive budget ~$50-100m to then market it to a free-to-play audience with a small install base.
The style of game that would probably work best is the MMO/online-multiplayer games like League of Legends, Overwatch, Titanfall, Destiny, Dota 2, Starcraft, Hearthstone. These can work using the controller inputs, they don't need to be the highest quality graphics (these games have versions on last-gen consoles), they can make revenue from subscriptions and IAPs and they will have long-lasting user engagement.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/317099/number-lol-registered-users-worldwide/
https://venturebeat.com/2017/08/03/overwatch-and-hearthstone-help-blizzard-hit-a-record-46-million-active-monthly-players/
If Apple could get something like Overwatch ported over, they'd get a few million players that way. Star Wars Battlefront is another but titles like that would have to lose or significantly lower the upfront fee and push the in-game purchases. This isn't easy to do because their partners will ask why they are dropping prices on a competing platform and not theirs.
Another style of game that works well on TV would be the experience games where it's like interactive/emotional storytelling. These would be games like Unravel, Inside, Limbo, Ori, Little Nightmares, Vanishing of Ethan Carter, Life is Strange, What Remains of Edith Finch, the Telltale games franchises. Telltale put one on Apple TV already: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/minecraft-story-mode-a-telltale-games-series/id1069464603?mt=8. Some of these games can tie-in with TV/movie franchises. They are pretty much one-off experiences e.g <5 hours gameplay but they are lower budget so just getting a few million sales at a low upfront cost is good enough. They just need convincing that it would be worthwhile, maybe Apple covers the cost of porting to Apple TV and recoups it from the sales.
The other aspect to think about is the development time for the games. The A10x chip should be faster than the Nintendo Switch. The Switch's sales have been driven by Zelda. This game took 4 years to make with 300 developers:
http://nintendotoday.com/breath-of-the-wild-development/
The Apple TV could run a game just like this but development would have had to start 4 years ago and target the current Apple TV. If a similar development started now, they'd be targeting the next Apple TV. This is why the multiplayer games work better because players interact with each other. Maps and content can be added over time and revenue is more predictable.
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2017-03-13-an-epic-shift
I don't think the Apple TV is suited to either AAA single player console games or mobile iOS games, it's somewhere in between where it's a connected device that works best with controllers and needs quick turnaround, low budget games with high user engagement.
and it’s already been shown that the A9 could run 4K. We discussed this when it first came out. The iPhone 6 shoots, and runs 4K without breaking a sweat. It doesn’t do HDR because the screen isn’t capable of it. Running at 60fps isn’t something that we’ve been seeing with broadcast 4K, in general. People are ok with that, so far. Can the A9 do it, I’m not sure. We would have to look at the other devices out there to see what they’re doing. I haven’t looked. But shooting 4K 60fps is more difficult than running it. My OPPO 203, which is a 4K 60fps HDR model, doesn’t have an exceedingly high performance core either.
It doesn’t apply to mobile gaming. That shows that you’re not a gamer. If you were, you would go to the sites that involve themselves with that. If you did, you’d see the low esteem gamers hold for mobile gaming. They call mobile gamers casual gamers. That, by the way, is an insult.
gamers take gaming very seriously. They are very involved in the machines and the franchises. If Apple doesn’t take this seriously, they won’t either. Apple has never shown any real interest in gaming. They have had bursts of interest over the decades, but it never lasts.
It’s the chicken and the egg syndrome. When Nintendo was riding high with the Wii, they got major franchise support, the Microsoft 360 too. But then, next generation, Sony was back on top, and we see that not only has Nintendo seen major defections, but Microsoft is seeing it too. It’s all about sales and marketshare, though some people have their heads in the sand about marketshare.
the problem Apple has here is that there’s no real evidence that the aTV has had any impact on gaming at all. When I bought mine, right after it came out, I tried. I really did. I have several controllers for my iPhone and iPad. I mostly use them with the iPad. But though I downloaded all the major games for the aTV, none were really interesting. I’m willing to bet that most people felt the same way.
in order to gain games for the XBox, Microsoft bought a couple of major game developers. If Apple were serious, I see no reason why they couldn’t do the same. Its not like they can’t afford to do so.