Apple games console

[Bimbalbamble]

Do you think it will ever happen?

Or have i missed the whispers

[AdeFowler]

I don't think it'll ever happen. Can you imagine what Apple would charge compared to an Xbox? There's no money in it for Apple in my opinion.

[sysiphus]

Ever happen? It already did. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Bandai_Pippin)

[kroeks]

Bandai Pippin!

[Bimbalbamble]

I see, don't think they will dip there toe into todays marketplace?

Xbox is the one to get at the momment, PS3 don't seem to be the complete package anymore....

Could be a space for new decent console... Just keep the cost's in check.

[kroeks]

I see, don't think they will dip there toe into todays marketplace?

Xbox is the one to get at the momment, PS3 don't seem to be the complete package anymore....

Could be a space for new decent console... Just keep the cost's in check.

I think Apple mainly tries to invent new things,
I guess there is a chance Apple tries and send another console on the market but looking at Apples current moves they most likely focus on being the perfect computer/music-device company other than shooting for a larger group of interest

[Consultant]

The iPhone / iPod touch games have a significant impact on the hand held gaming devices market.

Both Sony and Nintendo are affected by the popularity of Apple devices running games.

[Bimbalbamble]

I've never really rated Apple based games for Iphones, it feels more like nostalgia of games system gone by

i would like to see a new updated Apple games system

[CarlisleUnited]

There isn't much money to be made in selling the hardware, considering apple make high margin products they won't make consoles

[No1451]

There isn't much money to be made in selling the hardware, considering apple make high margin products they won't make consoles

This. With games most of the consoles are sold at a loss or very close to it. Money is made in subscriptions(LIVE) and game licensing fees.

[CWallace]

Rather than Apple entering into the console market, I would expect them to port iPhone/iPod Touch games over to :apple:tv.

With the iPhone/iPod Touch now supporting external hardware, Apple could develop a handheld controller that would work with both the portable unit and the :apple:TV or they could just go with a USB-based controller for :apple:tv to substitute for the on-screen controls for the handheld.

[Dagless]

I can see them continuing what they're doing with the iPod, but to compete against Nintendo, Sony or Microsoft in home consoles? They'd need more than all the luck in the world, but also all the luck on our icy moon too.

I also like pay little for my consoles and having wide selection of good developers and good games to entertain me.

[Bimbalbamble]

The Apple Tv may work, stream the entire game over the interweb...

It will end that way with all games when the averege Broadband speed increases.

[Dagless]

It will end that way with all games when the averege Broadband speed increases.

No it wont. People aren't going to turn in owning a copy of a game over playing it on the internet. Theres so much that can go wrong with this kind of system, look at Mobile Me and all similar cloud services.

[Zombie Acorn]

They won't enter the console market, its too crowded as is. They can't even get many developers interested in porting to mac os x, let alone a game system.

[No1451]

They won't enter the console market, its too crowded as is. They can't even get many developers interested in porting to mac os x, let alone a game system.

I think this is more a product of the fact that modern games won't function very smoothly on the available hardware that OS X runs on(barring of course the Mac pro, which is actually still underpowered in terms of graphics processing for games).

[Bimbalbamble]

No it wont. People aren't going to turn in owning a copy of a game over playing it on the internet. Theres so much that can go wrong with this kind of system, look at Mobile Me and all similar cloud services.

I disagree, Japan is running at mega speed now, the whole world is streaming info these days. Why not stream games? If the speeds increase why not!

Think of it from a devlopers POV... No more Piracy! They would make a Packet. No disk to copy, no info to store and crack.

[Mercer]

Erm i dont know. its all if buts and maybes, i think disc or some kind of media to buy from a shop will always exist. we are humans and we like to browse. i think streaming is a possibility but wouldnt happen for another 10 years if that..;)

[Bimbalbamble]

Erm i dont know. its all if buts and maybes, i think disc or some kind of media to buy from a shop will always exist. we are humans and we like to browse. i think streaming is a possibility but wouldnt happen for another 10 years if that..;)

Yeah i'm with you on that, 10 years to get up to speed and i can definatly see it happening.

Tech moves so fast, its difficult to imagine how you will live day to day in the future and what you would class as the norm, But i bet 10 years ago if sombody said the norm would be a telephone that calls people, takes 1000's of pictures, stores thousands of your Fav sounds, can search the internat 10 times faster than you do on your home PC now (1999), can direct you to any destination in your car, you touch touch the screen to use it (i could go on and on here) and that phone was a normal everyday bit of tech.....

With that in mind, why not stream games as the norm?? :)

[Mercer]

Yeah i'm with you on that, 10 years to get up to speed and i can definatly see it happening.

Tech moves so fast, its difficult to imagine how you will live day to day in the future and what you would class as the norm, But i bet 10 years ago if sombody said the norm would be a telephone that calls people, takes 1000's of pictures, stores thousands of your Fav sounds, can search the internat 10 times faster than you do on your home PC now (1999), can direct you to any destination in your car, you touch touch the screen to use it (i could go on and on here) and that phone was a normal everyday bit of tech.....

With that in mind, why not stream games as the norm?? :)

Fair point. i do agree but thats the thing with the future. its hard to predict........

[Bimbalbamble]

Watch this space... Im quiety confident. :)

[Dagless]

I disagree, Japan is running at mega speed now, the whole world is streaming info these days. Why not stream games? If the speeds increase why not!

Think of it from a devlopers POV... No more Piracy! They would make a Packet. No disk to copy, no info to store and crack.

I am thinking from a developer and consumer POV ;).
It's a very bad idea. Have you not seen how people spend copious amounts of money to get a very fast PC? People buy 10,000RPM hard drives for serious work or serious gaming, they want the data there and then. They don't want to stream, which, if it does happen will be an entirely different market to the current gaming one. It would be aimed at casual users.

There are currently systems in beta for this exact setup. However the latency is ridiculous. It means you can play Crysis on a netbook but at a minimum of 60ms delay - that isn't good enough. A delay of 5ms won't be enough. People pay good amounts of money to get mice with 0ms response times... Why would we go backwards? And that internet delay will always exist due to these long wires connecting the servers.

And then you're also under the mercy of these publishers and developers. You wouldn't be able to mod a game, wouldn't be able to create custom servers. Freedom is taken away from the consumer and that is not a good thing, some of the best games I've played in recent years (Left4Dead, Garry's Mod, Counterstrike) started out as mods. What if a publisher goes bankrupt? Do you lose access to the game since they can no longer pay their fees? What if the whole service goes bankrupt? You'd lose everything then.

It's a bad idea.

You can't predict the future but to suggest that people are suddenly not going to want instant gaming and lose control of their purchases - that's a kick in the teeth to everything what gaming has been about for the past 20 years.

[Bimbalbamble]

Agreed, there are die hard gamers out there who spend big bucks jazzing up the system
But, there are also a hell of alot of "casual" gamers who hit start and just play the games that are available and big happy with it ( that would be me)

MW:2 on my Xbox does me fine, and does my friends. If in the future i sign into a system and play a streamed version in future, it would go along with that format happly.

On the other hand, there would no doubt me other versions of games out there for the more advanced gamer who would and could see the problems that would blissfly pass me by.

Cheers :D

[NoSmokingBandit]

I see, don't think they will dip there toe into todays marketplace?

Xbox is the one to get at the momment, PS3 don't seem to be the complete package anymore....

Could be a space for new decent console... Just keep the cost's in check.

There is no room in the current market.
The wii exists for casual gamers and those looking for something a little nontraditional.
The ps3 exists for those who want to spend a little more to get a complete package (i dont understand why you think its not a complete package, it doesnt need an adapter for wifi, free online, blu-ray, etc... you basically plug it in and it has everything you need already there).
The 360 exists as a cheaper alternative to the ps3 (the arcade at least) with less features ootb so you can just play games if you want.

I dont see anything thats missing in the market. Nobody wants a shiny white box that costs more than everything else anyway.

[whooleytoo]

It's a bad idea.

You can't predict the future but to suggest that people are suddenly not going to want instant gaming and lose control of their purchases - that's a kick in the teeth to everything what gaming has been about for the past 20 years.

More like - it's a kick in the teeth to hardcore gamers; who are probably in the minority.

I think the biggest obstacle to it happening is just technical, premium games these days are several GB and would take unfeasibly long even on a very fast broadband connection (even if they're clever, and let you start playing level 1 while downloading level 2, sharing high-res textures between levels to minimise the data required to start playing etc..)

It's certainly feasible for smaller, simpler games. I think you'd be surprised how easily it could happen. Apple (or whoever is pushing the game-streaming device & service) would buy up the rights to some must-have game, market it well; and people will happily sign up for it. It would need to be reliable, and probably cheap to start off with, but I don't think most gamers are that much "set in their ways" to reject the idea of streaming games.

[whooleytoo]

I dont see anything thats missing in the market. Nobody wants a shiny white box that costs more than everything else anyway.

Apple are thriving in a recession market, by selling boxes/devices that cost more than everything else. Don't underestimate the power of design, and marketing to attract buyers. Plus, unless it's a complete lemon, millions of Apple fans would buy it, not to mention give Apple tens of millions worth of free advertising though word-of-mouth.

The only likely console though, IMO, is bringing iPhone games to a new AppleTV, perhaps with an accelerometer controller for games which require it.

[Dagless]

More like - it's a kick in the teeth to hardcore gamers; who are probably in the minority.

It's not just hardcore gamers. I run games (mostly Source engine games) off a 2006 iMac, the lowest ping I get is 50ms and the lowest average is around 40-70ms. When you play offline on 0ms it's a breath of fresh air. Could you imagine trying to play an action game, something that relies on twitch reactions on something that has 50ms input latency and a further 50ms server latency?

To use the cliched car analogy - it would be like driving on rails. You decide when to set off but you're fixed to a predetermined path. Whereas with a petrol/electric car you can go anywhere.

[whooleytoo]

It's not just hardcore gamers. I run games (mostly Source engine games) off a 2006 iMac, the lowest ping I get is 50ms and the lowest average is around 40-70ms. When you play offline on 0ms it's a breath of fresh air. Could you imagine trying to play an action game, something that relies on twitch reactions on something that has 50ms input latency and a further 50ms server latency?

Well, I'm assuming any such streaming console would have enough local storage to buffer textures/world-data etc.; and as such shouldn't suffer from latency any more than any other console.

If it didn't have such buffer storage, it certainly would be unfeasible.

[Bimbalbamble]

Can i just add, the converstion seems to be using todays tech in the discusion. My idea's where for about 10 years time...

When i would think the problems you are discussing should be overcome..

[whooleytoo]

Can i just add, the converstion seems to be using todays tech in the discusion. My idea's where for about 10 years time...

When i would think the problems you are discussing should be overcome..

Not really. :) Bandwidth will increase enormously over the next 10 years, but as more people are streaming 1080p video and download multi-GB games, demand could well keep pace with supply. It's all well and good having a relatively low contention ratio on your broadband, but what's also important is how many of the other users occasionally browser the web & check email and facebook; and how many don't have a TV package, and so are streaming 1080p video and 5:1 audio all evening.

Plus, unless there's some breakthough in the world of physics, latency won't improve much. That means you will still need some fast local storage.

[NoSmokingBandit]

Bandwidth will increase dramatically over the next 10 years i predict (maybe the US will finally catch up to Japan, lol), but so will videogames. 10 years ago we were all playing games like Ape Escape which was probably about 500mb on disc. Today we are playing games at 10gb+. In another 10 years we may see games at 100gb each. Its probably safe to assume that game size and bandwidth will scale somewhat equally so i dont see streaming games to be feasible unless something massive comes along and changes everything.

[No1451]

Not really. :) Bandwidth will increase enormously over the next 10 years, but as more people are streaming 1080p video and download multi-GB games, demand could well keep pace with supply. It's all well and good having a relatively low contention ratio on your broadband, but what's also important is how many of the other users occasionally browser the web & check email and facebook; and how many don't have a TV package, and so are streaming 1080p video and 5:1 audio all evening.

Plus, unless there's some breakthough in the world of physics, latency won't improve much. That means you will still need some fast local storage.

This, unless we move to something faster than the wiring being used today we really won't be seeing ping times reducing. Even assuming that they could, what benefit to the companies to roll out billions of dollars of new cable? There are very very few applications that require ultra-low latencies, there just wouldn't be a market that warrants it.


Barring the tech area, WHY would Apple get into this? Consoles don't make profit(rather, the hardware doesn't) and since everything they sell is known to have a fair margin to it I just do not see them jumping into anything other than the casual(ie: portable) gaming scene.

Beyond all that, imagine if Apple WAS in charge of games? Jesus, we see enough ridiculous rejections for Apps on the iPhone, imagine what they would say to a videogame where you go on killing sprees or blow up tons of random soldiers.

[Dagless]

When i would think the problems you are discussing should be overcome..

Even optical networks carry a lag. Unless time and space can be bent over backwards in the next 10 years - streaming wont work.
And unless Apples constant design philosophy of charging a lot for little changes in the next 10 years, I can't see them competing with the likes of Sony, Microsoft or Nintendo.