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Apple Working on Apple TV Models With A12 and A14 Chips, New Controller, and More

As far as gaming is concerned, the Apple TV experiment failed big time, and it remained the hobby that it was during the Jobs days.

My opinion: get 4-5 killer games, those that anyone would love.

1. Sports (soccer, NFL, basketball)
2. Addictive FPS, CoD style
3. A proper racing game
4. Maybe the mind blowing RPG

Games are expensive these days. Budgets are movie level. So what? Is $ a problem for Apple?

They opted to go with hardware first, on the assumptions that devs would follow. Not really. Devs are interested in the largest used base, and the Apple TV won’t take off with 1000 mediocre titles, you really need those few hardcore ones. Not to mentioned the titles that released immediately after the Apple TV launch and were abandoned immediately thereafter (The Afterpulse, Modern Combat 5...)

Apple Arcade is a step in the right direction. The games have more personality and they are hand picked. I still would probably play 1 in 100 of those titles but that’s me.

The console style gaming market is huge and I never understood why Apple wouldn’t want a piece of the action. It is very much in line with their business model which is increasingly service oriented. Maybe things will change and hopefully the new Apple TV will be the catalyst.

I really hope that it lunches this fall.
 
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iHack13 said:
Apple needs a FireTV Stick competitor. Even if its not 30 USD range. Then a Chromecast Google TV competitor for 50USD.
Just something cheap to bring apple TV to a wider audience .
Click to expand...

Nothing like this is anywhere near Apple’s roadmap. Apple has never, ever competed on price in order to grab market share. Their strategy for being on TV sets is the built-in Apple TV app included with newer smart TVs. Their up sell is the Apple TV box, which with a compelling gaming library might actually justify the premium price.

But cheap sticks? Not their market, not their interest.
 
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The ingredients to get Apple TV to the point of being a console-competitor (assuming that is indeed Apple’s aim) are:
  1. A first party controller. It doesn’t matter how many other controllers work with Apple TV; an Apple branded controller available as a bundle with the box signifies Apple’s dedication to this market
  2. Powerful silicon that will keep up with the demands of complex games at least five years from now. The A14 clearly has that in spades. The A12 also seems to be powerful enough and Apple has positioned this as a minimum baseline for a while to come
  3. A compelling library of exclusive content. Apple Arcade is good now, but it’s not a console competitor. I don’t know how many indie devs out there are capable of building games that can rival Halo or Zelda or GTA, but that’s the level we’re talking about. They need to sign a blockbuster studio production, and I think it’s unlikely that any studio or publisher is going to gamble one of their key franchise assets. So it’ll need to be something new
1 & 2 are within Apple’s gift. 3 is going to be harder than just buying the rights to a scripted movie or tv production, and I’m not sure if Apple has the industry clout to pull it off - yet. Apple Music was arguably the success it became as they had Jimmy Iovine to convince the music industry to go all in. With Apple TV+ they’ve hired a slate of former Hollywood execs who have the contacts and expertise. Do they have people on the payroll who can do this for games?

If Apple is serious about this, then they’ll be prepared to play the long game. Time will tell.
 
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There is no company in the world that succeeded on all scales and Apple is going to meet their fate. They are in cloud storage, OS building, application developer, computer designer, CPU designer, smart devices, movie publisher, TV series investor, Video streaming service, watch maker, multimedia store, retailer, Credit Card issuer, News aggregator, digital books store....and now, a console maker and a videogame publisher.

They will fail for sure at some point.
 
MacRumors said:
previous rumors have indicated that the refreshed Apple TV may feature higher capacity 64 and 128GB storage options.
Click to expand...

There’s no way you’re getting a game like Breath of the Wild on an Apple TV if the storage capacity remains so painfully low. It’s storage that holds Apple gaming back, not really CPU/GPU - especially when compared to something like the Switch. Apple needs to make an AppleTV with at least 512GB if if wants to be taken seriously, especially as it likely won’t allow for the addition of an SD card like the Switch. They’ll also have to remove the cap on app sizes, but that would then mean that they couldn’t offer games across their devices if phone storage remains smaller. In the end, I think this rumour is wishful thinking. I’d love to see the above happen so that we could really open the door on Apple gaming, especially with ARM Macs on the horizon, but Apple hasn’t shown this boldness in the past and I doubt it now.
 
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That controller is the worst in the world.. YOu cannot even breathe on it or it will change things on TV.
So annoying. Also having it in the wrong way 50% of the times. It looks great and is hightec but very annoying in handling.
 
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Listening to a few articles about this device.
The general opinion among many long term tech people is that it's fundamental too expensive for what it does.

You have Amazon's devices which are very popular.
You have the ROKU devices that are very popular.
You now have the brand new Google device, which will without question become very popular.

And then you have Apple with their overpriced box.
They fiddle with the specs, and the chips, and the controller, whilst constantly missing the single issue.
It's too expensive for what it does, compared to other devices which offer many more consumers what they want from such a product.
 
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cmaier said:
If they ever want to be taken seriously for games, they need their own controller.
Click to expand...

I agree! But more important then that, they also have to start making legit, REAL games. Apple is too PC and inoffensive to do that. At this moment they are making casual games for kids and stay at home moms and I feel, this audience don’t need anything more.
 
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Why can't we have one that has the built-in capability to store my MP4 videos, so I don't have to use my computer as a media server?
 
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Was anyone finding the current remote too heavy or thick. It already falls off the side table as it weighs so little. And unlike my phone, iPad or MacBook Pro I rarely take it on the road (stupid airline with their “sir your large 4K flatscreen won’t fit in the overhead compartment, you’ll have to gate check it”). i was hoping once Johnny left the quest for thinness for the sake of thinness would stop.
 
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Not in a box the size of a few sticks of butter. I mean seriously there is a reason gaming consoles and gaming PC’s have much larger volumes (heat....) no way they can do what the new upcoming x-box can do in that small a space. Serious gaming required a lot of watts. I mean at rue 4K gaming you need more than even the largest nvidia RTx (the 3090) to get better than 30fps on the tests I’ve seen. And that is over 300W top on the card alone. If they mean casual games like angry birds-esq sprite games sure. But is anyone buying a 4K gaming rig to play those? I’m more excited by on board storage increasing to prevent videos from stuttering when the entire world starts zoom conferences.
 
mac1984user said:
There’s no way you’re getting a game like Breath of the Wild on an Apple TV if the storage capacity remains so painfully low. It’s storage that holds Apple gaming back, not really CPU/GPU - especially when compared to something like the Switch. Apple needs to make an AppleTV with at least 512GB if if wants to be taken seriously, especially as it likely won’t allow for the addition of an SD card like the Switch. They’ll also have to remove the cap on app sizes, but that would then mean that they couldn’t offer games across their devices if phone storage remains smaller. In the end, I think this rumour is wishful thinking. I’d love to see the above happen so that we could really open the door on Apple gaming, especially with ARM Macs on the horizon, but Apple hasn’t shown this boldness in the past and I doubt it now.
Click to expand...
Unless Apple allowed something crazy like ... I dunno ... game streaming ... on the Apple TV. :/
 
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“Some games will require A13 and up to run”

Every Apple game developer knows this is not possible. There is now the option to restrict apps/games to A12 and above, but that capability is recent and is a by-product of several ARKit advances requiring A12 as a minimum.

Search UIRequiredDeviceCapabilities for more info. E.g. the new option is called iphone-ipad-minimum-performance-a12

iphone-ipad-minimum-performance-a13 does not exist and I don’t expect it to exist in the future.

The normal minimum requirement for apps is based upon targeting a version of iOS or tvOS. There are of course other things you can require for an app such as a device with arm64, nfc, metal, healthkit etc.

So if you create an iphone game using the iOS14 SDK you need to support the iPhone SE with it’s A9 chip.

An iPad game using iOS14? You need to support the iPad Air2 with it’s A8X (unless you add a flag for arkit for example).

The above is why you will never see truly high end games on any Apple devices until this changes. If Apple did implement new flags for each chip variant then things might change. Until then, game devs will have to continue either aiming for lowest common denominator which is the most common approach to the problem, or implement scaling display feature options such as COD does - but only major studios have the potential resources for this.

The benefit of Apple devices running the latest iOS releases for so many years actually holds back the platform from a gaming perspective imho.

I do think Apple has to include a game controller if they want the aTV to be seen as a gaming device and drive Apple Arcade subscriptions. The aTV does need a major update for both tv/film and gaming and I would be a day one upgrader but I don’t see it ever competing with my PS boxes.
 
I hope they do something soon. I’d like one for apple fitness but I’m not buying the current one with all these rumours flying about!
 
Apple TV Arcade with one year free Apple Arcade, A14(X), cooled by a fan, and controller in the box?

Probably won’t happen but would be awesome.
 
foqus said:
Why can't we have one that has the built-in capability to store my MP4 videos, so I don't have to use my computer as a media server?
Click to expand...
Because Apple doesn't really want you to have control of your stuff*. One example is that you cannot do complete (!) app backups with all data no matter what even with tools like iMazing and of course another example is Apple's move that you can no longer store your purchased iOS apps' packages on your computer locally to have a backup of them in case an app gets removed from the App Store. As soon as you set up a new iOS device these apps will be gone then. The final step will be Apple removing installed apps from your devices on their own, a step that is already technologically possible and only company policy is preventing it.

*With the VLC app running as a server you can upload your media files to an iDevice via network but it's not really a good solution.

Apple is acting like a bipolar, possessive GF. Unfortunately the other fish in the sea are already rotten, but at least Apple hardware is nice to look at at first glance ;)
 
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Maconplasma said:
You waited YEARS for an updated set top box that plays videos? 🙄
Click to expand...
No. I have a few ATVs but they are old and do not have an App Store on it so I cannot get Disney+. However, my ATV miraculously keeps updating itself a few times a year with Apple branded items. Disney+, as you know, is relatively new...so when I went looking to buy a new ATV I found that the current model is 1000 days old which means a new ATV is hopefully soon around the corner. And as of May of this year (and it's now Oct), a new ATV was not soon around the corner. I was not about to plunk down $200 for a 3+ year old ATV just to get Disney+ and to have an old product. So I spent $29 and couldn't be happier. Will I buy a new ATV when Apple releases it in 2021? Nope. What if Apple comes out with some psuedo Arcade (that would also require a subscription) that this rumor is proposing? Nope...too little too late and I could buy a Playstation or Xbox that would easily last 5 years and knock your socks off with the games.
 
Apple may need to offer cheaper AppleTV Dongle/Stick($50-$70) mainly for Streaming like Roku,Amazon and drop the AppleTV Box completely. or
Raise the game with beefed up AppleTV box to the point able to attract serious game developers. Works as state of the art Streamer, Homekit hub and decent Game console. You have to compete in a world of powerhouse standalone XBOX and PS5 consoles with huge library of games. Good thing with Apple CPU/GPU is same code can be ported between Apple's various gadgets bringing game development cost down.. Also if AppleTV supports high speed external storage than built-in storage size is no issue. Moreover online Cloud connected gaming doesn't require same compute resources as stand alone game console.
 
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