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Steam Founder Gabe Newell Says Apple Could Be Biggest Player in Games Market

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Apr 12, 2001
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Apple is better placed than Microsoft, Sony or Nintendo to take a lead in the games console market, said Gabe Newell, founder of the games-distribution hub Steam in a speech at the University of Texas.

newell.jpg
As noted by Polygon, Newell argued that games served from a PC in the home direct to a TV, rather than from a games console, are the future of the market. But if the PC industry does not move quickly enough to establish itself in the living room, Newell sees an opportunity for Apple to seize the market.
"The threat right now is that Apple has gained a huge amount of market share, and has a relatively obvious pathway towards entering the living room with their platform," Newell said. "I think that there's a scenario where we see sort of a dumbed down living room platform emerging -- I think Apple rolls the console guys really easily. The question is can we make enough progress in the PC space to establish ourselves there, and also figure out better ways of addressing mobile before Apple takes over the living room?"
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Newell's full one-hour session​
While Apple has not made any noises about a fresh entry into the games market, it did file patents for a Wii-style wireless controller back in 2008, and has been rumored to be working on a gesture-based user interface for the Apple television set which has obvious potential gaming applications.

Article Link: Steam Founder Gabe Newell Says Apple Could Be Biggest Player in Games Market
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2013/02/01/steam-founder-gabe-newell-says-apple-could-be-biggest-player-in-games-market/
Please no. Gaming is something Apple don't get. I don't want a console that has a featureless black sphere as its only controller. Some things are meant to be complex.
 
Apple could definitely do it, but they need to get a move on.
 
arent steam themselves intending to make a play for this market, with their steam lead modified pc box supposedly in the works
 
iOS became a huge gaming platform almost in spite of Apple (their apathy, or even antipathy towards gaming).

But pretty soon some bright spark in the company is going to realise an iPad 3/iPhone 4 is a fine tablet for the vast majority of tasks and people don't necessarily need to upgrade to an iPhone 5/6.. or an iPad 4/5.. Changing the style of the case helps, but you'll only get so many sales from people wanting a shiny new design.

Once any kind of market saturation is reached, repeat sales become all important, and gaming performance is a great reason to get people to upgrade.

The iOS gaming model (lots of games playable across phone, tablet and now perhaps TV; games costing from free or less than €1 up to €10) could very well blow the other gaming platforms out of the water.
 
Apple & Gaming: no... but partnering w/ Sony or Microsoft or even both to include their next generation consoles into an upcoming Apple TV: yes... and don't say I am crazy. Multiple set-ut-boxes, consoles, players, etc... This is crazy. Todays technology is more and more about merging multiple gadgets into a single one. And I see the upcoming Apple TV as a big opportunity. Maybe not with the first generations but if this device happens, it will be a multi-tasking-monster.
 
I hope not.

This is one thing Microsoft do very well. I love my good ol' 360. Had it since 2005 and its quite remarkable that 8 years on, games like LA Noire with its advanced graphics can look and work so well.

Apple would be pissing around trying to eliminate the controller - we like the controller as it is thank you very much.
 
Sounds likely indeed. I mean, that they'll enter this market soon, not sure if they'll dominate it. But iOS, together with Android, already has a majority share of mobile gaming, so it's not that Apple has presented a poor or unpopular gaming platform.

If Apple enters the game console business, I think it will be simply by enabling third party apps in either the Apple TV or a TV set (or both) and presenting some gaming partners on a keynote. Besides a new controller in the Apple Store, that's actually all they would need to do. They already have the platform with Game Center and iCloud.

Actually, if you consider AirPlay gaming on TV, it can be argued that they're almost already there and just need a dedicated controller better suited for improved accuracy.
 
Baklava said:
Apple & Gaming: no... but partnering w/ Sony or Microsoft or even both to include their next generation consoles into an upcoming Apple TV: yes... and don't say I am crazy. Multiple set-ut-boxes, consoles, players, etc... This is crazy. Todays technology is more and more about merging multiple gadgets into a single one. And I see the upcoming Apple TV as a big opportunity. Maybe not with the first generations but if this device happens, it will be a multi-tasking-monster.
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You're crazy :p

Seriously though. Apple partnering up with Microsoft on a piece of hardware? I dont see that ever happening.
 
What Apple has the potential to do is to capitalise on the same market exposed by the original Wii; not graphically intensive games, but there's plenty of scope for developers to make fun, enjoyable, family oriented games in the living room space. The technology seems to already be good enough on the iOS platform.
 
Northgrove said:
Sounds likely indeed. I mean, that they'll enter this market soon, not sure if they'll dominate it. But iOS, together with Android, already has a majority share of mobile gaming, so it's not that Apple has presented a poor or unpopular gaming platform.
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Theres the issue though. It's mobile gaming. Console gaming is a whole different ball game. You cant get an ARM CPU+GPU combination powerful enough (YET) to do this. Without it producing some pretty low-power games. We've all seen the ****** attempts at the likes of Call of Duty on ARM.

I cant see it being a sudden change that ARM becomes powerful enough for a console that needs to be more powerful than todays MacBook Pros - as thats whats needed of the 'next gen' consoles.
 
The thing is I don't see consoles getting to much further...

Next generation are going to be (it seems we'll see Sony's announcement the 20th) like current PCs, which are a great deal more powerful that Apple iDevices... But for how much longer?

At one point or another phones and tablets are going to be powerful enough to offer great quality visuals even on big screens TVs (right now they use a lot less polygons so mobile devices games look rough or simpler), and since people will carry changing phones every 2-4 years (way faster than we change game consoles), they'll probably end up being the primary gaming platform.

For convenience we'll have bluetooth controllers and the mobile device will serve as a rendering / calculating station that will stream the resulting images to the TV (airplay + AppleTV).

Running the apps directly on the AppleTV can be done but it would just add another target for the developers, and another device to change for the users, but if its just a stream receiver, the users gets all the benefices after a mobile device upgrade (that is expected of him every couple of years) directly.
 
Weird. I was just thinking 2 weeks ago, " What if Apple bought Nintendo?" It's not gonna happen, but it would be cool if Nintendo would license their franchise games to the iOS platform.
 
7thson said:
Weird. I was just thinking 2 weeks ago, " What if Apple bought Nintendo?" It's not gonna happen, but it would be cool if Nintendo would license their franchise games to the iOS platform.
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They'd get a much bigger marketshare if they went with the likes of Ubisoft, EA, Take2/Rockstar, Valve, etc.

Nintendo just dont come across as being anywhere near as strong when it comes to the game portfolio.
 
Hmm, this got me thinking...

What about an AirPlay-enabled game controller which can have gaming apps installed on it?

If using a touch screen and supporting this glorious haptic technology, it's possible that the respective games could reconfigure the controller "buttons" on the go as they needed for optimal gaming experiences. But perhaps kind of annoying too, having to relearn.

Of course, this could also be pretty much how a future iPhone (or iPod touch) might work, so they don't need a new dedicated device for it.
 
Bumped up Apple TV with a bit more storage space (64gb ideally), with access to games Via the Appstore and a bluetooth controller, allow the controller to be paired with iPhones, iPod touches, and iPads, which would also run the same games, from the same store,

Buy a game once, and it plays on all your devices, iCloud saves,

Sold, now release it, shut up and take my money !! :D
 
More of a threat to Nintendo if anything. I don't see Apple making hardcore games like those available on the PC, PS3 and 360.
 
iMacFarlane said:
And in the process, shift "big" gaming from a trickle of AAA releases each month to a continuous deluge of broken mediocrity.
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That's a fair comment based on the current market; but if the masses moved to an iOS (or iOS-like) home gaming solution, the AAA game makers would move too. They'll follow the money. And then we'd see the market evolve too, just as the desktop & console markets evolved over time.

I'm sure we'd start to see the prices creep up as the games became bigger and more complex, but hopefully we'd still have the availability of a huge library of free & cheap games as well.
 
mw360 said:
Please no. Gaming is something Apple don't get. I don't want a console that has a featureless black sphere as its only controller. Some things are meant to be complex.
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Agreed. But gaming consoles are not one of them. The Wii outsold the competition cause it and it's control system was simple to use. And everyone could have fun on it. And now Apple have it right. Apple make the platform and release the API's and the game devs make the games and touch screen controls. Best of both worlds. The devs can't make the hardware, and Apple can't make the games or gaming UI. Apple in the past sucked at this.

iOS has the potential to be the next king of handheld gaming. If it's cards are played right. This is exactly what has Nintendo worried (ie about it's DS line).
 
Phone games are not even real games. Besides how come they don’t say how many of the “app” downloads are games and how many are fart apps, flashlights, ect.? :rolleyes:
 
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