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Apple TV A Gaming Platform?

dAlen said:
Graphics mean a lot to some...it does for me.
Looking at Nintendo is like looking at...Nintendo 10+ years ago.

Looking at Sony vs. Nintendo...I mean if sony sold for the same price as Nintendo, I could bet that no one would have this conversation.

People like to convince themself that they have the best of something...it comes down to money, and as I mentioned in above post, I dont have money for Sony...but Im not going to start comparing Nintendo to Sony.

And as far as game play...Not sure there is that much of a differnce in Sony vs. Wii (pretend the price is the same) to make a difference, the graphics would impact me more. - pong or a modern day interface.

(Actually pong rules.)

Peace

dAlen
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Hey if you level the prices, you've gotta level the specs too. THEN what would you appeal to?
 
It's a ideal gaming platform...

... for casual gaming.

The hardcore games market is saturated folks. The people who regularly buy expensive consoles and games are not increasing in numbers. The cash they spend on indulging their habit is not increasing much either. So it would be dumb to get into the money-losing pissing-contest that is the games industry at the moment.

Nintendo are smart. They are moving out of the hardcore and into casual gaming with the Wii. The advantage of the Wii is that Grandma can play too. But Grandma is not about to walk into Electronics Boutique and pick up "Deal or No Deal Kung Fu"

The AppleTV as a gaming machine is somewhere around the Xbox PS2 Wii level. In other words perfectly capable of playing "simple games" as someone put it.

It also has an internet connection and a hard drive. Which means that small games can be bought and downloaded from the itunes store in three clicks or less. All for $8.99. And all that money goes to Apple.

C.
 
Eraserhead said:
Seeing Apples "excellent" gaming reputation I can't see it happening, it would be far more sensible to partner with another player in the game already (most likely Nintendo) to make a device that does both.
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I agree but I do think Apple will make more products aimed at the Home Multimedia area. Not a games machine rather a unit for TV/Music/DVDs/Net/ect and yes I am aware there is the Mac Mini and Apple TV before people start commenting.

I think simple gaming on the Apple TV would be a very nice bonus and probably intice me to think about buying one.
 
ghall said:
Apple will be crushed like a bug in the video game market. Apple will need to partner up with Nintendo if they are going to make any sort of impact on the industry.

Edit: I will probably eat my words in a year or so.
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I would love to see Apple partner with Nintendo to make something casual-gamer-friendly, like the Wii. I've never had much interest in consoles, but I'm on the verge of buying a Wii. If Apple has something like this up their sleeve, they could carve a new niche for themselves.

Cheers
 
Ninja_Turtle said:
nintendo lost terribly i think with n64 and worse with the gamecube, but they ruled with NES and SNES and DS Lite
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Nintendo sold the same number of Gamecubes as Microsoft sold XBoxes.

Nintendo made a massive profit. Microsoft made a massive loss. Sony rampaged due to third party support and exclusives.

Who lost terribly again?
 
Thank you...

Thanatoast said:
Okay, putting pop-cap games onto the appleTV is no more "entering into the home console market" than putting them on the iPod is trying to compete against the DS or PSP. It's just a couple of simple games to pass the time.
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Thanks for attempting to keep everyone grounded. I didn't garner from the original statement that it was anything about Apple getting into the gaming market, either. It just sounded like PopCap games was looking into adapting their games for play on a wide variety of devices, the Apple TV just being one possibility.
 
Quit with the Nintendo / Apple stuff

It just isn't going to happen.


AppleTV however is well specified for games:

- 1GHz Dothan CPU (~50% faster than the Wii and XBox)
- nVidia GeForce 7400M GPU (far faster than the Wii and XBox) with 64MB
- 256MB RAM (2x Wii, 4x XBox)
- 40GB hard drive
- Wireless
- 720p output

(albeit with a variant of Mac OS X running on it which will eat some memory and CPU cycles)

Compared to a PS3 or XBox360 it's a bit lame admittedly, but the device isn't aiming for that type of market. Games would be an additional feature, and they can certainly be made to run smoothly and look great with the above hardware.

However the controller aspect is an issue. One USB port at the back doesn't really meet gaming requirements. IR is fine for a remote control, but not so hot for games. Bluetooth would be good though - but the AppleTV doesn't include it - however a USB bluetooth dongle might suffice (but seems a bit hacky to me, and not Apple's style).

So games will be simple, one-player, controllable via the Apple Remote affairs. Solitaire. Breakout. Bejeweled. Poker (maybe online?). Lots of puzzles.

They should look good though - 720p or even 1080p (the AppleTV's HDMI chip supports 1080p, I just think the AppleTV lacks the processing power to decode 1080p content).
 
Carniphage said:
... for casual gaming.

The hardcore games market is saturated folks. The people who regularly buy expensive consoles and games are not increasing in numbers. The cash they spend on indulging their habit is not increasing much either. So it would be dumb to get into the money-losing pissing-contest that is the games industry at the moment.

Nintendo are smart. They are moving out of the hardcore and into casual gaming with the Wii. The advantage of the Wii is that Grandma can play too. But Grandma is not about to walk into Electronics Boutique and pick up "Deal or No Deal Kung Fu"

The AppleTV as a gaming machine is somewhere around the Xbox PS2 Wii level. In other words perfectly capable of playing "simple games" as someone put it.

It also has an internet connection and a hard drive. Which means that small games can be bought and downloaded from the itunes store in three clicks or less. All for $8.99. And all that money goes to Apple.

C.
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That is exactly what I would want from :apple:tv if it were to be a gaming platform
 
Could the game not be run on your Mac, use its power and graphics card then operated and displayed remotely via AppleTV in the living room? Like VNC or something.
 
Hattig said:
They should look good though - 720p or even 1080p (the AppleTV's HDMI chip supports 1080p, I just think the AppleTV lacks the processing power to decode 1080p content).
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Actually the bigger problem is the disparity between download time and added benefit of 1080p... as well as the upper limit of bandwidth for 802.11n streaming.

There's no driving reason to do 1080p content when the overwhelming majority of HDTV sets being distributed right now have a maximum progressive-scan output of 720p.

Maybe in two or three years time... but it's not sensible or necessary right now.
 
Dont Hurt Me said:
If Apple was smart they would team up with Microsoft, there are a zillion games for the platform and just as many coming. Apple history with games .......well sucks turds and thats being nice. Who the heck is going to run out for Apple TV when it cant even play TV as far as I can tell? Then expect it to be a game platform? Please.
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I'm sure Bill is feeling all fuzzy and warm about Apple about now, I'm sure he'd agree. ;)
 
ghall said:
Apple will be crushed like a bug in the video game market. Apple will need to partner up with Nintendo if they are going to make any sort of impact on the industry.

Edit: I will probably eat my words in a year or so.
Click to expand...

Apple shouldn't go into the video game market. But they might go into the "wow my TV can play games!" market.

Last Christmas season, you could find a lot of DVD games in the shops (I haven't heard of any that didn't suck though), and people bought them. Not for "gaming", but for "playing games". There is definitely a market there.
 
J Radical said:
Unless the :apple: TV has a graphics chip, a fair amount of RAM and a speedy processor this will never happen. The thing doesn't even have an optical drive FFS.
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It has a graphics chip. It has a fair amount of RAM. It has a speedy processor (1 GHz). And it doesn't need an optical drive, it has a wireless connection with a powerful computer at the other end.
 
I dont care about gaming i already have a ps3 & wii
all iwant from this product is the ability to stream any video format to my tv.

Now that will rule and i will buy it in a heartbeat.
 
bommai said:
I just bought a PS3 primarily for the Bluray DVD playing capability. I am a HD nut. I bought the 20GB $499 version. This thing rocks. The quality is phenomenal.

For $499 it has the following

1) Cell processor running at > 3GHz. It has something like 8 cores. Simple ones though.
2) Slot loading Bluray drive. Plays DVD-Video, Audio-CD, SACD, BD-ROM, DVD-R, DVD+R, etc. No HD-DVD and I don't care.
3) Crazy fast graphics processor with at least 256 MB of RAM
4) Bluetooth
5) Four USB ports
6) Ethernet port
7) HDMI 1.3
8) Optical audio output
9) Bluetooth controller with rechargeable battery (recharge using USB).
10) 20GB user upgradeable 2.5" SATA HD.
11) I almost forgot - it plays games in upto 1080p resolution.
12) It plays MPEG2, MPEG4 including H.264, AAC audio, etc.

While the hardware is impressive for $499, the software does need work as far as a media console goes. The BD-ROM playback is awesome. DVD-Video, CD-Audio playback is also awesome.

It has rudimentary web browser. It does firmware upgrades through the network.

It does not however recognize any media stored in the local network. It is begging for Apple integration. What if we could merge the functionality of Apple TV into PS3. The hardware can easily handle it. What's even better is that the PS3 has bluetooth built-in and they sell a Bluetooth DVD remote. I bought this too and it is great.

Apple - Sony. You need each other in this. To battle microsoft.
In fact, if Apple sells a media server software for Windows and Mac that will integrate with the PS3 for even $50, it will be a hit. Think about it. The user can buy a PS3 (for which Sony loses money on) and then buy Apple's media server software ($50). If the user buys Apple TV, the media server is free.

Gamers can choose PS3. Non gamers can choose Apple TV. High end people can choose PS3, lower end people can choose Apple TV.

Knowing that Apple likes to develop their own hardware, I don't have any confidence this will ever happen, but I give kudos to Sony. The PS3 is a great machine.
Click to expand...

Smells like astroturf....

I agree - everyone quit with the PS3, Wii, XB360 stuff. AppleTV has a different audience. So, you can play your iPod games on your AppleTV... more games to be available. The console companies are totally different, I don't expect to play Gears of War on my Mac Mini...
 
The rumor didn't say EA Sports or Naughty Dog or SquareSoft is porting their games to the :apple: TV... it said POP-FREAKING-CAP! Who cares? So what if the :apple: TV could play solitare or ZUMA or Mahjong? That's the kind of games that PopCap makes... decent games IF it's something for a cell phone or an iPod or for wasting a little time on the computer, but it's not anything remotely like games that people think of today when they hear "videogames".

Do I think that the public should be able to play their downloaded games from iTunes on something other than their iPods? YES. By all means. I think it's a sort of rip-off that we can't do that now. I'd love to be able to play on a bigger screen and I'm certain iTunes could be modified to play them so one could play on his monitor. Getting them to play on the :apple: TV is just a way of getting people who've already bought games for their iPod to buy the new device.

The KARMA thing to have done would've been to make it available to play on the computer in the first place. While Apple has been opposed to having TV easily accessible on the computer screen, videogames on the computer is obvious. They should've come through on this without having to lay down more money for an :apple: TV.

Normally I'm a big PROponent for Apple but this one is lame.
 
Everybody that likes the games on the PSP and DS raise your hands.
Everybody that would not play them if they were not portable lower them.
Everybody that likes XBox Live Arcade raise your hands.

There's your market for :apple:TV games. I would be very surprised if that market isn't as big as the high-end gaming market.
 
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