Many reports point to the new Apple TV being heavily video game focused and even coming with a traditional games controller. Do we think this is likely?
My guess would be that universal iOS apps will expand to be able to support the Apple TV as a target device, but require support for whatever controller it comes with to be accepted on the App Store.
That will mean that any of those crappy 'virtual control' games you've got, will finally become playable. The various GTA ports, for example. Probably what's stopped more of them coming out, is that users quickly realise on-screen controls were *****, so stopped buying them.
I can see a lot of Indie developers jumping on-board straight away. So Shovel Knight for iOS and more.
Local storage will be a big issue, so it'll be interesting to see how they deal with that. No way are they going to stick a hard disk in it and flash/SSD storage is pretty costly, even now. Streaming is a possibility, but I don't see that happening in terms of streaming a video stream. Maybe the games themselves will stream their content as and when it's required. This is actually a feature they've added in iOS 9, see App Slimming. So you get the intro and level 1 downloaded to start with, as you're completing level 1, it's downloading level 2 in the background.
You can bet your money on the fact that they will have signed up a couple of big exclusives. The usual suspects of Ubi Soft and Square Enix will no doubt be happy to accept some decent sized cheques.
For any game developers out there, it's potentially an exciting prospect. If successful, it'll be the first home console that any developer can knock a game out and upload to without up-front licensing fees, nor the need for a developer machine. You can bet they make a big play about this aspect.
Let's see how Jony Ive tackles the game controller too. Will it be an ergonomic nightmare like the Magic Mouse or something lovely like the Wii U Pro controller?
My guess would be that universal iOS apps will expand to be able to support the Apple TV as a target device, but require support for whatever controller it comes with to be accepted on the App Store.
That will mean that any of those crappy 'virtual control' games you've got, will finally become playable. The various GTA ports, for example. Probably what's stopped more of them coming out, is that users quickly realise on-screen controls were *****, so stopped buying them.
I can see a lot of Indie developers jumping on-board straight away. So Shovel Knight for iOS and more.
Local storage will be a big issue, so it'll be interesting to see how they deal with that. No way are they going to stick a hard disk in it and flash/SSD storage is pretty costly, even now. Streaming is a possibility, but I don't see that happening in terms of streaming a video stream. Maybe the games themselves will stream their content as and when it's required. This is actually a feature they've added in iOS 9, see App Slimming. So you get the intro and level 1 downloaded to start with, as you're completing level 1, it's downloading level 2 in the background.
You can bet your money on the fact that they will have signed up a couple of big exclusives. The usual suspects of Ubi Soft and Square Enix will no doubt be happy to accept some decent sized cheques.
For any game developers out there, it's potentially an exciting prospect. If successful, it'll be the first home console that any developer can knock a game out and upload to without up-front licensing fees, nor the need for a developer machine. You can bet they make a big play about this aspect.
Let's see how Jony Ive tackles the game controller too. Will it be an ergonomic nightmare like the Magic Mouse or something lovely like the Wii U Pro controller?
