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Why aren’t there many games for the ATV?

rayriceroni00

rayriceroni00

Suspended
Original poster
Nov 12, 2016
150
1,181
I had high hopes years ago when the new Apple TV came out and it took Bluetooth controllers.

Yet today, we have only a few decent games. Do developers just not care? No viable market here and instead focus on iPhone and iPad?
 
 dropped the ball on the gaming side of tvOS. They hamstrung it and now gaming is dead on the platform.
 
There is no default gamepad you can rely on everyone having and you have to make your game be able to work with the remote(this part may be out dated)
 
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My son played a lot of games when he was younger. We were thinking this would be good platform for my grandson who loves playing games. Once we started buying games they were cheaper like other apps on the platform and the developers put so much in app purchase that it was so difficult to navigate the he pretty much gave up. He ended up with the Nintendo Switch which my grandson loves to play. And sometimes he plays XBOX Games. I also bought games for Apple TV for my house and got 2 controls and again it was just not enjoyable for him.

They totally screwed this part of Apple TV. I would love for them to offer a Gaming Apple TV and have an option to eliminate in app purchases.
 
d21mike said:
They totally screwed this part of Apple TV. I would love for them to offer a Gaming Apple TV and have an option to eliminate in app purchases.
Click to expand...

That will never happen. IAP is too lucrative.
 
JBaby said:
That will never happen. IAP is too lucrative.
Click to expand...
And that is why I believe it will continue to fail. XBOX and others charge a much higher price to begin with and allow players to simply enjoy playing the games without scam type tactics.
 
d21mike said:
And that is why I believe it will continue to fail. XBOX and others charge a much higher price to begin with and allow players to simply enjoy playing the games without scam type tactics.
Click to expand...

I agree with you. I’m an old school gamer. Unfortunately the market has proven that just like the rest of the mobile app economy, people don’t want to pay full price for games. This is another problem  created.
 
1. No bundled official Apple controller
2. No A-list titles to attract gamers (C.O.D., Destiny, Red Dead, Fortnight, etc.)
3. Existing games are mostly ports from iOS, which are usually typically lower-budget builds designed for small-screen, on-the-go experience.
4. Lack of sufficient CPU/GPU power to support A-list games.

I suspect the customer expectation of cheap App Store pricing also likely scares away A-list game houses who rightly want to recoup on six to seven figure investments in development and marketing costs.

It's no secret the gaming industry is bigger than the motion picture industry. IMO, Apple needs to take some of the big money they are investing in original TV and movie content and divert it towards game dev and PR. And now that they are going to allow Airplay on smart TVs, Apple could easily re-boot the Apple TV as a dedicated gaming "console."
 
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This has been a big disappointment for me as well. I was pretty active on the forum the year prior to the ATV4, and was really excited about the rumors and possibilities. Before joining MR, I frequented the MacLife forums, which have disappeared, but was an ATV fan back then too.

Before the launch of the ATV4, there were a lot of rumors claiming that Apple was making a "console killer", and that gaming was a big interest for Apple. As we all know now, this never materialized.

The reason for the lack of good gaming on the Apple TV can be blamed solely on Apple, and a lot of their decisions related to tvOS at launch. This killed any momentum that the ATV had to be a gaming device.

1. The requirement for apps to use the Siri remote.
- This was probably the biggest road block to over come.
- It basically made it too hard for Devos to bring quality games to the tvOS.
- Take any popular console game, and then try to envision a version that had to be used with the Siri Remote.
- There should have been a standardize Apple gaming controller similar to existing gaming controllers.

2. The use of the A8 chip.
- The A8 was already few generations old at the ATV4 launch.
- The A8 is underpowered for console quality games from at least the last 2 generations of consoles.

3. The app size limitation was set really low at the time of the tvOS launch.
- I believe it was 200MB, more could be downloadable content, but it puts a hurdle in an already uphill race.
- This makes it harder to port existing games that do not already have a 200MB.

4. The ATV gaming presentation at the ATV4 event.
- CrossyRoads was not the best choice in my opinion.
- There should have been a well know graphic intensive port to show the capabilities of the ATV4.
- This is a sad moment for Apple imo.


ruka.snow said:
you have to make your game be able to work with the remote(this part may be out dated)
Click to expand...
This was changed a while back, but the damage was already done.
 
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