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Fortnite Code Suggests Popular Game Could Launch on Apple TV in the Future [Update: No]

It's unfortunate that Apple's API doesn't support clickable analog sticks (and because of that, officially supported Apple TV controllers -- like the SteelSeries Nimbus wireless controller -- are not built with clickable sticks). There is a lot going on in Fortnite. Taking away those two buttons would make the experience with the Nimbus not so great.

I have no idea if that has anything to do with why Epic is not making the game for the Apple TV (likely not the reason at all). I just know that I wouldn't have as good of an experience playing the game on Apple TV without clickable sticks (left click to sprint, right click to crouch/rotate/reset edit). Sure, you could map run and crouch to other buttons, but then you are unmapping those buttons from two other commands.

On my Switch controller I have 16 buttons to use in the game (not including the Home button and the Capture button). On the Ninbus I have 12 buttons (counting the Ninbus D-Pad as 4 buttons for the purpose of playing Fortnite). 4 less buttons in a game with a TON of commends.

To this day I still have no idea why Apple didn't include support for clickable analog sticks. Everybody else has clickable sticks. Xbox One, clickable. Playstation 4, clickable. Nintendo Wii U (the current Nintendo console at the time), clickable. Nintendo Switch now, clickable. Controllers made for Apple TV, nope.

Epic has the iOS version. And I've played the iOS version. Man are those touch controls bad, haha. I'm sure some people are very good (maybe even great) at the iOS touch screen controls, but I need my clickable sticks, lol.

I'm sure the game could be playable without the clickable sticks. It would just take some time to get use to fewer buttons. Other shooters on the Apple TV have managed without the clickable sticks. I just wish Apple had included support for them.
 
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Kiwil01 said:
This code can be found in all games if opened into the hex editor, they are compiled with all available assets regardless of OS so if comparability is added in the future the info is already there. It’s the same thing accessing the files from Mac or Windows, you can access platform information for anything from tvOS to Linux to Windows on a Mac, this has been here since 4.1 when I started digging through files. It’s just built into all packed unreal engine projects..
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You called it. :)
 
Apple threw away the chance long ago to make the Apple TV a really nice gaming console. Needs first-party controllers, not this MFi-or-whatever nonsense.
 
fairuz said:
Apple threw away the chance long ago to make the Apple TV a really nice gaming console. Needs first-party controllers, not this MFi-or-whatever nonsense.
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The SteelSeries Nimbus controllers -- that Apple has always pushed as if they were first-party controllers -- are well-made, high-qualify controllers. SteelSeries makes great gaming accessories (the Apple TV Nimbus controllers specifically, and all of their products in general). The controllers themselves are not the problem. The problem is Apple's overall gaming strategy (or lack thereof).

From the beginning their gaming strategy with the Apple TV was bad. Requiring the use of the Siri Remote for all games was terrible (although they finally realized how awful the Siri Remote was for gaming and eventually removed that requirement). No API for clickable analog sticks was a slight oversight. Limiting app downloads to 200 MB with the rest of the application needing to be streamed on demand each time was a huge oversight (although they also finally increased that limit to 4 GB last year, I believe).

Apple has slowly been fixing their obvious problems. With this 5th gen Apple TV, though, gaming on the Apple TV probably won't progress much further than it is now. Apple fixed the obvious mistakes, but they aren't doing much else with the platform at the moment. But when Apple releases the Apple TV 6th gen in however many years, they could learn from their past mistakes and make Apple TV a viable gaming platform. .... maybe.
 
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I always wanted them to do something interesting with this platform since buying my second gen ATV. It felt like there was a lot of potential, but completely overlooked by Apple. When they introduced apps, I thought it was going to take off. However, I can count on my fingers how many apps are interesting enough to buy/install on this platform. My wife bought me a game controller for it for one Christmas and I ended up taking it back because I couldn't find any decent games to play with it. You chaps are right - it seems developers aren't completely on board.

I'm not a Fortnite player, but have played some PUGB. It would be great to see some good titles available.
 
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MacRumors said:
Update: According to Epic Games, there are no plans to bring Fortnite to the Apple TV. From Epic's Senior PR Manager: "Epic isn’t planning to bring Fortnite to Apple TV. References to tvOS in the Fortnite files are the result of general Unreal Engine support for the Apple TV platform."
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Noooooooooooo:(

Thats a shame!
 

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MacRumors said:
Update: According to Epic Games, there are no plans to bring Fortnite to the Apple TV. From Epic's Senior PR Manager: "Epic isn't planning to bring Fortnite to Apple TV. References to tvOS in the Fortnite files are the result of general Unreal Engine support for the Apple TV platform."
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This is a shame. I don't currently play Fortnite, but I would if there was an tvOS app.

The ATV could be big if there was more and better games on it. With streaming boxes at a faction of the price as an ATV, and with almost all TVs now having some type of built-in streaming capability, gaming could be the thing that makes the ATV stand out from the rest, other than just being expensive.
 
Just do it!
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OutSpoken said:
I was heavily in that camp of wanting an ATV4 as my new dedicated home console but imo Apple seriously dropped the ball with it. It's been out a long while and there's still no AAA worthy games released on the platform. Its clear the big gaming studios don't acknowledge it. Instead i went out and bought a Nintendo switch and couldn't be happier.

Guys i wouldn't hold your breath, the Apple tv is never going to be taken seriously in the gaming world. Unless Apple starts to really get behind it... With the mammoth amount of ios games out there, you'd think many would transition onto Apple TV but devs obviously don't see a reason to.
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Apple needs to bake in some universal tvOS support into iOS games so that they all deploy to BOTH simultaneously! Same goes for macOS! This would help all platforms rise!
 
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Jimmy James said:
I’m in disbelief that ATV gaming hasn’t taken off full steam already. I’d bet lots of people wouldn’t get a dedicated console if casual games were ‘good enough’.

For that matter the potential is a system seller. I do t have or really need an ATV. But I’d buy one for the right access to games. And at a fraction of the cost of a big console.

All the pieces are in place. There just needs to be more initiative. This could be a huge part of the Apple ecosystem driving hardware sales and further media sales.
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It has been an enormous wasted opportunity. Apart from some cross platform indies including the fantastic Inside and the couple of games available near launch, there hasn’t been anything significant available for them. Buying a controller is really a waste of money if there are no games to play!

If only Nintendo and Sega collaborated with Apple on a licensed emulator, this would be a fantastic little gaming box. The cost is almost nothing! Nintendo has even used the same ROMs that the entire online community uses. All they have to do is make a deal and profit. As for newer console quality games, they would have to be limited to modern 2d platformers or 3D fighters which aren’t very demanding until future revisions. Sad that Nintendo would never license their real first party stuff to anyone else. Super MARIO Run was made because they couldn’t turn away the potential profits after the success of Pokémon Go.

Right now Real Racing 3 is probably the most impressive title and it is already an old one.
 
lec0rsaire said:
Sad that Nintendo would never license their real first party stuff to anyone else.
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Nintendo has licensed their real first party stuff to someone else in the past. And that experience taught them to be very careful with their IP. Anybody remember those Nintendo games on the Philips CD-i?
 
mattoruu said:
Nintendo has licensed their real first party stuff to someone else in the past. And that experience taught them to be very careful with their IP. Anybody remember those Nintendo games on the Philips CD-i?
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Didn’t even know there were some licensed Nintendo games on the cdi. The only game I was interested in was Burn Cycle. Nobody I knew bought one so I never even got to play it. That system was a dud like the 3DO and Jaguar. They got completely destroyed by the PS1 and N64 later on. The Saturn was also a disaster unfortunately.
 
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