18 
According to Nat Brown – the co-founder of the Xbox, and ex-Microsoft engineer — Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo should be quaking in their boots. Not because Valve’s going to kill them off, or Ouya, but of Apple. If it wanted to, Apple could simply kill them all.
In a blog post ruing Microsoft’s recent decisions and moves with the Xbox, Brown said:
“Apple, if it chooses to do so, will simply kill Playstation, Wii U and Xbox by introducing an open 30 per cent-cut app/game ecosystem for Apple-TV.
“I already make a lot of money on iOS – I will be the first to write apps for Apple-TV when I can, and I know I’ll make money.”
He goes on to say that even without the Apple TV having any sort of gaming powers it’s selling a lot, with large year-on-year growth to boot. The reason Brown is so adamant that Apple could kill the main-stable of games consoles is simply because of access.
Writing apps for iOS is simple and cheap in comparison to writing games for the Xbox. Microsoft charges over £6,000 a year to develop games for the Xbox, and has a similar veto power to Apple. There’s also a mountain of paperwork, and a load of pretty complex and expensive tools. In comparison, Apple’s £60-a-year iOS developer program comes with a complete SDK and all the tools required to at least get going. The only pre-requisite is that you’re using a Mac to code.
I’m not quite sure why Apple’s steered clear of gaming on the Apple TV. It could easily open up the market by simply adding an App Store. You have a controller in the form of an iPhone or iPod touch, and you know developers would be all over it. Gaming is massive on iOS, and a huge part of Apple’s App Store revenue. I’m sure it’ll happen one day, and Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo better prepare well because they could be totally wiped out if they’re not careful. [Nat Brown]
Pirate Bay Co-Founder Charged With Hacking and Fraud in Sweden
RIM Co-Founder Jim Balsillie Steps Down From Board Ahead Of Grim Earnings
Microchip Inventor and Intel Co-Founder Robert Noyce Stars in Today's Google Doodle
Apple TV – LOL
lol
Right, has anyone seen Plex/Roku recently? Makes Apple TV look like a childs toy.
When Apple releases a £1500 32″ 16gb dual core TV running a cut down version of iOS who’ll be laughing then !?!?……….. Everyone
I read this on Kotaku this morning, and the guy is absolutely full to the brim with shit.
He starts off well-reasoned and fair, but then throws this line in when criticising MS’s strategies:
“Touting strategic and market success when you’re just experiencing your competitor’s stumbling failure (yes, Sony, Nintendo—you are, I’m afraid, stumbling failures).”
That immediately makes him into a fool. He then rounds off the summary by admitting that he’s now a mobile platform developer, which sums him up as yet another of the “consoles are dead” brigade and invalidates his entire argument.
Totally agree. The “consoles are dead” brigade really boil my piss.
Simple fact: Mobile != Console.
If you extend the ‘logic’ they tout, you could argue Ferrari are dead because Hyundai make cars that are cheaper and easier to drive.
Nobody ever seems to notice that driving a Ferrari and driving a Hyundai gives you, without question, a different experience.
Same with Mobile vs. console. *
* Certainly for the next couple of years. Future results may vary. Not usable in conjunction with any other offers.
This.
Who in their right minds wants to play mobile phone games on a 55 inch screen?!
If its not Apple TV’s its Apple watches, the people who come up with these rumours and speculation are running out of ideas as to where Apple could go next to find growth, and thats all these people are really interested in, so they can sell their naively bought $700 shares at a profit. What are they gona do when Apple does release an over priced 32″ Apple TV running nothing more impressive than iOS and a iPod shuffle in watch form ? Start the revolutionary Apple iBlender, iToaster rumours ?
Yeah, I bet Rolex are literally shitting in their collective pants.
Isn’t the watch entirely obsolete for the “youf” of today anyway? Seems like a bold move to make something that does a portion of the functions of your other products and still expect people to carry both around with them.
I think a Apple watch might sell well initially if its priced at about the same price as the current shuffle but then it’ll do nothing more than replace the shuffle and certainly wont increase Apples sales, also the mark up on it wont be very much. As for the Apple TV when a half way decent 42″ TV costs £800 whats an Apple TV gona cost ? £1200 hardly a mass market price which everyone is gona rush out and buy. Its just a bunch of clueless investors struggling to think of things Apple could do next, so they’ve plumped for the two most stupidly obvious things they could think of, without thinking of the practicalities.
Yeah, like Apple killed off Android, Windows and XBMC, right?
Pfft. Fat chance. Apple do not know how to video games, as evidenced by Game Centre’s shoddiness and the constant underpowered nature of Macs.
Apple killed Windows Mobile and Symbian, and did a massive amount of damage to Blackberry.
Android is a post-iPhone product.
Android is a post-iPhone product. It’s not as clear cut as that:
Android development started in 2003, Google bought it in 2005, first commercially available phone 2008.
iPhone development started in 2004, first commercially available phone 2007
Apple where quicker off the bat with a purchasable product but Android was in development first albeit not by Google.
Have you seen what Android looked like before the iPhone was unveiled (in short: Blackberry). If they’d released it in its 2006 stage, it’d have been in serious trouble, either having to piss off early adopters by scrapping the initial version, or had to drag along the burden of legacy compatibility with a Qwerty driven interface for all these years like Blackberry OS and Symbian had to.
If Apple killed Windows Phone, then why can you still go out and buy a phone with Windows Phone?
Read the post properly.
Windows “Phone” (as it is today) is also a post-iPhone product, brought in to replace Windows Mobile, which the iPhone killed stone dead.
Android really killed Windows Mobile when all the manufacturers jumped ship and started developing Android devices instead. If Android didn’t exist today, Windows Mobile would likely still be a contender in the low/mid end market. The iPhone certainly made its mark, but giving it all the credit is certainly overstating it.
Also Microsoft stuck in the final knife in when they said they were effectively going to stop developing it in favour of Windows Phone.
I pity the fool who thinks Apple TV > xbox360+ps3+wii
Yesterday MS basically said you will be able to programme apps for windows, and they will work on all MS devices… so i doubt developers will be ditching that platform any time soon.
Apple and gaming do not go well together, and I can never see anything on iOS giving me the kind of experiences I had on the PS1 never mind the PS3.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Bandai_Pippin
Haha, Battlefield 3 on an Apple TV?!
I don’t think its that simple.. Apple has never missed an opportunity to make money before, I don’t see them starting now.
Lets not forget the Pippin and what a total failure that was.
I can definitely see an app store on Apple TV selling games and maybe even a controller evenually, but until people are willing to pay £20/£30/£40 per game on the Apple TV they will always be small pick up and play games or ports lacking in real depth.
Thats the market Xbox/PS3 thrive in, complex and detailed games which takes years to develop with large skilled teams to develop them.
I just don’t see Apple going for that Market.
If it’s a means to get kids off multiplayer on the 360/ps3 .. then i’m all up for it.
Because, yeah, everyone’s going to put down BF3 and play something from the iOS app store instead.
It is shocking to discover the co-founder of the xbox knows nothing about gaming or gaming culture.
Does he think Angry Birds is a real computer game of something? That a hardened Playstation user would be happy to use an over-lagging iPhone touch screen as a controller for an on-line first person shooter? That rather than next generation consoles they want mobile device games? That Apple is culturally relevant to the gaming community? Rather than being hated as a technology company that is currently patent trolling, and thus holding back technology? Wow, that’s a big fucking sell to the gaming community? This guy must be thinking an effeminate Apple market dig real hardcore computer games?
But sadly, the kind of money Apple have in the bank that they could prove to a real pain in the ass to any business if they wanted to. But they would need to do a Microsoft to do that in the gaming world, which would involve years of open development, under cutting competition, endorsing non-family friendly entertainment, investing billions on a high risk, win the hearts and minds of gamers with a brand that doesn’t say Apple- not really Apple’s style.
And mobile gaming devices will one day kill the console market, we are some time from that, but that is Apple’s only hope, if they can get leverage back on the mobile market, and stop the same rot happening currently with the tablet market. Game developers don’t go for the easy coding option, they apply themselves to develop for the real market and aim to make real money in return.
I’d like to see a 500+ hour RPG on an Apple device, or a game which isn’t a casual flash game made for nothing more than to be played while waiting for the train to arrive, and won’t last longer than the journey.
Also, Nintendo is purely an entertainment/video game company, they won’t be leaving the video game industry any time soon. Microsoft? Maybe. Sony? Perhaps. But not Nintendo. In face, none of these companies are going to be affected by the Ouya or Steam console, or Apple TV. If they could get affected by something as irrelevant as these, or by PC gaming, then the companies would have been out of the video game industry a long time ago.
*In fact, not in face hahah
IMHO the reason Apple TV sells so well is because it’s cheap (and does exactly what it needs to do) – at £99 a pop I’ve bought a couple for around the house so I can stream my media wherever I want.
If Apple decided to boost the ATV’s specs to cope with gaming it would I assume become a more expensive device, which would be a real shame if all you want is a way to watch your legally downloaded TV shows on your TV.
ATV Pro perhaps?
“I’m not quite sure why Apple’s steered clear of gaming on the Apple TV. It could easily open up the market by simply adding an App Store.”
I think we both know why it’s not been implemented. Because it’s a feature they can add to the next model.
Oh, for sure, but why has that new model not raised it’s ugly head yet?
I agree – it’s interesting that they’ve held off this long, and now with next gen consoles on the horizon they may have missed the prime opportunity to smother opposition. Or perhaps they plan to let them launch their puny consoles before stealing the limelight? another good 4 years of R&D down the drain if they managed to hit sales in that way.
Well, I’m inclined to believe what he says, given who he is, and I see the point he’s making.
I can’t see it happening myself, at least when it comes to complex, rich and vivid gaming experiences anyway. Surely a lot of complex games, on the level of say Skyrim or Far Cry 3, simply aren’t achievable using Apple’s SDK?
EA’s managed to make the Real Racing series, which is about as close to console gaming as you get on a phone/tablet.
Apple would kill them all off in the West at least. If the current i devices are anything to go by, then they killed off the regular dedicated handheld gaming market. Why would you pay £30-40 for a game when you could pay 59p or nothing at all because it’s F2P? The PC has already moved to the F2P model and lots of developers are finally wising up to it. The consoles like the PS3 or 360 are just so far behind and the new consoles wont do anything to change that.
Sure, and the iPad has already killed off the gaming PC?
Anyways, I’ve already killed off my xbox with an HDMI cable to the TV and an xbox controller. I doubt the masses are going to go for that though.
Sam, you should have a section of the site dedicated to your photoshop skills. You’re an inspiration to us all
It’s not going to happen. the reason apple tv is so cheap is because it’s not exactly powerful.
To upgrade the hardware to be able to do anything near as good looking and advanced as consoles would mean a huge increase in cost, then you may as well just buy a console.
If they just updated it to have the GPUs of the iphone iPad I can see if would be great for quick games like ipad/iphones which will no doubt come in the next few generations of the device, but it will never have the sort of power that the consoles will have, if it did it would be way too expensive and simply wouldn’t sell like it does now, which it only really does as it’s so cheap, and a great media streamer.
So yep, guy doesn’t seem to have a clue!
Technically with the money apple have they could practically take over any industry if they really wanted to, but the Apple TV is definitely not going to do that!
What the article describes as pro’s for gaming on Apple TV I would put as cons.
Firstly the box would surely need a hefty processing upgrade to handle anything like the sort of games we’re used to on PS3 or 360, especially in the FPS/3rd person shooter arena.
Secondly, using an iphone or ipod Touch as a controller, which suggests if you don’t have one then you’d have to buy one, making it a stupidly expensive controller, on top of which touch screen control devices do not work well, you only have to look at the driving games on iOS or Android to see that, how can you balance the throttle around the corner when it’s either on or off, we left those days behind generations ago!
What it could do is capture the casual gaming market in the way that the Wii did, but no one would ever suggest that a solely casual gaming system would kill off proper games or hardware, any more than the 360/PS3 killed the PC.
I also imagine that the next-gen consoles will cost around £500, and will likely be subsidised within that price, you will be getting £700-800 of technology for a bargain price – capable of next-gen gaming. This is what Sony has always done. Compare that to a iPhone 5 that costs £120 to make a retailers for £500+. So Apple would be taking on the gaming empire, £700 worth of the latest fastest gaming tech, with a budget ARM box – fuck off!
But we can’t hold a half-wit talking out of turn for this article infringing on our reality, as it did a few days ago, it is the other half-wits that read it and believe such a stupid statement to carry any weight and then go troll happy with it.
What are you Gibbs, plain stupid or a menacing troll? Because regarding an article like that the word ‘journalist’ could only be used in jest. It seems the astute image I had of someone reporting with honour and integrity make have taken a back seat for cheap tricks, such a shame how people compromise themselves in a quest of meaningless numbered hits.
Time gone, stolen, never to be returned, life is far too short for cuntverts.
Will Apple take over the console market by sueing the f outa Sony,MS,Nintendo for using a square like design for thier consoles?
Apple patent the “Box under the TV allowing you to play a game on the TV with a handheld controller and sue Sony and MS” is the headline I would expect to see if this ever comes off.
Who the fuck would develop a triple-A game in objective C?
The horror.