The console industry used to sell high-end wedding cakes. Now they sell wedding cakes, some sheet cakes, and occasionally a pre-boxed slice if there are leftovers. These are your only options for snacking in the living room. You order a wedding cake, go pick it up in a few days, and hope it tastes good.
They are about to find out what happens when piping hot cookies are hand-delivered in 30 seconds or less to the living room, for free.
The only thing Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo have going for them right now is that the iPhone and iPad are drawing away virtually all of Apple's not-inconsiderable attention.
Here's how it will work: Apple will release a $99 controller. It'll look like a SNES controller mated with an iPhone 3GS: 4" standard-resolution multitouch screen, D-pad, four buttons, two shoulder buttons, and a Lightning port. (Inside is NOBODY CARES. gyro, bluetooth, Wifi, iOS SOC, battery.) And, naturally, it will be the least embarrassing looking item in your living room.
You'll take it out of the box, type in your Wifi password, log in to iCloud, and THAT IS IT.
The Apple TV (of which there are millions already installed) leaps into action. All the plumbing is silently set up, the App Store icon appears, a free showpiece game immediately offers to install itself, and Apple connects a half billion users to the television overnight.
Most of the Wii U's best controller ideas are co-opted, the overall controller complexity is a scant third of anyone else's, it retains all the power of touch controls, it requires no complicated setup whatsoever, all the game state is cloud-backed, dozens of touch-resistant game genres suddenly find a home in the lowest-walled garden of any shipping console, customers can add more controllers if desired, and the whole panoply of mobile software can infiltrate the last screen standing.
The Apple TV is a freaking trojan horse, if Apple wants it to be. Nobody else has the UX to stave them off, or the ability to hit the price points Apple can, or their sheer distribution power, or their sheer brand power, or anything.
Free cookies. Not nut-and-raisin filled wedding cakes. Which one is your kid going to reach for?
I think you are sort of right. I think that maybe apple's console entry could become a bastion of $1, low budget casual games. Not because it couldn't handle the hardcore games market, but because the store will be setup with the same problem all apple stores have of low visibility and freemium garbage dominating the storefront. Also a ton of devs will port their already existing casual freemium stuff to this device. This is partially Apple's fault, but largely it is a problem of the wider market that Apple hits. They hit a ton of non-gamers with their products and those people then use the store and push farmville/zynga poker garbage to the top. Apple could address this with their store but I doubt they will. If they wanted to they already would have by now.
The other issue is that Apple products generally sacrifice usability for style, and in this instance that will probably mean a controller with no real buttons or something ridiculous in that vein.
This is fine and it will probably be successful, but it is not even going to be the same market that the xbox, steam box, or ps4 are hitting.
These are two different markets that we are talking about. I don't think the goal of the xbox, ps3 or steam box ever has been to distribute a bunch of low budget $1 casual games.
This is a potentially lucrative market, but it hasn't existed for 3 decades. I'm not even sure it has existed for 1. Changes in technology are only now making this possible, and tbh I hope all the console makers don't join this freemium casual game race to the bottom.
two and a half men and insert generic crime procedural are the most popular tv shows. Would you say CBS is disrupting tv right now by peddling a bunch of cheap garbage to the lowest common denominator audience.
The thing about $1 casual games is that they're now $0 casual games capable of drawing substantial income after the initial "sale".
Pre-paid boxed game software is not a growth industry, and post-paid digital is. It's not theoretical, this is happening now. It's not potentially lucrative, it's currently lucrative. The industry as a whole needs to adapt.
Apple is horrific at the gaming business, and that isn't going to change any time soon. Why? Because it's not a priority, and isn't going to be any time soon.
The substantial infrastructure pieces that Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo have built up in gaming - Apple has none of that, and it isn't going to magically appear. Apple would have to make gaming a top priority, and they will never do that.
Why not? To quote The Lorax "business is business and business must grow." Apple can't ride the iphone wave forever and will need to find new paths to replace the dying/dead ipod revenue stream.
They are about to find out what happens when piping hot cookies are hand-delivered in 30 seconds or less to the living room, for free.
The only thing Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo have going for them right now is that the iPhone and iPad are drawing away virtually all of Apple's not-inconsiderable attention.
Here's how it will work: Apple will release a $99 controller. It'll look like a SNES controller mated with an iPhone 3GS: 4" standard-resolution multitouch screen, D-pad, four buttons, two shoulder buttons, and a Lightning port. (Inside is NOBODY CARES. gyro, bluetooth, Wifi, iOS SOC, battery.) And, naturally, it will be the least embarrassing looking item in your living room.
You'll take it out of the box, type in your Wifi password, log in to iCloud, and THAT IS IT.
The Apple TV (of which there are millions already installed) leaps into action. All the plumbing is silently set up, the App Store icon appears, a free showpiece game immediately offers to install itself, and Apple connects a half billion users to the television overnight.
Most of the Wii U's best controller ideas are co-opted, the overall controller complexity is a scant third of anyone else's, it retains all the power of touch controls, it requires no complicated setup whatsoever, all the game state is cloud-backed, dozens of touch-resistant game genres suddenly find a home in the lowest-walled garden of any shipping console, customers can add more controllers if desired, and the whole panoply of mobile software can infiltrate the last screen standing.
The Apple TV is a freaking trojan horse, if Apple wants it to be. Nobody else has the UX to stave them off, or the ability to hit the price points Apple can, or their sheer distribution power, or their sheer brand power, or anything.
Free cookies. Not nut-and-raisin filled wedding cakes. Which one is your kid going to reach for?