Welcome to Coffee Talk! Let’s start off the day by discussing whatever is on your (nerd chic) mind. Every morning I’ll kick off a discussion and I’m counting on you to participate in it. If you’re not feelin’ my topic, feel free to start a chat with your fellow readers and see where it takes you. Whether you’re talking about videogames, the Los Angeles Clippers floundering without Chris Paul, Verve’s Ethiopia Birhanu, or overdosing on Kevin Smith commentaries (and loving it), Coffee Talk is the place to do it.
Last week, Polygon posted a fantastic article full of juicy quotes from Valve co-founder Gabe Newell. Here are a few choice lines:
I think Apple rolls the console guys really easily.
The biggest challenge is that Apple moves on the living room before the PC industry sort of gets its act together.
The quotes got a ton of play on the Internetz, but I didn’t spend too much time thinking or talking about them…because Newell’s stance didn’t seem debatable to me. I think he’s right and his (greatly respected) opinions are obvious. However, RPadholic N8R suggested that the topic would generate some fun discussion, so I’ll defer to him. Let’s do this!
Apple has done a phenomenal job selling iPhones, iPads, and Apple TVs. Those products have become more than phones, tablets, and streaming-video players. They’re multifaceted devices that are “lifestyle” products. So Newell is absolutely right about Apple being in millions of living rooms. He’s also right about Apple having a huge opportunity to displace traditional console gaming. The question is whether Apple will try to shake up and dominate that business the way it did with smartphones and tablets.
When Steve Jobs ran Apple, I would have bet against it. Under Jobs, Apple had a strange relationship with gaming. At times it seemed like the company didn’t understand it. At other times, it almost seemed like the company was afraid of it. It will be interesting to see how Apple approaches gaming under Tim Cook. He seems more flexible than his predecessor and more willing to venture into territory that has been historically foreign to the company.
I have no doubt that gaming will become a bigger part of Apple’s future, but I have no idea how the company will approach the field. It could continue to make iOS gaming bigger and bigger, enhancing the experience through AirPlay. Handheld consoles are already hurting because of the rapidly improving iOS gaming market. It’s conceivable that Apple will continue to foster iOS gaming growth so that it cuts into home consoles.
Or the company could be more aggressive on the hardware front with Apple TV or the mythical Apple television set. Imagine a more powerful Apple TV with visually-impressive games that are controlled with iPhones and iPads. In the immortal words of John Lennon, “It’s easy if you try.”
Ultimately, I don’t think Apple will take on Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony head-on. That’s not what the company does. It successfully played its own game with smartphones and tablets, and I see it doing the same with gaming. Will that be enough to make it console king?
What do you think of Newell’s statements about Apple possibly rolling the big console companies? Can you imagine a world where Apple rules living-room gaming?
See, I think Apple is more in the position to STEAMroll (see what I did there) the competitors with their Marketplace model.
We all know and have discussed in the past that Digital Distribution is indeed the future of gaming. Nobody is in a position to just dominate it better than Apple with the exception of maybe Steam because they were and are ahead of the curve in this respect. If Newell is sweating, that’s saying a lot.
I personally think iPhones and iPads would be some uncomfortable controllers, but second screen type peripherals could be really awesome. Imagine a racing game where your iPhone or iPad is simply a rear view mirror. Or a shooter where it’s your HUD as to not clutter the screen. So I think if they are going to try and take a run at the next gen of consoles, they’re gonna have to get slightly traditional with the controller feel to sway me and then think different(ly).
I think I said this a few years ago once Apple released the iPad 2 with airplay mirroring for the AppleTV. They will have to release a bluetooth controller for this to work though.
I’m unsure how the 70/30 split will affect the developers who wish to dump let’s say 50 million into a project though. I could see Apple amending their terms to attract larger projects. I don’t think they have a 70/30 split with the movies on iTunes which is where my logic is coming from.
Would it beat the PC market? I don’t know. PCs are too open and run powerful hardware. ARM might be too locked down for a home market to take off.
I’ve been hearing people talk about an Apple game console since for the past 7 years now, and frankly I still don’t feel any closer to seeing this happen. If it does happen I think there are two main routes that can be taken. One would be to go the STEAM route and focus on building a community that works with their computers and devices, but offers full length feature games. The other route would be the Microsoft way which involved throwing a lot of money towards creating an entire console and convincing developers to make games for their console.
While Apple certainly has the cash to bankroll a venture like that, I’m not yet convinced that they are willing to do so to the degree that Microsoft was. This makes a game system that utilizes their devices already to be a more likely scenario. A new Apple TV product with a bluetooth controller and possibly the ability to take certain aspects of the game to an iPhone or iPad- that would be a bigger hit right now.
Nobody is talking about “an Apple game console.” That’s too specific a device. You’re thinking about it in traditional console terms, which isn’t how Apple would approach the market and what Newell envisions.
I don’t see this Apple-gaming domination of the living room. Not for hardcore players, anyway. I can see Apple leveraging it’s Apple TV unit to include games that can turn an iPad and/or iPhone into the game controller, but that’s about it. It may become the “new Wii” as casual gamers, old people, soccer moms, kids, etc. use it to play Angry Birds or Scrabble with Friends on it, but for the core crowd, you are going to need a keyboard & mouse or a controller with physical buttons, analog sticks and triggers.
Imaging playing Call of Halo using your iPad or iPhone. It won’t work. If Apple doesn’t come out with a traditional controller, they will never truly compete with Microsoft or Sony. If Apple doesn’t let you use a mouse and a keyboard, then they will never truly compete with Steam (or PC games).
The whole Apple TV route will be nothing more than playing your casual app games “on an even bigger iPad that’s mounted on your wall”. If Apple is serious about competing with the other guys, then it has to address a lot of questions like physical controllers (with buttons), storage capacity, DRM, bandwidth issues (if they want to stream) and community infrastructure.
Sure, they CAN do it, but they would really need to put some muscle behind the plan and not half-ass it like Nokia did with the NGage.
-M
N-Gage wasn’t really half-assed as much as it suffered from bad ideas. Nokia put a lot of time and money into it, but things like the industrial design of the phone and the orientation of the screen were big problems. The online gaming service was actually ahead of its time.