Do you think Apple will ever move into the console market? Would you buy one?

The Game Room
1

Whilst this may seem a bit of a far fetched concept, it wasn’t that long ago that people were surprised to see Microsoft entering the fray with the Xbox (and as I recall there was much scoffing of its chance of success too). Given that the xbox 360 is one of the two strongest systems out there now, clearly history has proven that a savy move on their part.

So what about Apple? Sure they’re not exactly hurting for revenue streams right now with iEverthing on the market, but I wonder if it’s not inevitable that they’re going to want to tap into this very lucrative part of the market.

What would an Apple console be like? A direct rival to the Xbox or something closer to the Wii? Or something else entirely? Would it be something you’d want to get?

2

They already did, kinda. Bandai release the Pippin, which was designed by Apple. It didn’t do well, to say the least.

I could see them trying again, but Apple products have never really been gamer-friendly. Unless they think they can come to dominate the market, it would only frustrate people already annoyed by the crowded console market today.

3

I doubt the major studios would touch their DRM.

4

Why? Aren’t Apple quite big on protecting intellectual property?

5

Hasn’t Nintendo used some Apple technology?

Anyway, I don’t see Apple doing it unless they can do it sufficiently differently which, I don’t see. Nintendo is already the Apple of the gaming world, it seems to me.

6

I’m sure many people would debate the success of the xBox franchise. It’s a very viable platform now but MS took a lot of criticism for the build quality and it’s not entirely clear if MS has fully recovered its initial investment on the product if claims about them still selling the consoles at a loss is true. I think they reached the crossover point a while back but who knows if that means the entire build cycle is profitable. It’s besides the point I suppose, but with the MS haters around here and the PC gamer contingent I’m sure someone is likely to call you on that premise.

Still, I think it’s very likely that Apple will get into that market but I think there will be a sea change in the mentality of it. Getting into that market will likely be an avenue to further expand iTunes and their App Store as opposed to entering the gaming market. Games will be just one of the many revenue producing avenues they’ll attack. The new Apple Console will probably be a evolution of the Apple TV label. It will be a media convergence device that will allow users to browse the web on their TV, to stream their media collection and play and purchase media content from iTunes in lieu of Netflix and On Demand services.

By creating a media convergence device thats actually desirable and seamless they’ll probably finally do what MS and Sony have failed at. Gaming will be an aspect of it but not at it’s core. Casual gaming will probably be the lions share of the use, much like the Wii, and it’ll potentially marry up with the next generation of iPhones and iPod Touches similar to what MS is hoping to do with it’s WP7 and XBox integration.

It’s probably going to be a race between MS and Apple to see who can reach the promised land first. MS has a foothold and seemingly insurmountable lead in the console aspect. Apple has a nearly equal lead in product and mindshare in the handheld market. Both have strong desktop presence but Apple has thus far done a better job of creating a seamless ecosystem.

Will it be Zune+XBox+Windows 7+ Windows Media Center+Windows Phone 7 or will it be iTunes+New Apple Console (Apple TV v 2.0?)+OS X+iPhone?

Windows is closer to having all the products, but they are so fragmented in name and development culture who knows if it will work the way it’s supposed to. Apple is way behind in the living room and iTunes just keeps getting worse and worse plus they have serious DRM issues. Time will tell who can get in gear first and if the XBox or the iPhone will be the better leverage into the converged media experience.

7

The console market? That’s a tough one to gauge, but they’re already in the gaming market with the iPhone devices. I think if they were going to go into the home gaming market it’d be aimed more towards the casual gamers and would be more an iteration of the iPad devices than a full fledged plug-into-the-tv game console.

That said, the iPhone/iPod have done quite well for themselves in the gaming industry and I find it far more likely that Apple will be developing on this path, the portable games, rather than attempting to compete with the large console names. As levdrakon Nintendo kinda fills Apples traditional role when it comes to home consoles. They are becoming more and more competitors in the portable market, though. Apple having the advantage that people buy their device to do other things and it also happens to have good games, whereas you need to lug around an extra portable device if you want to use the Nintendo or PSP offerings, which are game systems first and can do other things incidentally.

8

It depends on the games. They’d have to be sweet to pull me from the 360.

9

Making money on the consoles is nice if you can pull it off, but that’s never been the primary revenue stream of any console. The real money is in the games. A single copy of a game is a sizable fraction of the cost of the entire console, and has a near-zero marginal cost to make.

10

They’re called the iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad.

Report: iPhone Games Poaching Revenue From Sony, Nintendo

11

Well at least we know that the system would be 35% more expensive than anything else on the market, would disallow use of some critical component of the game playing experience (because that component is where users experience the most system instability), and Apple would find some obnoxious way of forcing iTunes upon everyone who wants to play their games. Oh, and their controllers would cost at least $95 each, too, and likely just be a giant white oval with no buttons or inputs of any kind.

Actually, yeah, with the only difference that Apple would never be caught dead having a product come out cheaper than any of its direct competition.

12

Heck, they already did that with their keyboard-less MacBook Wheel.

13

This just in: Apple Passes Microsoft as World’s Biggest Tech Co.

Just thought it was relevant to the discussion, maybe.

14

I don’t follow. Down thread someone posts the stat that Apple has started to pass Microsoft, with the implication that this is the first time doing so.

Nintendo has started to reclaim the territory it held before PlayStation. Years back people said “Nintendo” to mean any game console. Then for a while it was Playstation to mean any game console, and now back to Nintendo.

I don’t see how Apple compares here.

To say nothing of the fact of the Video Game crash of 83, and that Nintendo more or less brought back the entire Industry, Decimating Atari, dueling with SEGA, and ending up with Sonic on exclusive Wii games (Mario & Sonic Olympics).

I have heard of the Pippin, but glad that, that answer came up in the first response.

Also, the entire price aspect. I don’t think that Nintendo tries to skim the market. The Wii was the cheapest console this generation, based on starting MSRP. The original Gameboy could have come out in color (ala game gear) but the choice was made not to, based on price and battery consumption at the time.

Nintendo makes choices to include MORE people over less. I’d like a Mac, but not when it costs twice as much as a PC. There is no reason for it, other that prestige status. Nintendo does not exclude.

15

Those are competing in the handheld market though, not the console market.

16

I’m expecting them to eventually come out with iPads designed/customized specifically for gaming. That being said, it wouldn’t surprise me in the least bit if they dive into the console wars. The only problem is that the market is spread too thin right now.

Apple tends to try to compete by offering a drastically different choice, rather than trying to “out business” the more competitive companies. They have done this in the past by providing unique tools for artists/film makers/musicians/scientists. Currently they are doing this by branching out into the growing wireless market with their iPhone and iPad.

The thing is that they only have one chief rival in their current field -Microsoft (although companies like Google are threatening to enter the market). If they enter into the console wars, they’ll be up against Microsoft, Sony AND Nintendo -three very big and powerful companies.

Atari was swept out of the game in the 90s by too much competition: Amiga CD32, 3DO, TurboGrafx-16, Sega CD/32X, Sega Saturn, Sony Playstation, N64. That’s not to mention the hand-held wars were in full swing and were as much a responsibility for Atari’s ultimate failure as their weak sales on the Jaguar or the lawsuits they suffered through.

The same recently happened to Sega as a result of the rise of Sony and the remarkable success of Microsoft’s Xbox (not to mention a marketing nightmare with their Saturn and Dreamcast).

The entrance into this field is made markedly more difficult due to the fact that Nintendo is following their usual business plan. Looking at the three main consoles, two of them are basically the same exact type of console as we’ve been used to since the days of 8-bit and 16-bit. However, Nintendo is on the cutting edge as far as gaming technology is concerned with wands, motion sensors, touch screens, voice-activated technology, built in cameras and everything else (well, everything that involves interactivity).

Albeit, they also have the same problem that Apple has now: Compatibility. Many of the major titles only come out on PS3 and/or Xbox 360. The Wii has a serious problem coming up with titles that are actually able to utilize their system’s full abilities. That’s not to mention that their family-friendly approach has alienated some hardcore gamers.

One of the most interesting things to me, however, is the trend for the most ambitious consoles to get buried. The 3DO was an innovative system but couldn’t beat out the ol’ D-Pad and two button approach of Nintendo. The Jaguar had like a billion buttons and great graphics but still didn’t sell as well as Nintendo, Sega or Playstation (which were all much more conservative in their design). Sega was put to death by their Dreamcast, one of my all time favorite systems, which was the first 64-bit system (two 32-bit processors by my understanding) and featured avant-garde games such as Seaman.

Now Nintendo is trying the same thing with their Wii, but they are losing ground to Sony and Microsoft’s very traditional consoles. If Apple tries the same strategy, won’t they be met with the same result?

So in summation:
Will Apple try to compete in the hand-held market? Yes.
Will Apple try to compete in the console market? Not until the market changes.

17

They’ve gotta have the games. From accounts I hear, it’s not as easy to program for the PlayStation as it is for the Xbox. I’d imagine that an Apple console wouldn’t be (necessarily) easy to program for.

18

That just deals with market share, though. I imagine that much of the money spent on iPhone games and the like is spent by people who weren’t buying games before.

19

While hardcore gamers may be unhappy with the Wii, that doesn’t matter from Nintendo’s perspective. They’re far and away the most successful console maker and the most profitable. You could even flip the question and say the PS3/Xbox 360 have a big problem in that they don’t have Nintendo’s exclusives.

It all comes down to price, which is another strike against an Apple console. The 3DO launched at $700. The Jaguar launched at $250, which wasn’t much more expensive than an SNES or Genesis, but was pricier. It was sunk by the fact that in three years the system only received 67 games. The Dreamcast was awesome, I agree, but what they were doing wasn’t any different from Nintendo/Sony and Sony’s marketing muscle (and lack of EA Sports titles) killed it.

Nintendo isn’t losing ground. They’re crushing the competition month in and month out. The ony ground they’re losing is that they’re crushing the other players by as much each month.

20

Yes. Full-out gaming console? Probably not. Handheld gaming? They’re already in it. Not only do Apple’s handheld devices play decent games, but they’re also multi-functional in ways that PSP and DSi are not.

A spec comparison of the three here.