While Apple has been widely credited with expanding the gaming market, [Seamus] Blackley believes it was never its intention to do so. “They hated videogames,” he says. “The victory of games is utterly complete with Apple. It’s a total victory.
“They tried real hard to make the iPad about word processing and music, and the audience just doesn’t want it. It’s beautiful. You don’t need to have a games strategy anymore.”
Historical revisionism like this burns my ass.
Seamus Blackley is the guy credited with initially coming up with the concept of the Microsoft Xbox; he’s a really smart guy and the game industry and gamers owe him a debt of gratitude. Blackley’s opinion of Apple and its infamous antipathy towards games is widespread throughout the game industry, and it’s not without historical precedent, at least on the Mac side of the fence. But Blackley is absolutely, unequivocally wrong about the iPad.
By the time the iPad was ready for service, the Games section was already the single biggest segment of the App Store. Loads of game developers had signed on to create content for the burgeoning platform. Apple was already focusing development and engineering to improve the gaming experience on iOS, and it knew full well that iPad users would be playing plenty of games.
Reading the rest of the linked article, I think you’ve misunderstood what he’s saying or the context in which he’s saying it. Blackley states: “All kinds of people are releasing consoles…They’re called iPads, and Facebook” I take this to mean he’s saying in the context of gaming, the iPad is a console.
Your final paragraph seems to agree with his last statement “You need to have a strategy so that your platform isn’t disadvantaged in playing games, because gaming is going to be the number one activity on any platform. The highest calling of any digital device is to play a game.” Again it seems you are both in fact agreeing that the iPad was designed (to a greater or lesser extent) as a gaming platform/console.
Games won? Maybe games but not game devices. For decades I thought game devices would win the whole shooting match cus’ game devices had the edge in chips, speed, graphics. But they did almost nothing to move into computer or communication spaces. They sat on their big fat profitable duffs. And had a great fall.
I don’t misunderstand anything he’s saying. I’m taking issue with Blackley’s assertion that Apple tried to market the iPad absent of a games strategy. Apple knew going into it that games were going to be huge on the iPad.
I agree with you Peter. Hell, they were already marketing the iPod Touch as the “best gaming device” they had.
They knew the importance of games well before the iPad was released, and I can guarantee you that games were always a part of their iPad strategy.
Yes, games “won.” Does Blackley ever have anything to say about how many years it took XBox to turn a profit?