Pachter: Apple 2013 Console
- Thread starter TheChefO
- Start date
Yes because the RAZR's non touch 2" LCD was so awesome...
Oh btw the RAZR wasn't released in the 90s...lol...it was released in 2004 and lived until it got killed in 2007 by the iPhone...
Apparently selling cheaper phones didn't help Motorola against the "more expensive" iPhone...
As for being inferior.....time to take off the rose tinted goggles. The RAZR could only hope to be a "smart" phone...as there was nothing smart about it. It was a basic flip phone with a fancy aluminum exterior....in fact I used to own one along with my friends and family. It was nice when it first came out but it stagnated and got surpassed by smartphones with large touchscreens. Comparing the RAZR to a iPhone or any real smart phone is like comparing cassette to CD.
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Silent_Buddha
Legend
The point is that you can't know that. If the iPhone and its competitors had the exact same hardware and hence the exact same BOM, would Apple still price their phones at a similar level to their competition if their competition was selling its phone at say a 10% or 15% margin?
That question is highly relevant to this discussion as if they wish to be successful in the console business they either do something completely un-Apple like (as in never before in the history of the company except perhaps back in the 80's when they used to heavily discount Apple ]['s for educational institutions) and sell for little to nor margins, or they accept that they will always be a niche player in the console market and hence the living room with a significantly higher priced console.
Just like you don't see Apple competing at the lower end of the smartphone range due to the razor thin margins or underperforming hardware at that level. They compete only at the high end where margins are fat.
Entering the console arena they don't have much of a choice. They either price according to their competition and thus low to negligible margins for hardware (unthinkable for Apple), include inferior hardware (more palatable but still not preferable for that companies philosophy), or they price it high with Apple style margins and accept that they'll be a niche player.
PS3 already showed that high prices won't do you any favors. So it's either low margins if compete with X360/PS3 level of hardware and price points or Wii level of hardware if you want highly profitable margins on hardware.
There is nothing similar to the markets where iPod, iPhone, or iPad did well where you had could have high margin, high hardware specs, high price and market domination.
The closest thing to the console market would be the home computing market. And despite the gains Apple has made there they remain a small player, hence why Apple's revenue is dominated by the iPod (past), iPhone, and iPad. And this considering they have been entrenched in the home computing space for over 3 decades, and not potentially just breaking into it like they would be attempting to do with a home console.
Hence, why many of us figure they are far more interested in tapping into the set top box market which could possibly be turned around with an iOS device with more features than the Apple TV rather than a home gaming console as we tend to think of consoles.
Regards,
SB
Apple does compete at the lower end of the smartphone range with their older generation phones which they still make and are given away for free with new contract...
Sigfried1977
Legend
Yeah. Can anybody name an example where a Pachter Prediction actually came true?
There's a few, but the ones that did were the ones that could have been telegraphed (and probably were) by anybody with an internet connection, or anyone with a shred of common sense.
There's a lot he doesn't understand about the entertainment industry in general (which includes the game industry). While he understands business, he doesn't understand technology, or how a technology company is driven by its products, rather than the other way around. This is what makes a lot of his "gut" predictions wrong. The more you look at how Apple handles its technology and its products, the less likely an entry into the console market appears to be. Just because Steve Jobs is gone doesn't mean the company's going to do a complete 180 on how it does its business.
What that exampled showed was a mixture of multiple factors:
High price
Premium brand
Expensive non-core experience value-add (bluray)
Late launch
Roughly comparable hardware, software and experience to much cheaper competition
Some of these are relatively comparable to an assumed Apple Console:
High Price
Premium Brand
Roughly comparable hardware equivalent or less than competition
But there is no expensive new media forcing a premium price and the functionality of a IOS ibox would be a value add in comparison to xb720/ps4.
Apple would just need to decide if all the potential profits from media and services would be worth it from a always livingroom connected device serving tv, movies, games, music, and ad revenue...
Or if they're happy with their piece of the pie...
One thing we know about most publicly traded capitalist companies... It's never enough.
They'll always want/need to show growth. So when market saturation is hit in the regions they are currently targeting, they will have to show growth from another market, else face the wrath of falling stock prices.
With all of that said, there is a proven business model (razor-blade) in the games biz. Whether Apple chooses to follow it, or if they "think they're special" remains to be seen.
There are a few cross platform goodies that are extras. None of which I'd assume core to the experience enough to move hardware on their own (those gadgets already exist) but would be nice to have on a always-TV-connected device.
Silent_Buddha
Legend
Yes, but Apple still makes a healthy margin off of those. Apple certainly isn't giving away those phones for free or for a low margin.
Do you envision some sort of 2 year contract plan attached to the hypothetical Apple console that would allow them to maintain the high margins, with a relatively high level of hardware, while selling for the same price as the X360 and PS3? Or potentially the next generation of each respective console?
I suppose it "could" be possible if they neglect to put an ethernet port on the console. Or neglect to put a 802.11 b/g/n wireless receiver in the console. They could force users into an expensive phone data plan with 2 year contract I suppose. But, IMO, that would still lead them to be a niche player in the console arena.
Regards,
SB
There are a few cross platform goodies that are extras. None of which I'd assume core to the experience enough to move hardware on their own (those gadgets already exist) but would be nice to have on a always-TV-connected device.
All the brands have their own little goodies that are extras. Apple has no inherent advantage in this arena.
You've obviously never owned an iPhone or iPad...they're computers with full web browsers, wordprocessing apps, photo editing apps, movie editing apps, spreadsheet apps etc...use your brain man. An Apple STB could be used as a productivity tool instead of your run of the mill game console that is only for entertainment. Can you show me how to browse the web on my Xbox? Can I install IE or Opera on my Xbox? Can I check basic email on my Xbox? Can I upload a photo to Facebook, a video to Youtube? Can I shop on Amazon with my Xbox? Can I check my bank statements? Can I write a word document, save it and email it to a coworker on an Xbox? Can I edit photos and videos on my Xbox? Didn't think so...
Dude your logic is all over the place, you said Apple doesn't compete in the lower end smartphone range...I proved you wrong -> iPhone 3GS. Heck even the iPhone 4 is $99 with contract. Any person with a brain can deduce that they have the lowend iPhone 3GS $0, midrange iPhone 4 $99 and highend iPhone 4S $199 covered. The competiton does exactly the same thing.
Next you respond with the false assumption that Apple products always requires a large profit margin? Says who? Where is your proof?
Finally you use the same false assumption to say an Apple console has to be sold with a 2 year contract??? WTF? A console is not a phone!! You were the one who brought up phones as some kind of proof that Apple doesn't compete with low margin lowend smartphones but since that got shot down you're shifting that argument to consoles with contracts? Stop backpedaling and shifting the goal posts man. There is no reason why Apple couldn't introduce a STB that makes a small profit on hardware while leveraging its other software services. There's no law that says they have to have the best hardware that cost twice as much as the competition. I could see them perfectly happy with a middle ground STB solution that does everything.
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Steve Jobs, in one of his early iPhone presentations, explained why Apple focussed on the cell phone market. He showed a slide with number of sold units per year of a number of classes of electronics devices: consoles, PCs and cell phones among them, cell phones of course being far and away the largest, over three times the size of the PC market. (Incidentally, there are over 6 billion subscriptions today, with China and India being the largest markets. The web reporting that covers only the comparatively small USA market gives a very skewed view.) Consoles of course was a fraction of the total PC market.
Steves point was that you don't have to achieve a large market penetration in percentage to achieve pretty damn large numbers of handsets sold, and with it both solid revenue and a healthy ecosystem.
Gaming consoles, particularly stationary models, reach roughly a tenth of the PC yearly volume, and a thirtieth or so of cell phone volumes. For comparisons sake, Apple sold as many iOS devices during 2011 as the total aggregate console sales of Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft put together since the introduction of their respective stationary models in 2005/2006, (just under half of which have been Wiis).
Now the fact that gaming consoles were on that chart at all showed that someone, maybe even Steve, at Apple had been looking at that market. However the placement of them, and the reasoning around that chart amply illustrated why it wasn't an interesting market for Apple to pursue. It is no secret that television in the broader sense is an interesting market for Apple, but a "gaming console" in the traditional sense would seem a pointless endeavor for them - those devices simply have far too small a market penetration to be a viable line of attack if you want to address television viewing a whole.
Steves point was that you don't have to achieve a large market penetration in percentage to achieve pretty damn large numbers of handsets sold, and with it both solid revenue and a healthy ecosystem.
Gaming consoles, particularly stationary models, reach roughly a tenth of the PC yearly volume, and a thirtieth or so of cell phone volumes. For comparisons sake, Apple sold as many iOS devices during 2011 as the total aggregate console sales of Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft put together since the introduction of their respective stationary models in 2005/2006, (just under half of which have been Wiis).
Now the fact that gaming consoles were on that chart at all showed that someone, maybe even Steve, at Apple had been looking at that market. However the placement of them, and the reasoning around that chart amply illustrated why it wasn't an interesting market for Apple to pursue. It is no secret that television in the broader sense is an interesting market for Apple, but a "gaming console" in the traditional sense would seem a pointless endeavor for them - those devices simply have far too small a market penetration to be a viable line of attack if you want to address television viewing a whole.
You can already connect an ipad to your TV, is that what you think an Apple console will be? And yes I own one, most productivity apps serve little purpose on a STB. They make sense on a phone or tablet that gives mobility advantages, I have a computer that can do pretty much anything an ipad can do, faster. All of that kind of software could easily run on Sony or MS console if they wanted it.
If Apple introduces a STB I'd say it would be more powerful than whatever latest iPad is on that market at the time whether it be iPad 4 or 5. Reason being there's no worry about battery consumption. It would have wireless keyboard support and you'd be able to use your iPhone/iPad as a touchpad to control the TV screen via swiping, tapping, dragging etc.
Glad you're in on the development, although a $500 addon controller might be a bit pricy for the uninitiated and I'd hope it'd be more powerful than an iPad2 or it would get thrashed by the competition which is already faster than that.
I have a computer for using Facebook but why does my Xbox have a gimped Facebook app? Why does my Xbox have a gimped Youtube app? Why buy an iPad if you already have a notebook computer?
Yeah we've heard that before so where is it?
My laptop has 2 hours of battery life and weighs 6lbs. hrmm just maybe that has something to do with it, try to use your brain.
Same place as the ibox. If consumers demanded that feature set it would probably exist, but there's no doubt they are evolving what they can do.
And my netbook has 6hrs battery life and weighs less than 3lbs...just because you have or don't have a need for something doesn't mean everyone else has those preferences.
As for a hypothetical iBox....$299 and comes with wireless game controller, wireless keyboard optional, HDD module optional. Hardware will have 2GB ram, 16GB-32GB of flash and built-in SDXC flash expansion slot, able to run iOS apps and games in addition to iBox games. iBox games will eventually be able to be run on portable devices like iPhone/iPad when the hardware on those devices evolve ie ram increases to 2GB, CPU/GPU catches up to iBox CPU/GPU. When the iPhone/iPad catches up a new iBox 2 will be released with twice the performance, this cycle will repeat every 2 years.
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So it weighs more than double what an ipad does and has 2/3rd the battery life. What is your point regarding the topic?
