Apple Extending Trademark to Include Hand Held Gaming

[MacRumors]

Trademork notes that Apple has filed to extend their Apple trademark into new areas, covering:

Toys, games and playthings, namely, hand-held units for playing electronic games; hand-held units for playing video games; stand alone video game machines; electronic games other than those adapted for use with television receivers only; LCD game machines; electronic educational game machines; toys, namely battery-powered computer games

The filing took place on February 5th, 2008.

Apple's iPods have always contained a few built-in games, but in 2006, Apple extended this to allow 3rd party developers release downloadable games through iTunes. The trademark application, however, will certainly reignite rumors that Apple is seriously pursing its own game development or even its own game console.

Apple has been known to be recruiting game developers back in 2006, and has authored a number of the existing iPod games. In the mid 90's, Apple did launch a short lived game console called Pippin.

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[toxicbomber]

Please just dont be like the Pippin.

[Astro8973]

i really couldnt care less if apple goes into the gaming market. i aint a gamer. now bring on a 32gb 3g iphone with ichat built in!

[w_parietti22]

I don't think its likely that apple will release an entirely different device for gaming. More likely is apple developed games for iPhone/iPod Touch which could be pretty cool with the use of the accelerometer.

[Sky Blue]

Originally Posted by w_parietti22

I don't think its likely that apple will release an entirely different device for gaming. More likely is apple developed games for iPhone/iPod Touch which could be pretty cool with the use of the accelerometer.

Exactly

[dual64bit]

Could just be some patent for their recent "let the games begin" e-mail, more and more games on iPod

far out though

[mixel]

A games machine is only as strong as it's games.. So I hope they have some good developers on board (ie, YES to Id, "Meh" to EA)..

Saying that, itunes store as a channel for distrbuting "DS-like" games would be excellent, handheld games are stupid, tiny, inconvenient, easily lost things, and an online distribution model suits them down to a tee.. PSP suffers most from that, but the UMD is still pretty killer for putting big games on a tiny handheld. Apple would just bung an ipod HD in there though and make UMD look stupid.

I'm sure Nintendo have realised all this already though.. Well, I hope so for their own sake..

[chuckles:)]

Originally Posted by w_parietti22

I don't think its likely that apple will release an entirely different device for gaming. More likely is apple developed games for iPhone/iPod Touch which could be pretty cool with the use of the accelerometer.

Ya, the iPhone and touch are probably pretty simmilar to what Nintendo's next handheld will probably be like, using both motion controls and a touch screen. If you think about it, they have a great game platform possibility on their hands.

[MadDoc]

I agree with the above. I reckon it's to tie in with the release of the iPhone/iTouch SDK - Apple are probably hoping for an increase in the number of offline games (as am I).

MadDoc,

[drummerlondonw3]

Well this is my first post

I used to think that the games for the ipods were pretty useless but after getting a new nano I have to say they are really playable. Ofcourse its not going to beat my psp or ps3 but they are good time wasters and could be something that will be a good revenue stream for apple

[M!K]

The idea of Apple making its own home console / handheld is awesome!!! I would just love that!!!

Knowing Apple, it would be sooo beautiful and sooo technologic.

[manhattanboy]

Originally Posted by toxicbomber

Please just dont be like the Pippin.

Maybe they will have a new game called NBA classics starring Pippin

LOL

[Kar98]

iPlaywithmyself! The first handheld game console with touchscreen ever! I just press this one button here, and BOOM! I lose! Isn't that cool?

[cyberjunky]

Hehehehe anyone seen the iBox spoof on youtube? i love that..

http://youtube.com/watch?v=D_KxN0Nepus

I seriously doubt that apple would ever make a games console, but if they ever did then i can say if its anything like the Nintendo Wii i shall hate it, Wii is for kids, i like REAL games.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=_iYBmAVuBns

[MacTheSpoon]

Apple might be planning to add games to the Apple TV. That would be a cool idea, I think. All they need is a graphics chip that can output Wii-quality graphics, right? That probably wouldn't add too much to the price.

[iTeen]

Originally Posted by M!K

The idea of Apple making its own home console / handheld is awesome!!! I would just love that!!!

Knowing Apple, it would be sooo beautiful and sooo technologic.

Yea I would so totally buy it!

[MacTheSpoon]

Originally Posted by chuckles:)

Ya, the iPhone and touch are probably pretty simmilar to what Nintendo's next handheld will probably be like, using both motion controls and a touch screen. If you think about it, they have a great game platform possibility on their hands.

I still don't know about the touch screen for action games... I think it'd work great for RPGs, though.

But if they added a controller you could plug into the docking port, that would open up the touch/iPhone to any kind of game. If Apple doesn't, then maybe when the SDK is released, this will become possible for 3d parties to create??

[mcarnes]

It would be nice if Apple got into the "develop Aperture and other pro apps" market instead of all this stupid kid stuff.

[timmillwood]

I think they are just covering the themselves for iPhone and iPod games.

Mainly iPhone because the SDK is out soon, thus bringing many first and third party games.

If the main reason was iPod games why didnt they do it back in 2006?

[s.hoz]

Yeah, same here. Apple wouldn't create the next "Wii".
Rather, they're just going to upgrade the iphone/itouch so it can play regualr rpg/multi-touch games you download and save onto your handheld through the newly renamed iTunes=iStore (Maybe you can rent them as well)....Macworld 2009?

[AoWolf]

Cool I hope we get some games for the touch.

[badNameErr]

Originally Posted by timmillwood

I think they are just covering the themselves for iPhone and iPod games.

Yeah, this is just lawyers doing what lawyers do.

Move along, nothing to see here.

[Alphadorian]

Why can't Apple focus more on gaming for the Mac? Is there really a bigger market for these handheld games?

[diamond.g]

Wirelessly posted (iPhone: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU like Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/420.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.0 Mobile/4A93 Safari/419.3)

Originally Posted by Alphadorian

Why can't Apple focus more on gaming for the Mac? Is there really a bigger market for these handheld games?

Considering the DS just recently outsold the PS2 lifetimes sales. I would say yes.

[drummerlondonw3]

I could see them branching out to this but I would not think that they would move into a new hardware market. It would have to be as an add on to some current platform not as a new product