Video: Apple TV 4K and the SteelSeries Nimbus controller brings tvOS gaming back to life
The new Apple TV 4K is now available and thanks to an ultra-powerful A10X Fusion CPU, it can output beautiful images with both High Dynamic Range and 4K resolution. Though Apple is touting higher quality movies and video with 4K HDR support, the new processor promises huge potential in terms of gaming.
Notably, Apple's chip boasts double the processing performance and 4x the GPU performance of the previous fourth-generation Apple TV. Looking at non-Apple silicon, the A10X Fusion's performance is similar to the Nvidia Tegra X1 processor in Nvidia's Shield gaming console. With so much processing potential, game developers can really start pushing their games to the graphical limit.
The App Store features a wide selection of games, including titles that can automatically sync data and progress between your Apple TV and supported iOS devices. There are also a whole bunch of games that are exclusive to tvOS, some of which take advantage of the extra power that comes with the A10X Fusion processor.
During Apple's September Keynote, developer thatgamecompany revealed a new title named "Sky," and showed off how users can use the Siri remote as a controller.
The Siri remote is well designed device, and works with many available games, but doesn't offer a very great gaming experience. If you want to make the most out of your Apple TV gaming experience, then you definitely have to invest in a gaming controller, specifically one with MFI support.
We went with the SteelSeries Nimbus which is available for $49.95 at Apple.com, and for $29.95 from Amazon if you're okay with a refurnished one. This may seem like a hefty price, but if you're on the lookout for deals, Apple is also selling the controller in a $39.95 bundle with Minecraft Apple TV edition, a game that costs $20 on its own!
The controller's battery recharges via Lightning connector for 40-plus hours of gaming, and you can also use it to control your Apple TV instead of your Siri remote. The buttons are pressure-sensitive and you can connect up to four of them for multiplayer gameplay. It can even be used to play games on your iOS devices.
Most importantly, the SteelSeries controller unlocks tvOS game titles that require an MFi controller. These games usually feature complex controls that require more than a couple physical buttons.
The controller is very comfortable to use, and made gameplay a blast on the Apple TV 4K. The buttons were very precise and responsive. We played a bunch of titles, and we'll soon be releasing a video showing off the best tvOS games for Apple TV 4K.
Connecting it to an iPhone 8 was as easy as holding the pairing button, hitting pair in the Apple TV's Bluetooth settings menu, and installing the SteelSeries Nimbus companion app -- which makes it easy to instantly find games that offer MFi controller support.
You can use the search tool to look for a specific game, or by browsing through the newest added and top rated games. Tapping a link instantly brings you to the game within the App Store. Within each game, the controller works instantly without having to configure any settings.
Now that the powerful A10X processor has come to the Apple TV 4K, tvOS gaming finally looks promising.
Notably, Apple's chip boasts double the processing performance and 4x the GPU performance of the previous fourth-generation Apple TV. Looking at non-Apple silicon, the A10X Fusion's performance is similar to the Nvidia Tegra X1 processor in Nvidia's Shield gaming console. With so much processing potential, game developers can really start pushing their games to the graphical limit.
The App Store features a wide selection of games, including titles that can automatically sync data and progress between your Apple TV and supported iOS devices. There are also a whole bunch of games that are exclusive to tvOS, some of which take advantage of the extra power that comes with the A10X Fusion processor.
During Apple's September Keynote, developer thatgamecompany revealed a new title named "Sky," and showed off how users can use the Siri remote as a controller.
The Siri remote is well designed device, and works with many available games, but doesn't offer a very great gaming experience. If you want to make the most out of your Apple TV gaming experience, then you definitely have to invest in a gaming controller, specifically one with MFI support.
We went with the SteelSeries Nimbus which is available for $49.95 at Apple.com, and for $29.95 from Amazon if you're okay with a refurnished one. This may seem like a hefty price, but if you're on the lookout for deals, Apple is also selling the controller in a $39.95 bundle with Minecraft Apple TV edition, a game that costs $20 on its own!
The controller's battery recharges via Lightning connector for 40-plus hours of gaming, and you can also use it to control your Apple TV instead of your Siri remote. The buttons are pressure-sensitive and you can connect up to four of them for multiplayer gameplay. It can even be used to play games on your iOS devices.
Most importantly, the SteelSeries controller unlocks tvOS game titles that require an MFi controller. These games usually feature complex controls that require more than a couple physical buttons.
The controller is very comfortable to use, and made gameplay a blast on the Apple TV 4K. The buttons were very precise and responsive. We played a bunch of titles, and we'll soon be releasing a video showing off the best tvOS games for Apple TV 4K.
Connecting it to an iPhone 8 was as easy as holding the pairing button, hitting pair in the Apple TV's Bluetooth settings menu, and installing the SteelSeries Nimbus companion app -- which makes it easy to instantly find games that offer MFi controller support.
You can use the search tool to look for a specific game, or by browsing through the newest added and top rated games. Tapping a link instantly brings you to the game within the App Store. Within each game, the controller works instantly without having to configure any settings.
Now that the powerful A10X processor has come to the Apple TV 4K, tvOS gaming finally looks promising.
Comments
And as the earlier poster mentioned, the vast majority of games in the ATV App Store are of really poor quality. I’m not sure Apple can recover and turn this into something better given how badly they have fumbled with ATV gaming.
B. It's the only strategy that makes sense for software. iOS is wildly successful, so it's the best way to get quality apps/games onto a device that previously didn't offer them and has a relatively small install base.
Also, the Switch is getting some grief about it’s relative lack of graphics power and although no one really knows how Nintendo may have enhanced/specialised their usage of it (they get better quality visuals/performance than games for the Shield...), the AI video says the Apple 10X is roughly comparable to the X1 and so the AppleTV 4k will endure the same performance complaint from game enthusiasts.
Not to say you do or don’t care about any of that, but Apple would be ignorant if they didn’t care and irresponsible if they didn’t consider it when approaching the issue of gaming on what would essentially be a game console competing with traditional consoles. Perhaps they feel boxed in and so they’re sticking with a sure thing, video.
My own opinion is that with the Switch (and Nintendo’s games for iOS) a notable shift back to dedicated gaming hardware is inevitable. It’ll happen relatively slowly, but I think many people will see the attraction of traditional gaming consoles, getting better quality games and experience, and now with the Switch we are no longer limited to playing just at home. So, from that perspective, it would have been great for Apple to have already gotten a foothold in what I see as an inevitable change in gaming habits among the population.
So the idea that Apple isn't doing anything is not actually true. They're just not trying to clone the console model because their focus has always been on the more broad personal computing segment, and that's regardless of whether the hardware was plugged-in or not. ATV is a natural continuation of that with it's close connection to iOS apps/games. And if you want to play Pac Man on ATV, try out the Championship Edition for it. That came out in early 2016.
Games and game controllers should be a higher priority for Apple at this point (as in, some kind of actual effort put into it, rather than tolerating the existence of it on their platforms), on iOS and Mac OS. Instead, Apple is starting to spew luxury products (Apple Watch and now iPhone X), dabbling in automotive development(!!!), continuing to push out premature OS versions with the same bad GUI, long-standing unfixed bugs, new bugs, and useless social features, and is continuing to try to grow into the contract sales- I mean "services" business.
Focus well lost.
So which one is it? Better performance or cheaper price?
I believe it’s too cheap. They could have packed in more power(AG gaming chip) and features(AR, 3D Touch, Taptic Engine) for $249.99. One price, 64GB.
I was researching games for Apple TV and it was tedious digging for a single gem. In 3 hours I found about 3 good games.
I wanna know if these Apple TV games are taking advantage of native 4k and HDR?
Apple missed so many opportunities. Mario Run TV alone would have made this a hot gaming item for the holiday. Should have flat out acquired thatgamecompany. “Timed exclusives” aren’t gonna make people give up their consoles for AppleTV.
Anyway, the idea that it would make more sense for Apple to try and make people "give up" consoles right now than leverage iOS gaming just doesn't hold any water. People that buy consoles also buy phones/tablets and play games on them too. That market is absolutely gigantic in terms of total overall install base. It dwarfs the console market. However, it's also a market that doesn't really support high price tags for games. Better for Apple to leverage that existing market and try to move the needle towards having a wider price range in the future than just plop down a brand new product with zero install base and expect it to compete with Nintendo, Sony, and MS consoles.