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Apple makes a preliminary move.
- Thread starter Entropy
- Start date
Freak'n Big Panda
Regular
Hmm interesting. I don't think it means anything though, I'd be very very surprised if apple decided to compete with sony nintendo and microsoft in that space.
I don't think it means much of anything... honestly I'm surprised they hadn't done it sooner. I'd read it as more of a defensive/'keep options open' play. Afterall, they don't want to be in a position where someone else starts offering 'Apple' branded gaming devices and they need to get bogged down in court proceedings in order to protect their brand, especially considering the level of convergence going on.
I do think we'll see Apple begin increasingly to offer gaming on their existing platforms, but I think it'll be some time before we see anything from them on the level we'd consider a standalone console.
I do think we'll see Apple begin increasingly to offer gaming on their existing platforms, but I think it'll be some time before we see anything from them on the level we'd consider a standalone console.
Apple would be in a fantastic position to challenge handhelds by combining download gaming into their iTunes sytem.
tongue_of_colicab
Veteran
You dont mean the psp and ds by that do you? because I dont think downloading games will help anything with that. Not to mention it will increase cost by a fair margin, especially if you take into concideration that apple does like earning plenty o money on its hardware.
But couldnt this be aimed more at small games? didnt nintendo already made some kind of deal for making small games for the iPod?
I just dont see apple building a real compatitor for the psp or the DS because they dont have any devs behind them, and what dev will be willing to take ''big'' risks if the DS and psp are sure bets to some extend? Second could apple compete with sony and nintendo? everybody relates those 2 to portable gaming, especially nintendo. Apple might have its name going for itself, but a large part of the apple iPod crowd probably isnt that much into gaming and it might be hard to take away gamers from nintendo and sony. Than there is price. People dont want to spend insane amounts of money on a handheld and given how apple still dares to ask 120 euro's for a 1gb mp3 player a apple handheld will surely cost atleast a billion.
They already manage what with iPods and this would be an extension. It'd be iPod but with games, and I envisage a lot of iPod owning girls liking Tetris and Nintendogs or whatever. It wouldn't be a platform for Daxter or Twisted Metal, but would satisfy a latent gaming market IMO, in competition more with phones than the handhelds.
A large part of the the Wii's market seems to come from people who didn't care to own consoles last gen. Likewise there's probably a market not being served by the current systems. PSP is a games machine that plays music, and isn't so convenient as a music player. Apple could approach that from the other direction building on and advertising to the iPod crowd - you can listen to music and watch videos, and now you can play games. It would be distinct from the proper handhelds and I doubt it's take much from their market share, but it could be a viable business, being something potentially large and more unified than mobile phones. However the expansion of mobile functions would be major competition for a gaming iPod, if one device can serve all a person's interests.
At a price gamers are willing to accept? Not even close. You can call me though when Apple is willing to take a lose on hardware and risk hundreds of millions.
I'm pretty sure if they're driving in that direction, they're doing so with simpler $5 games--potentially up to $10 for more complex ones. (Obviously the control limitations would mean the games pretty much HAVE to be simpler.) Their installed base is impressive right off the bat, and there's a whole lot of flash game and casual game programmers out there who would LOVE to sell through iTunes for a few bucks to that audience.
The trademark extension is really about covering all bases, though. We're getting no real information out of it, and certainly it's no indication that they'd be coming out with the Pippin 2 or anything.
But games at an impulse purchase price (emphasis on new and specifically-designed ones, too, not just emulated old ones) that could potentially be playable on your computer, your portables, or even AppleTV...? That's certainly an avenue worth exploring.
The PSP retails for $170 right now with 4 MB of RAM and no touch screen.
An iPod Touch is $280 with 8 MB and a touchscreen.
You really don't think they have the ability to bridge that gap? They can tie it into Itunes DLs for music, videos and games (PSP doesn't have it), etc.
A touch-derived handheld could sell for under $250 easily.
I think you've got the ram wrong there. The iPod touch supposedly has 512MB of onboard ram and 8, 16 or 32GB of storage. The PSP has 32MB of ram?
My source for the touch specs.
I don't doubt Apple makes more money per unit on the touch than Sony makes on the PSP. iPods seem to have a huge markup.
I don't see any reason the touch couldn't be the base for a gaming platform for apple, if they were so inclined. They'd probably need to add some functional buttons and a memory slot and they'd be good to go. If they released something 1/10th as popular as the iPods they'd have developers lining up. It wouldn't even be a big risk for apple as long as the device played music, people would buy the damn things.
Besides some of your technical details already being wrong, you can't look at it this way. A handheld has to have some sort of way in aging. If an iPod Touch based gaming portable were to launch it would likely need hardware on a level to at very least compete with a next generation PSP which is surely to have much better hardware than the current PSP does. Therefore raising the price by a very large amount based solely on that.
Then lets consider battery life. With a device designed to be under constant medium to heavy power draw how large will that need to be? How high end? Something tells me you're really going to run into an issue there as well.
Then gaming as a whole. Gamers, who this device would likely to be marketed at or else there would be no reason to even mention a new device, expect games from known developers and franchises. They expect a decent budget spent on even the mobile games on a device of this cost. The price is out of the casual range where the DS would destroy it anyway. Therefore Apple has to go out to game developers it has very little real experience with, secure contracts, and make their device stand out in quality of hardware and software. Not easy.
I'm pretty sure if they're driving in that direction, they're doing so with simpler $5 games--potentially up to $10 for more complex ones. (Obviously the control limitations would mean the games pretty much HAVE to be simpler.) Their installed base is impressive right off the bat, and there's a whole lot of flash game and casual game programmers out there who would LOVE to sell through iTunes for a few bucks to that audience.
The trademark extension is really about covering all bases, though. We're getting no real information out of it, and certainly it's no indication that they'd be coming out with the Pippin 2 or anything.
But games at an impulse purchase price (emphasis on new and specifically-designed ones, too, not just emulated old ones) that could potentially be playable on your computer, your portables, or even AppleTV...? That's certainly an avenue worth exploring.
Your first quote makes little sense when talking about a new device. Why redesign the current iPod or iPhone touches for such simple games? In fact they could likely be dumbed down hardware wise, but the casual game market already has a much better fighter than say the PSP market: The Nintendo DS. So a device at say $150 (assuming much lighter in hardware) has to go against a $130 one with the likes of Mario games, Brain Age, and MILLIONS UPON MILLIONS of units and software sold? Unlikely that'll go well.
Sure it's interesting to think about these games that can play on many devices, but we already have those for free. There are a number of high quality flash games that play on my computer, laptop, Wii (in some cases), and iPhone Touch even. Again, why a new device for that?
Why is that figure important?
Skyring - sorry about the bad tech specs (trying to work too), but I think there's a big flaw in your logic. You're assuming an Apple handheld has to target the DS/PSP demographic.
Apple's strength has always be redefining the demographic - not taking markets, but CREATING markets. Look at the iPod and iPhone. People flocked to these devices in droves and they - technically speaking - really aren't the greatest in their traditional markets.
Most early iPod adopters hadn't bought a Rio, just as a large % of iPhone buyers had never owned a smart phone.
An Apple handheld would likely target an unidentified niche or seem rather than go head-to-head with conventional devices. At least that's my guess.
), but I think there's a big flaw in your logic. You're assuming an Apple handheld has to target the DS/PSP demographic.Apple's strength has always be redefining the demographic - not taking markets, but CREATING markets. Look at the iPod and iPhone. People flocked to these devices in droves and they - technically speaking - really aren't the greatest in their traditional markets.
Most early iPod adopters hadn't bought a Rio, just as a large % of iPhone buyers had never owned a smart phone.
An Apple handheld would likely target an unidentified niche or seem rather than go head-to-head with conventional devices. At least that's my guess.
I disagree with that. If they're going after the 'casual' market a la Wii, they could go with something simplistic. You wouldn't even need 3D hardware to be able to support titles that many current iPod owners might be interested in playing. High quality AA'd 2D vector drawing would suffice for platformers and puzzlers and top-down racers and all sorts, like a SNES/Megadrive/Amiga in game offerings.
tongue_of_colicab
Veteran
I can agree with that. Basically that is what is done for ages now with mobile games like snake, only maybe a bit more complicated but along the same lines. But imo that doesnt make it a handheld then. Just a phone/mp3 player with same extra entertainment functions.
I'll bite, I dont agree with that nor do I think there is any real reliable info on that subject to make that claim.
My problem with these multifunctional devices is that at some point they dont know what they want to be anymore. Intergrating a phone, video and music player with each other is easy to do as video and music dont require something a phone wont already have so you dont really have to change anything in your phone design. If you want to change it into a real handheld it will get cluncky, bigger and less appealing because it needs to fit into your hands, you need well placed buttons etc.
In that case it would be different yes because you could for example base everything on a touchscreen so no need to change to design to include ''properhandheld'' usability. But what would this add to the existing mobile gaming world? there already are tons of mobile phone games, even ones that tend to be more handheld games. If apple goes the way you describe it wont be alot different from the mobile games that are already out there.
No, but then iPod is no different to other MP3's so why's it so successful? Software is one thing. I know people who have mobile phones and go through clunky awkward interfaces to get games. How much better would it be to use iTunes and select titles just like music tracks, download them to your PC, and manage them from there? Because there's millions of iTunes users already, this service will fit in with their experience nicely. The problem with phones is they're shoe-horning new features in without proper structure. A slick device that actually takes a ground-up approach to the problem, not just in hardware but also in services, would be very marketable IMO. In this respect any service from Apple would (hopefully) get serious competition from Sony's network on PSP with direct downloads to PSP or PC, if they ever roll it out properly!
