Xbox Founding Engineer Says Apple TV Could Destroy Console Gaming with Third-Party Apps

[rmwebs]

Originally Posted by jwm2

IMO the problem with consoles is multi-fold.

First you have the interface. The xbox 360 and ps3 interfaces are horrible. Apple has a very simple interface on the latest apple tv iOS, you just add apps to the main screen.

The second problem is boot up time. It takes nearly 5 minutes to boot my xbox 360 or ps3 and get into a game. I don't have the time or patience to deal with this sort of thing anything. I don't devote days to gaming anymore. I have a few minutes to play and then the kids or the wife wants to watch something on the tv and i'm screwed until they goto bed. Well i was screwed before i got my iPad

The 3rd problem is price. I don't want to pay $59.99 for games and have a physical dvd or bluray disc laying around. The pets and children do not understand how delicate they are. I'd much rather buy a game for $.99 - $4.99 then buy one for $59.99 and not like it. I can afford to buy 12-30 games and not like them all, and that's highly unlikely to happen.

In fairness the current consoles are over 7 years old, and the hardware is probably more like 10 years old. They have held out pretty damn well.

Lets wait and see what this years consoles are like. For all we know they will be instant boot and use a nicer UI than the ATV.

[coolspot18]

Originally Posted by jwm2

IMO the problem with consoles is multi-fold.

First you have the interface. The xbox 360 and ps3 interfaces are horrible. Apple has a very simple interface on the latest apple tv iOS, you just add apps to the main screen.

The second problem is boot up time. It takes nearly 5 minutes to boot my xbox 360 or ps3 and get into a game. I don't have the time or patience to deal with this sort of thing anything. I don't devote days to gaming anymore. I have a few minutes to play and then the kids or the wife wants to watch something on the tv and i'm screwed until they goto bed. Well i was screwed before i got my iPad

The 3rd problem is price. I don't want to pay $59.99 for games and have a physical dvd or bluray disc laying around. The pets and children do not understand how delicate they are. I'd much rather buy a game for $.99 - $4.99 then buy one for $59.99 and not like it. I can afford to buy 12-30 games and not like them all, and that's highly unlikely to happen.

1. The Xbox/PS3 GUI is pretty good, nothing wrong with it.
2. Start up times are due to the size and complexity of the games - you can't compare Skyrim to say Angry Birds.
3. No feasible for large games - unless you expect to download 10 - 20GB per game.

[CausticPuppy]

Originally Posted by bandalay

If these guys don't beat them there first…

http://www.ouya.tv

vaporware.....

[jumanji]

Originally Posted by bandalay

If these guys don't beat them there first…

http://www.ouya.tv

its not just the development though...its the ecosystem. apple has it. microsoft has a big one in the console area and is trying to leverage it the other way.

[blackhand1001]

Originally Posted by hvfsl

While the PS3/X360 is faster than the iPad, the difference is no where near 10-20x. Those benches are not really fair (atom vs i5) and there have been complaints about driver quality with the SGX in Windows.

Carmack estimated that the iPad2 was about half as fast as the current consoles. So a quad core A6 with an improved graphics core should be able to complete with the current consoles quite nicely, if not over take them.

Trust me its not close. The current consoles are still much faster.

[jwm2]

Originally Posted by rmwebs

On consoles, its all about the graphics. You cant take the mobile gaming market and slap it in the same category as the console gaming market, they are a completely different ballgame.

Well see thats the thing. Some people think its all about the graphics, but in reality its not, its about the experience. The wii was a very successful console its first few years and would still be today had nintendo been able to get third party developers to use its technology as well as it could. Their inability to coach the developers lead to a bunch of horrible 3rd party games. I agree the apple tv could not compete on terms of graphic horsepower, but then again it doesn't need to. Have you played the sega dreamcast recently? Thats a console that was released in 1999 and still holds up very well by todays standards. If you are going to judge a console solely based on its selection of first person shooters then theres no point in even having this argument. But if you instead take the experience for what it is and realize the apple tv could do for casual gamers what the wii did just a few years ago then you'd realize that the gaming industry has something to worry about.

[dagamer34]

No developer/publisher in their right mind would invest the $100+ million it takes to make Grand Theft Auto V on a game that runs cell phone hardware. Period.

Next silly rumor.

[jwm2]

Originally Posted by rmwebs

In fairness the current consoles are over 7 years old, and the hardware is probably more like 10 years old. They have held out pretty damn well.

Lets wait and see what this years consoles are like. For all we know they will be instant boot and use a nicer UI than the ATV.

Instant boot? What planet are you from? Show me one device that does instant cold booting from being powered off completely. If thats what you expect from the next generation of consoles, i think you will be very disappointed.

----------

Originally Posted by dagamer34

No developer/publisher in their right mind would invest the $100+ million it takes to make Grand Theft Auto V on a game that runs cell phone hardware. Period.

Next silly rumor.

Thats the point, you don't need 100 million to develop for the ios platform. I mean seriously how can so many people be missing the point of the original post?

[dec.]

slightly OT maybe: I would much rather see Apple improve, redesign and extend the apple TV instead of releasing an actual TV. I think that televisions are a dangerous territory, there are so many factors that play in - size, design (more so than most other household electronics), features... so an approach from the other end "we don't care what tv you have and what it can do, just set it to the apple TV input and throw your TV remote away" seems far more versatile and flexible.

Also the upgrade cycles on TVs seem too long to really turn the market upside down. it would take a lot of features to convince someone to replace their 2008 wall mounted screen with a similar sized apple screen.

[SAD*FACED*CLOWN]

all of you saying that Apple can kill console gaming with apple tv are delusional..it will never happen....video game retailers would fight it...and hard core gamers would ignore it....Halo or black ops on Apple tv? never

[rmwebs]

Originally Posted by jwm2

Well see thats the thing. Some people think its all about the graphics, but in reality its not, its about the experience. The wii was a very successful console its first few years and would still be today had nintendo been able to get third party developers to use its technology as well as it could. Their inability to coach the developers lead to a bunch of horrible 3rd party games. I agree the apple tv could not compete on terms of graphic horsepower, but then again it doesn't need to. Have you played the sega dreamcast recently? Thats a console that was released in 1999 and still holds up very well by todays standards. If you are going to judge a console solely based on its selection of first person shooters then theres no point in even having this argument. But if you instead take the experience for what it is and realize the apple tv could do for casual gamers what the wii did just a few years ago then you'd realize that the gaming industry has something to worry about.

Sorry. I just dont see it.

User has a choice between buying an Xbox 720 or whatever they call it, with some awesome 4k type graphics for their big screen tv. Or buy an Apple TV and play cut down versions of games, or games with 'poor' graphics compared to even todays games.

I dont see ARM based devices putting our 'modern' powerful games any time soon. Sure they are getting better, but still a good few years off anything worth using in a console.

[LagunaSol]

Originally Posted by roxxette

i can totally see eating nintendos market but doubt it will take any share from the xbox and playstation market.

"There's no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance." - Steve Ballmer, 2007

[guzhogi]

It would be cool to see an Apple game console. Use iPhones & iPod Touches as controllers. However, those are pretty expensive controllers should you break them. Plus, without tactile controls, it would be hard, I would think, to know where the buttons are.

The AppleTV would need 2 things to really compete with xBox, PlayStation & Wii:
-Way better graphics hardware. I seriously doubt it could play serious games like Crysis or whatever. Even if you banded together the processing power of the AppleTV & iPhone controller

-More storage. If complex games do become available, I seriously doubt internet connections (especially in the US) are fast enough to handle the whole game.

[jwm2]

Originally Posted by jumanji

its not just the development though...its the ecosystem. apple has it. microsoft has a big one in the console area and is trying to leverage it the other way.

What makes you think they are capable of pulling that off? MS has been slow to every market it has entered except for the initial version of windows. In every instance MS has shown its ability to completely screw up whatever market it has tried to enter. The console market is the ONLY other market i can say that they have not YET screwed up, but give them time, it'll happen.

[alent1234]

Originally Posted by dagamer34

No developer/publisher in their right mind would invest the $100+ million it takes to make Grand Theft Auto V on a game that runs cell phone hardware. Period.

Next silly rumor.

if you haven't read the numbers, iOS game dev has a much lower investment requirement and the payback on the investment is a lot better. most "real" games make most of their revenue the first and second month of release.

most iOS games make the same amount of revenue for months after release. sometimes years.

and the marketing budgets on "real" games dwarf the dev budgets. EA would rather spend money on stupid stunts like sending copies of ME3 into space than make a better ending

apple is not going into "real" games because the "real" games market has been dwarfed by the casual game market

[CylonGlitch]

If Apple put a 64GB flash drive in the current ATV, maybe increased the graphics power a bit. And then made games downloadable from the iTunes store. I would say, "TAKE MY MONEY NOW!"

Game can download in the background, so 10 to 20gb games is fine, no big deal. I'll start it today and play it tomorrow. Let me manage the flash space, which games I want installed. No big deal. Lots of casual games would be GREAT by me. I'd have one of these on EVERY TV! (I already have the current ATV on every TV).

No one in my house is a big gamer, we like games, but normally only have 1/2 hour or an hour to kill. Thus casual games are typically great for us.

Would it hurt MS / Sony? I don't think it would hurt them that much. Sure they'd lose a few sales, but for hard core gaming, a dedicated console would be still desirable.

[jwm2]

Originally Posted by rmwebs

Sorry. I just dont see it.

User has a choice between buying an Xbox 720 or whatever they call it, with some awesome 4k type graphics for their big screen tv. Or buy an Apple TV and play cut down versions of games, or games with 'poor' graphics compared to even todays games.

I dont see ARM based devices putting our 'modern' powerful games any time soon. Sure they are getting better, but still a good few years off anything worth using in a console.

You are right. Do you own a 4k tv? Does anyone in this thread or on this forum own a 4k tv? Last i checked they were still 10k+. So yeah i see your point

----------

Originally Posted by CylonGlitch

If Apple put a 64GB flash drive in the current ATV, maybe increased the graphics power a bit. And then made games downloadable from the iTunes store. I would say, "TAKE MY MONEY NOW!"

Game can download in the background, so 10 to 20gb games is fine, no big deal. I'll start it today and play it tomorrow. Let me manage the flash space, which games I want installed. No big deal. Lots of casual games would be GREAT by me. I'd have one of these on EVERY TV! (I already have the current ATV on every TV).

No one in my house is a big gamer, we like games, but normally only have 1/2 hour or an hour to kill. Thus casual games are typically great for us.

Would it hurt MS / Sony? I don't think it would hurt them that much. Sure they'd lose a few sales, but for hard core gaming, a dedicated console would be still desirable.

I don't think you understand just how bad the console gaming market has gotten in the last few years. Trust me, its nothing like it used to be.

[jeremiah256]

While I agree, the games available for mobile devices aren't at the level of what you can do on a console, I think it would be a mistake to disregard what they can produce by lumping them in with Angry Birds as many on this thread have already done.
They (Apple or Google) just have to be good enough. Especially since it would probably be an easier and faster process to bump up the specs for Google TV and Apple TV before the XBOX 720 and PS4 come to market. I'd hate to be in their (Microsoft and Sony) position if the market choice is between a console that offers excellent graphics for $400 and $60 per game vs $100 for good graphics and $10 per game.

[TMar]

Originally Posted by jwm2

IMO the problem with consoles is multi-fold.

First you have the interface. The xbox 360 and ps3 interfaces are horrible. Apple has a very simple interface on the latest apple tv iOS, you just add apps to the main screen.

The second problem is boot up time. It takes nearly 5 minutes to boot my xbox 360 or ps3 and get into a game. I don't have the time or patience to deal with this sort of thing anything. I don't devote days to gaming anymore. I have a few minutes to play and then the kids or the wife wants to watch something on the tv and i'm screwed until they goto bed. Well i was screwed before i got my iPad

The 3rd problem is price. I don't want to pay $59.99 for games and have a physical dvd or bluray disc laying around. The pets and children do not understand how delicate they are. I'd much rather buy a game for $.99 - $4.99 then buy one for $59.99 and not like it. I can afford to buy 12-30 games and not like them all, and that's highly unlikely to happen.

Again no. It's a convince thing. You're out and bored, it's easy to play a game for 5 minutes. Those same people are not going to make a conscious choice to sit in front of a TV and do the same thing let alone do it for an extended period of time. Mobile gaming is what you do to waste time when you're doing other things. Console gaming is a conscious choice to sit and just do that. The people who only mobile game, if sitting in front of a TV, will choose to watch TV rather than play games.

[blackhand1001]

Originally Posted by LagunaSol

"There's no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance." - Steve Ballmer, 2007

Way to take it out of context. He said there's no chance at the price of 500 dollars subsidized (for 4gb model) which is what it started at. Apple soon lowered it to 200.

[jwm2]

Originally Posted by SAD*FACED*CLOWN

all of you saying that Apple can kill console gaming with apple tv are delusional..it will never happen....video game retailers would fight it...and hard core gamers would ignore it....Halo or black ops on Apple tv? never

Really? Retailers would fight it? Guess what those same retailers are being done in by this next generation of consoles that won't be capable of playing used games. Halo or Black Ops on a mobile platform? Theres already several games that replicate those to an extent on the mobile platform for a fraction of the price. The real dealbreaker will be when nintendo stops making hardware and releases mario for iOS. Its coming, trust me.

[GenesisST]

Originally Posted by likemyorbs

I've been saying exactly this for a long time. There needs to be an Apple TV App Store filled with apps that use your iphone or iPad as a controller. It would be HUGE. I think it's exactly the boost apple needs right now. That and a completely revamped iOS 7

Well, for some games, you need physical buttons, otherwise you fingers will wander of the touch buttons.

When I played Arkham City, I was so in the game that at some point, I actually felt like the bat, not the slob on the couch... I don't think that would have worked with a touch only controller.. I'd be out of both a phone and a plasma...

For me, that would be my benchmark of whether or not an Apple "TV" could be used for "non-bird related gaming" (and I do love Angry Birds!)

[alent1234]

Originally Posted by jeremiah256

While I agree, the games available for mobile devices aren't at the level of what you can do on a console, I think it would be a mistake to disregard what they can produce by lumping them in with Angry Birds as many on this thread have already done.
They (Apple or Google) just have to be good enough. Especially since it would probably be an easier and faster process to bump up the specs for Google TV and Apple TV before the XBOX 720 and PS4 come to market. I'd hate to be in their (Microsoft and Sony) position if the market choice is between a console that offers excellent graphics for $400 and $60 per game vs $100 for good graphics and $10 per game.

most console games you are some forgettable hero that has to do something that has been done in almost every other console game in history and again, you are the only one that can do it

you are greatly over exaggerating their quality

[Hastings101]

Apple could do a lot with AppleTV... not really sure why they don't. $99 for iOS apps and games, Safari, and all the currently offered services would be an amazing seller. Promote some third party controller as "Apple Approved" or some dumb slogan to get developers to use it and it'd be a great low-price gaming console too.

[CylonGlitch]

Originally Posted by GenesisST

Well, for some games, you need physical buttons, otherwise you fingers will wander of the touch buttons.

I agree with you 100%. BUT release it with an App for the iPhone / iPod Touch / iPad that turns it into a controller for the games. Then allow 3rd party developers to make real controllers for it for those who want to spend the extra money.