Kyle Richter paints a picture here, projecting Apple’s path to a seat at the console table.
Apple has sold roughly 700 Million iOS devices since the introduction of the original iPhone, in addition they have sold in excess of 13 Million Apple TVs. Compare that to the 78 Million (as of March 2013) PlayStation 3′s sold since it was released in 2006, and 78.2 Million Xbox 360′s sold from its release in 2005 through June 2013. It is no wonder that the iPod touch (and iPhone) is considered one of the world’s leading gaming platform, with roughly 9x the sales of traditional consoles. When looking at the number of available titles, Xbox 360 comes in with 958 games, PS3 with 793 available games, and iOS with an almost unbelievable 166,510 games. Yes, the average quality of an Xbox or Playstation game is higher than that of the average iOS game, but that is a trend that we as developers can change. The average Xbox game sells for $24.60, while the average Playstation 3 game sells for $28.92, once again the almost unbelievable number for average iOS game price is 76¢. So, Apple has significantly more devices, with an exponentially larger game selection, at a fraction of the cost. This is a good position to be starting from.
This is just the starting point. Read the whole thing. Agree or disagree, this is excellent food for thought.
I’ve looked at this as well, in this post on Medium: https://medium.com/bitcolumns-medium/543c074f159f
People are focussing on Apple TV as the games console, and forgetting that Apple is working to make all of their devices work brilliantly together (the Internet of Things).
I’m just hoping devs have noticed this, and are working to make great things.
I can’t wait for an Apple controller that will work with my iPad. We already have GTA & Max Payne in the App Store & they run great on our devices. A controller would make it awesome. Add in airplay & we have a mobile console that’s easily more capable than a PS2 & in a few years will pass the PS3.
When this happens it will be awesome.
Adding just the controller would open the door for tons of old games remastered for the App Store.
I’ve already read some articles how Apple is going to take over the console market (and console market really means core gaming market). Every one of them ignored that Apple still insists for the games to implement a touch-only control, if no controller is present.
I think it’s just extremely hard to supply a touch control and, at the same time, give core gamers a controller-based control that appeals to them. I’d even argue that it is impossible for many games.
if john carmack could do it, I don’t see it being much of a problem.
also, I feel atv gaming will definitely be more casual in nature. consoles will remain as a more sophisticated niche market, just as dSLRs are to the shrinking point-and-shoot market. point-and-shoots are shrinking because for most people, modern cellphone cameras are “good enough”.
The next key development will be incorporating Airdrop technology (p2p wifi) into Airplay. Should cut down on the latency from wifi routers and combine with special accelerators to rapidly encode, directly transmit, and decode the video. Now you’ve got a reverse Wii U, with the beefy computer in your hands and a dumb terminal plugged into the TV, low latency video flying between them.
“iOS [has] an almost unbelievable 166,510 games. Yes, the average quality of an Xbox or Playstation game is higher than that of the average iOS game, but that is a trend that we as developers can change”
We can’t really — we little developers are the cause of the glut. We’re effectively creating modern equivalent of flash games in 2013. That’s what most of those games effectively are.
And that’s OK, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that — I’m an indie developer and this is something I really love about iOS. But it makes the platforms very different.
To kill console gaming, rather than supplement it, you need a controller and you need something that can put out 1080p 60hz really nice video.
The latter I can see on the horizon.
The former is not optional, and neither is a standard or semi-standard layout and control-set.
(Mdelvecchio is right in that the market is expanding, but since nobody much was buying an XBox or PS3 for “casual gaming” it won’t be taking away from that segment.)
I think most people will agree now that Apple is a serious threat to video game hardware developers with iOS devices. The question now is, when will we see serious game developers start making triple-A titles on iOS devices?