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I expect Apple to role out its own gaming console by 2nd or 3rd gen. There’s so much potential here. One of the most underrated Apple announcements in a very lo

I expect Apple to role out its own gaming console by 2nd or 3rd gen. There’s so much potential here. One of the most underrated Apple announcements in a very long time. I haven’t been this excited for Mac since they announced OS X!

gorkish 6y ago
Uh, AppleTV? Apple may very well beef up AppleTV and market the gaming angle of the device a lot more than they currently are, but given their history with Pippin I think your claim they will pitch a new dedicated game console type device is unlikely in the extreme.
- ehejsbbejsk 6y ago
  I was thinking more in terms of iOS apps and games eventually making their way into Mac Mini type of system ($6-700 range). They already have the ecosystem with tons of developers. It would not surprise me if Apple has 5nm GPUs in the works that can surpass Nvidia and AMD by a significant margin. I am also very interested in what they do with Mac Pro.
  - Wowfunhappy 6y ago
    It's worth noting that $6-700 would make a theoretical Apple game console more expensive than the top-of-the-line models from Sony and Microsoft, which are themselves the most expensive consoles in recent memory. The Apple TV 4K already costs $180/$200 without a controller, which could easily set you back an additional $60. Combined, that's more than half the price of a disc-less PS5, and very close to the cost of a Nintendo Switch.
    - Hamuko 6y ago
      >very close to the cost of a Nintendo Switch The Nintendo Switch is pretty deceptive in its pricing. You buy it and quickly realise that you need to spend a lot more money. Internal storage is limited, so you need an SD card at least. Then if you plan on carrying it around, a screen protector is pretty much a requirement. And if you are planning on carrying it around, you'll also want a case for it. And if you don't plan on carrying it around and are only docking it, you probably want a Pro Controller since the included ones are not really that good for couch play. And after you've accessorised yourself, you're now stuck with the most expensive game library, with first-party titles pretty much never dropping in price. Want to buy a first-party launch title for the Nintendo Switch? That'll be $50-60 for Breath of the Wild. Meanwhile Horizon Zero Dawn, which is an acclaimed first-party title pretty much the same age as BotW, is available for $20 or less. Even cross-platform games might be more expensive on the Switch due to the cartridge costs.
      - Wowfunhappy 6y ago
        I don't think I agree with the accessories bit. The internal storage is fine if you're buying physical copies of games, and while it's true that some cartridges require extra downloads, most don't, and in fact I don't think they're present in any first party titles. I expect a lot of Switch owners just pick up copies of Animal Crossing, Zelda, and Mario, and never need an SD card. Personally, I bought my Switch at launch, and it took about a year before I ran out of internal space. I also think the JoyCon grips are fine for TV play (In fact I prefer them over the pro controller) and while I'd also recommend a screen protector, I don't know anyone else who has one IRL. The types of scratches picked up by the Switch are usually only visible in direct light, and a lot of people seem to not care. That first-party Nintendo games don't go drop in price like most games has been a truism for a very long time. I'm not sure how Nintendo does it. I generally respect them for it—whatever the proper cost of games should be, I don't think it's healthy for games as a medium that they loose a third of their value in a few months.
        Hamuko 6y ago
        >The internal storage is fine if you're buying physical copies of games Well, sure, if you're only buying physical. However, that's not really something you can expect in these days. The Switch has 26 GB of usable storage. That's not a lot considering Breath of the Wild is over 13 GB. The Xbox One and PS4 come with at least 500 GB. Even if you account for the fact that the download sizes there are larger, there's still much more space proportionally, so you're going to be spending more money to get the full experience on a Switch. >I also think the JoyCon grips are fine for TV play It's pretty much the worst controller out there. Not only is it incredibly uncomfortable, it's rather unreliable. The drift issue on the Joy-cons is pretty noted. And once again coming to the controller price issue, the Pro Controller is $70, Joy-cons are $80, where as the Xbox and PlayStation ones are $60, and there's much less of a need to get one since there's one in the box for you already. >while I'd also recommend a screen protector, I don't know anyone else who has one IRL I don't know if there are any people who haven't actually gotten screen protectors, especially since it was reported that sliding the device in and out of the dock may incur scratches on the screen. When one of the basic features of the devices can result in scratches, you really want one. >whatever the proper cost of games should be, I don't think it's healthy for games as a medium that they loose a third of their value in a few months I'm not exactly sure if it's healthy for old games to retain their value better than stocks. I don't think it's good for consumers if they're still going to be paying brand new game price for BotW couple of years later when it's a five-year-old game. Really, speaking from experience, I have a PS4 and a Switch. For the PS4, the only accessory that I've had to buy was a charging dock, and I don't really consider it an essential one. I could charge with a cable just fine, but the dock is just a bit nicer and looks a bit better. For the Switch however, I've had to buy an SD card, case, screen protector and a Pro Controller, all of which I consider pretty necessary to get the full experience.
- Wowfunhappy 6y ago
  > given their history with Pippin Although I agree with your conclusion, the Apple Newton didn't prevent the creation of the iPad. That would have been a little silly—both Apple and the world are so different now.
ben_w 6y ago
I’m expecting this chip (or a successor) to become the foundation of the regularly hoped-for Apple VR and AR headsets.
nottorp 6y ago
If they do that, it will have only safe design-by-commitee AAA games. Or at best games designed in house by someone who's never played a game. They should call it "the sleeping pill".
- Mindwipe 6y ago
  Amazing that people are downvoting this when Apple Arcade exists to prove it.
  - rsynnott 6y ago
    Apple Arcade is where Apple is effectively acting as a _publisher_. It has nothing that I'd have thought of as a AAA game; it mostly seems to be stuff from established indie devs. There are plenty of other games on the App Store, tho.
silvestrov 6y ago
Apple has never understood gaming, never will. They cannot compete against PS5 and Xbox. This is not an easy market to enter, making the hardware itself is just a tiny part of the job.
- fastball 6y ago
  Already a lot of games people play regularly on their iPhones/iPads that will work out-of-the-box on a game console with an MX chip. In the same way Nintendo isn't a super direct competitor to Xbox/PS, I would expect the same of Apple's offering.
  - TillE 6y ago
    Nintendo has half a dozen wildly popular, exclusive franchises which date back 30+ years. Apple has...nothing, frankly.
    - fastball 6y ago
      Nothing... except for the (very many) games that have already been made for iOS.
      - Hamuko 6y ago
        How many games are exclusive to iOS?
  - xanderstrike 6y ago
    People have been trying for years to do what you're describing with gaming-centric Android TV boxes. People don't want to play mobile games on their TV. They want to watch TV while playing mobile games.
    - fastball 6y ago
      Difference being that those are all severely underpowered devices. If you combine the existing iOS games (some of which are actually kinda impressive visually) with an actually beefy machine that the AAA titles can easily target (shouldn't be that difficult), you have an offering unlike the others.
walrus01 6y ago
> I expect Apple to role out its own gaming console by 2nd or 3rd gen. There’s so much potential here. One of the most underrated Apple announcements in a very long time. I haven’t been this excited for Mac since they announced OS X! I would be shocked if this happened, since Apple has no ecosystem of game developers whatsoever. Both the newest xbox and the PS5 are for the most part backwards compatible with the massive base of xbox one and PS4 games, since they're a shared x86_64 architecture. Microsoft has the huge advantage that games can be developed for both windows and the xbox at the same time, with the same libraries. This goes all the way back to the origins of the first xbox which was nearly named the DirectX box.
- hauxir 6y ago
  Apple Arcade?
  - nomel 6y ago
    Most Arcade games run on the Apple TV already. Many even require a controller (PS/Xbox/bluetooth).
- bluedays 6y ago
  There are a ridiculous amount of games on the iOS platform. Many of which are offering the full game. Examples that come to mind off the top of my head are Final Fantasy, and the GTA games.
  - walrus01 6y ago
    > There are a ridiculous amount of games on the iOS platform not comparable at all, 95% of them are simplistic games that can be built by a team of 5-10 people, max. they're things in the same general category as candy crush. there is nothing analogous to horizon zero dawn, or destiny 2, or death stranding, or cyberpunk 2077 on the ios platform. I define that as AAA size games that require significant GPU horsepower, 70GB+ disk space, and a dedicated handheld game controller. Things are that are not compatible in any user-interface way with fingers on a touchscreen don't really exist for ios.
oblio 6y ago
I'd be shocked if they did it. It's a small market, ultra competitive, and shrinking, if not in absolute terms, definitely in relative terms.
LeonM 6y ago
Apple already has a huge gaming platform with iDevices and the app store. Mobile games are a huge business and Apple takes 30% of that revenue. So why would an energy efficient ARM chip suddenly make a gaming console of interest to Apple? Both Playstation and Xbox are X86 PC hardware. Apple could have just used x86 years earlier, but they didn't. Why? Because that's not their market. Sales of consoles are driven by price, and the game portfolio. I have yet to meet a consumer who will be excited for a energy efficient console which costs more than the competitors and have almost no big titles.
imtringued 6y ago
There is zero potential here. Consoles/Game Stores are built around network effects. The more people have the same console the more high end games will be released on them. If you keep adding game stores and consoles then attention will be divided among all participants. This is the perfect recipe for an oligarchy with around 3-5 big players that each cater to a slightly different experience. Oh and regarding the hardware... The next gen consoles completely smoke whatever tiny little GPU Apple has. It's probably the first time that consoles get hardware that is on par with the PC ecosystem instead of being one generation behind.
naravara 6y ago
If they were going to do this I wouldn't have expected them to make Apple TV+ available on the Xbox and Playstation. If Apple makes real forays into gaming I would expect a sort of cloud gaming service before I expect a full-fledged console. At best I think we can expect more tight integration of Apple Arcade into Apple TV with controller support.

gorkish 6y ago

Uh, AppleTV? Apple may very well beef up AppleTV and market the gaming angle of the device a lot more than they currently are, but given their history with Pippin I think your claim they will pitch a new dedicated game console type device is unlikely in the extreme.

ehejsbbejsk 6y ago
I was thinking more in terms of iOS apps and games eventually making their way into Mac Mini type of system ($6-700 range). They already have the ecosystem with tons of developers. It would not surprise me if Apple has 5nm GPUs in the works that can surpass Nvidia and AMD by a significant margin. I am also very interested in what they do with Mac Pro.
- Wowfunhappy 6y ago
  It's worth noting that $6-700 would make a theoretical Apple game console more expensive than the top-of-the-line models from Sony and Microsoft, which are themselves the most expensive consoles in recent memory. The Apple TV 4K already costs $180/$200 without a controller, which could easily set you back an additional $60. Combined, that's more than half the price of a disc-less PS5, and very close to the cost of a Nintendo Switch.
  - Hamuko 6y ago
    >very close to the cost of a Nintendo Switch The Nintendo Switch is pretty deceptive in its pricing. You buy it and quickly realise that you need to spend a lot more money. Internal storage is limited, so you need an SD card at least. Then if you plan on carrying it around, a screen protector is pretty much a requirement. And if you are planning on carrying it around, you'll also want a case for it. And if you don't plan on carrying it around and are only docking it, you probably want a Pro Controller since the included ones are not really that good for couch play. And after you've accessorised yourself, you're now stuck with the most expensive game library, with first-party titles pretty much never dropping in price. Want to buy a first-party launch title for the Nintendo Switch? That'll be $50-60 for Breath of the Wild. Meanwhile Horizon Zero Dawn, which is an acclaimed first-party title pretty much the same age as BotW, is available for $20 or less. Even cross-platform games might be more expensive on the Switch due to the cartridge costs.
    - Wowfunhappy 6y ago
      I don't think I agree with the accessories bit. The internal storage is fine if you're buying physical copies of games, and while it's true that some cartridges require extra downloads, most don't, and in fact I don't think they're present in any first party titles. I expect a lot of Switch owners just pick up copies of Animal Crossing, Zelda, and Mario, and never need an SD card. Personally, I bought my Switch at launch, and it took about a year before I ran out of internal space. I also think the JoyCon grips are fine for TV play (In fact I prefer them over the pro controller) and while I'd also recommend a screen protector, I don't know anyone else who has one IRL. The types of scratches picked up by the Switch are usually only visible in direct light, and a lot of people seem to not care. That first-party Nintendo games don't go drop in price like most games has been a truism for a very long time. I'm not sure how Nintendo does it. I generally respect them for it—whatever the proper cost of games should be, I don't think it's healthy for games as a medium that they loose a third of their value in a few months.
      - Hamuko 6y ago
        >The internal storage is fine if you're buying physical copies of games Well, sure, if you're only buying physical. However, that's not really something you can expect in these days. The Switch has 26 GB of usable storage. That's not a lot considering Breath of the Wild is over 13 GB. The Xbox One and PS4 come with at least 500 GB. Even if you account for the fact that the download sizes there are larger, there's still much more space proportionally, so you're going to be spending more money to get the full experience on a Switch. >I also think the JoyCon grips are fine for TV play It's pretty much the worst controller out there. Not only is it incredibly uncomfortable, it's rather unreliable. The drift issue on the Joy-cons is pretty noted. And once again coming to the controller price issue, the Pro Controller is $70, Joy-cons are $80, where as the Xbox and PlayStation ones are $60, and there's much less of a need to get one since there's one in the box for you already. >while I'd also recommend a screen protector, I don't know anyone else who has one IRL I don't know if there are any people who haven't actually gotten screen protectors, especially since it was reported that sliding the device in and out of the dock may incur scratches on the screen. When one of the basic features of the devices can result in scratches, you really want one. >whatever the proper cost of games should be, I don't think it's healthy for games as a medium that they loose a third of their value in a few months I'm not exactly sure if it's healthy for old games to retain their value better than stocks. I don't think it's good for consumers if they're still going to be paying brand new game price for BotW couple of years later when it's a five-year-old game. Really, speaking from experience, I have a PS4 and a Switch. For the PS4, the only accessory that I've had to buy was a charging dock, and I don't really consider it an essential one. I could charge with a cable just fine, but the dock is just a bit nicer and looks a bit better. For the Switch however, I've had to buy an SD card, case, screen protector and a Pro Controller, all of which I consider pretty necessary to get the full experience.
Wowfunhappy 6y ago
> given their history with Pippin Although I agree with your conclusion, the Apple Newton didn't prevent the creation of the iPad. That would have been a little silly—both Apple and the world are so different now.

ben_w 6y ago

I’m expecting this chip (or a successor) to become the foundation of the regularly hoped-for Apple VR and AR headsets.

nottorp 6y ago

If they do that, it will have only safe design-by-commitee AAA games. Or at best games designed in house by someone who's never played a game. They should call it "the sleeping pill".

Mindwipe 6y ago
Amazing that people are downvoting this when Apple Arcade exists to prove it.
- rsynnott 6y ago
  Apple Arcade is where Apple is effectively acting as a _publisher_. It has nothing that I'd have thought of as a AAA game; it mostly seems to be stuff from established indie devs. There are plenty of other games on the App Store, tho.

silvestrov 6y ago

Apple has never understood gaming, never will. They cannot compete against PS5 and Xbox. This is not an easy market to enter, making the hardware itself is just a tiny part of the job.

fastball 6y ago
Already a lot of games people play regularly on their iPhones/iPads that will work out-of-the-box on a game console with an MX chip. In the same way Nintendo isn't a super direct competitor to Xbox/PS, I would expect the same of Apple's offering.
- TillE 6y ago
  Nintendo has half a dozen wildly popular, exclusive franchises which date back 30+ years. Apple has...nothing, frankly.
  - fastball 6y ago
    Nothing... except for the (very many) games that have already been made for iOS.
    - Hamuko 6y ago
      How many games are exclusive to iOS?
- xanderstrike 6y ago
  People have been trying for years to do what you're describing with gaming-centric Android TV boxes. People don't want to play mobile games on their TV. They want to watch TV while playing mobile games.
  - fastball 6y ago
    Difference being that those are all severely underpowered devices. If you combine the existing iOS games (some of which are actually kinda impressive visually) with an actually beefy machine that the AAA titles can easily target (shouldn't be that difficult), you have an offering unlike the others.

walrus01 6y ago

> I expect Apple to role out its own gaming console by 2nd or 3rd gen. There’s so much potential here. One of the most underrated Apple announcements in a very long time. I haven’t been this excited for Mac since they announced OS X! I would be shocked if this happened, since Apple has no ecosystem of game developers whatsoever. Both the newest xbox and the PS5 are for the most part backwards compatible with the massive base of xbox one and PS4 games, since they're a shared x86_64 architecture. Microsoft has the huge advantage that games can be developed for both windows and the xbox at the same time, with the same libraries. This goes all the way back to the origins of the first xbox which was nearly named the DirectX box.

hauxir 6y ago
Apple Arcade?
- nomel 6y ago
  Most Arcade games run on the Apple TV already. Many even require a controller (PS/Xbox/bluetooth).
bluedays 6y ago
There are a ridiculous amount of games on the iOS platform. Many of which are offering the full game. Examples that come to mind off the top of my head are Final Fantasy, and the GTA games.
- walrus01 6y ago
  > There are a ridiculous amount of games on the iOS platform not comparable at all, 95% of them are simplistic games that can be built by a team of 5-10 people, max. they're things in the same general category as candy crush. there is nothing analogous to horizon zero dawn, or destiny 2, or death stranding, or cyberpunk 2077 on the ios platform. I define that as AAA size games that require significant GPU horsepower, 70GB+ disk space, and a dedicated handheld game controller. Things are that are not compatible in any user-interface way with fingers on a touchscreen don't really exist for ios.

oblio 6y ago

I'd be shocked if they did it. It's a small market, ultra competitive, and shrinking, if not in absolute terms, definitely in relative terms.

LeonM 6y ago

Apple already has a huge gaming platform with iDevices and the app store. Mobile games are a huge business and Apple takes 30% of that revenue. So why would an energy efficient ARM chip suddenly make a gaming console of interest to Apple? Both Playstation and Xbox are X86 PC hardware. Apple could have just used x86 years earlier, but they didn't. Why? Because that's not their market. Sales of consoles are driven by price, and the game portfolio. I have yet to meet a consumer who will be excited for a energy efficient console which costs more than the competitors and have almost no big titles.

imtringued 6y ago

There is zero potential here. Consoles/Game Stores are built around network effects. The more people have the same console the more high end games will be released on them. If you keep adding game stores and consoles then attention will be divided among all participants. This is the perfect recipe for an oligarchy with around 3-5 big players that each cater to a slightly different experience. Oh and regarding the hardware... The next gen consoles completely smoke whatever tiny little GPU Apple has. It's probably the first time that consoles get hardware that is on par with the PC ecosystem instead of being one generation behind.

naravara 6y ago

If they were going to do this I wouldn't have expected them to make Apple TV+ available on the Xbox and Playstation. If Apple makes real forays into gaming I would expect a sort of cloud gaming service before I expect a full-fledged console. At best I think we can expect more tight integration of Apple Arcade into Apple TV with controller support.