Pachter: Apple 2013 Console
- Thread starter TheChefO
- Start date
Last I heard (yesterday), Diablo III had been postponed to "sometime in 2013".
By then, well, I wouldn't be surprised if an iPad4 with A15 CPU-cores, PVR series 6 based graphics, and more and faster memory would be easily capable of playing the game. I hope Blizzard has the sense to say no to the money, the decline in world productivity could be devastating.
This article of faith lies at the core of a lot of your argumentation. But it is a personal opinion, and it is not supported by sales data.The bestselling handheld last generation was the DS, not the PSP, the bestselling console was the Wii, and all of these game consoles seem to outsell what is undisputably the most powerful platform for gaming available, PCs. At least in the USA.
So sales data is a neat reverse pyramid, with the weakest hardware on top, and the most powerful hardware at the bottom in terms of sales. It bears thinking about.
Computer gaming essentially provides entertainment, and the consumers buy value - fun/dollar. At some point graphics sophistication will contribute very little to overall perceived value, and at that point technical progress is completely driven by industry inertia, rather than consumer demand. I'd contend that the fact that the sales pyramid looks like it does means that we are already well past the point of diminishing return to most consumers.
If there were no other differences, I'd agree.
But there were differences in Wii vs HD consoles aside from graphics.
There were differences in DS vs PSP aside from graphics.
The closest match in your case would be ps2 vs xbox and again, there were more differences than Graphics ...
Factors at play:
Game cost
Game selection
Game graphics/experience
Game network/ecosystem (live/psn)
Game delivery
Game interface
Game portability
Initial cost
Friend peer factor
All of these factors impact a purchase decision, but at some point, system "power" does play a role and provides a clean break for people to either choose to buy or not to buy ... or to choose what platform to buy games for.
We saw that with Wii's attach rate being significantly less than xb360. We see Wii's install base falling significantly lower than the previous market leader ps2, and yet sales of HD consoles being stronger yoy.
DS being a portable system, battery power is important, and being a replacement for a babysitter, software library is important. Initial cost is important, and game cost is important.
Xbox's graphics enabled MS to get a foothold vs PS2. Without that advantage, their userbase would have been substantially smaller considering the established and dominant player that Sony was with ps2.
As for PC's, they are a pain (Rage) to deal with for setting them up to game and most people don't even think (or realize) to hook it up to their TV or that they can use an xb360 game pad.
Yep, .NET is fully portable. However, Win8 supports native development too, just like Win7. I suspect devs will just build both ARM and x64 versions of their product and let Setup choose which one to install. No translation layers needed. That's what we do today with x86/x64, so it's not like it doesn't happen every day already.
Study: U.S. gaming population has nearly tripled in three years
http://venturebeat.com/2012/02/08/study-u-s-gaming-population-has-nearly-tripled-in-three-years/
http://venturebeat.com/2012/02/08/study-u-s-gaming-population-has-nearly-tripled-in-three-years/
That's for their GameCenter effort. If games is iOS's top category, then Apple will want to improve it further. It may not mean they will launch a dedicated game box. There are also rumors that Apple is going to build a HDTV. I'm a little taken aback by that rumor, but whatever. ^_^
EDIT:
While we are at it...
Study: 'App Economy' has created 500,000 jobs since 2007
http://www.engadget.com/2012/02/08/study-app-economy-has-created-500-000-jobs-since-2007/
We use AnyCPU for the most part that just does the "right thing" if you don't have native DLL's you're dependent on.
There are also work arounds to select the native DLL's at runtime.
But yes there are may options available once you have a byte-code representation, including compile on run and even compile on install.
The next OSX update adds Airplay Mirroring. Looks like those AppleTV sales will continue to climb. Looks like AppleTV really might be the solution Apple is looking at to capture the living room.
http://www.cultofmac.com/146771/apple-announces-mac-os-x-10-8-mountain-lion-breaking/
Also, Gamecenter is coming to OSX with cross-platform play to iOS, including friends lists, voice chat, leaderboards, invites etc.
http://www.appleinsider.com/article...r_cross_platform_play_between_mac_os_ios.html
http://www.cultofmac.com/146771/apple-announces-mac-os-x-10-8-mountain-lion-breaking/
Also, Gamecenter is coming to OSX with cross-platform play to iOS, including friends lists, voice chat, leaderboards, invites etc.
http://www.appleinsider.com/article...r_cross_platform_play_between_mac_os_ios.html
Yeah, once they get tv's out there that have Apple TV built in, then any Apple device can mirror to any such tv. That's a good idea, where the Apple TV serves as a dumb terminal of sorts. It's cheap to build into tv's and provided the basics and/or grab new customers, then you can use your other Apple devices for more substantial stuff on the same TV. I'd presume Microsoft will follow suit with a similar idea, and over time the two of them will be the last ones standing. At this point I have to wonder if there are still any people left that don't believe Apple will be making a major play for the living room.
So we now have Microsoft bringing Live to Win 8, and Apple bringing Gamecenter to OSX. Let the games begin
Airplay is basically just like DLNA, but you can also mirror your desktop, or whatever they call it on iOS, to your tv. I imagine the advantage with Apple devices is that they'll make it basically automatically configured and accessible at the press of a button from your iPhone, iPad and macbook, instead of messing with some clunky freeware DLNA server.
Just like. It's all proprietary protocols, but serves the same purpose with whatever Apple-y add-ons.
They are also adding iMessage to OSX. So they have Gamecenter, iMessage, Facetime, iTunes, appstore, bookstore, airplay that function across their entire ecosystem. Pretty comprehensive package of services and content that rivals Live and PSN, if not bests it in many areas, and across hundreds of millions of devices. Still don't see this targeting the "hardcore" games, but the Live Arcade and PSN downloadable title market may be at threat.
It had everything that certainly Sony have fumbled about with tragically and uselessly. But the real problem for Apple IMO is that you have to buy Apple gear at Apple premiums and be locked into their services. If they expanded their iStuff to Android and GoogleTV and stuff, and you could buy a Sammy TV that runs Apple's services, they'd have nothing to stop them. Other than a proper games console - there'd still be need for someone else to procide that at the moment.
You can use iTunes on Windows, so it's not as if iOS users are in the dark without a Mac. And having people locked into their ecosystem is pretty much exactly what Microsoft and Sony have done with their gaming strategies. Sony is branching into Android or something, right? You can already run your Apple services on any TV with you want, with a fairly cheap AppleTV 2.
For the full unified experience you ahve to have an Apple tablet, Apple phone, Apple TV box, and it used to be Apple computer.
Yes, it's a good plan if you can become ubiquitous. With gaming, as people's gaming is localised to one box, it doesn't matter. The moment gaming extends to all your devices, being locked to a particular supplier is going to be limiting. eg. If Windows Live is going to require a Windows phone to play games you can also play on your Windows PC and XBox console, than MS force a choice about which hardware to buy on potential clients. If the software platform is hardware agnostic, and you're free to buy your devices of choice from Android phones, iPhone, Windows phones, etc., then the customers have less reason to avoid you.
Yes, but that's going hardware independent. You don't have to buy Sony hardware to run the Sony Network content. If Sony's tablet is a bit poop and ASUS is better, you are free to get the ASUS and still take your SEN content with you. If the iPad is a bit expensive for your tastes but you already have iTunes content, you just have to suck it up and pay more or go without.
It'd be like every movie studio having its own format rather than one standard for DVD players. We're seeing a format war for a unified content platform. It's MS vs. Apple vs. Google at the moment. Sony are wanting to ride the coattails of Google with PSS and SEN.
I agree that it would be nice to have a hardware agnostic solution, but that comes with the problems of the PC space, where developers have to test their software on an incredibly wide variety of hardware with different processing abilities and screen sizes. They also lose the ability to "code to the metal" as lots of people love to talk about. Those have been the nice advantages the console have held over the PC space. In terms of hardware, Apple provides a fairly small and predictable (in terms of releases) hardware platform to support. I don't think Apple will ever port their services and content to other platforms, at least not entirely. They may put some services on other devices, but they'll keep most of the gold to themselves. To be honest, I don't see Sony or Microsoft being any different. Microsoft may port services, but they'll keep the best and most interesting features on their own phones, consoles, PCs. Sony isn't about to ditch hardware and become a software company, so they'll always tie their best features to their hardware. Platform agnosticism isn't their business.
Hardware variety isn't really an issue with suitable middleware. It does mean losing out on peak performance, but the convenience is well worth it for many, I reckon. And for most content it's irrelevant; only for serious games. Well if you're looking at a game that can be played on console, PC and mobile, then that's hardly of great importance.
As for hardware companies savign the best stuff for themselves, that's fine. You need a reason for people to buy your profitable hardware after all. You just have to ensure that they have reasons to buy in but no reasons not to. In Apple's case, they could provide an improved experience on their hardware maybe, but as long as I have to buy an Apple device before I can consume Apple content, there's a big step. Surely it's better to offer iTunes on Droid and stuff to get people hooked on the content, and then wave a tantalising new bit of hardware to the people who already own iStuff and say, "run your iStuff on this for an even better experience than on your old Droid" ?
As for hardware companies savign the best stuff for themselves, that's fine. You need a reason for people to buy your profitable hardware after all. You just have to ensure that they have reasons to buy in but no reasons not to. In Apple's case, they could provide an improved experience on their hardware maybe, but as long as I have to buy an Apple device before I can consume Apple content, there's a big step. Surely it's better to offer iTunes on Droid and stuff to get people hooked on the content, and then wave a tantalising new bit of hardware to the people who already own iStuff and say, "run your iStuff on this for an even better experience than on your old Droid" ?
