7 ms·

Google And Apple May Bring Us A Console War We Didn't See Coming

38 points by drone 13y ago

tmzt 13y ago
Well first I would argue that we did see this coming: AAA games make money but so do casual and free-to-play games. Wii established the precedent, and follow on devices such as the Ouya expand the market for console devices for casual games. Also, Roku 2 shipped a version with a game remote and Angry Birds. My concern is that it is too early for Google to introduce an Android gaming console, without establishing a standard for games to be developed against. The first Ouya's have sold out (to the chagrin of the presale buyers), but customers don't need the confusion of multiple incompatible consoles at this stage. Having a different market application is probably fine, but the developers need to be able to publish to multiple markets and still customize the games for the for the console they are targeting. I believe that actions taken by Google at this stage could prevent Android gaming consoles from becoming established, and they should be willing to defer to the first mover, Ouya, in order to build an economy of compatible Android gaming consoles later.
- simonh 13y ago
  What's in it for Google? There's always been a reasonable argument that it benefits Google to have a diverse mobile device ecosystem, in which open standards compliant browsers and apps that can access Google services are a baseline feature. Their nightmare scenario was a world of locked down mobile device platforms with browsers hard wired into proprietary web portals and services that cut them out of the loop. TV is a different medium though. It's useless as a web browser platform and Google app style services have never worked will on them either. The control interface is just too clumsy. So as a general web and services access platform it's not that attractive. What TV is good at is video presentation and games. Google's never going to make any money on games, either on mobile or on a TV platform. They do have youtube though, so that's really the only viable route they have towards revenue on the TV. The problem is, nobody making an Android based TV device has any incentive to include a youtube service on it except Google. If Samsung say produced an Android based TV device, what's in it for them to support a Youtube app? Better to strike a revenue sharing deal with Netflix, Hulu, HBO, etc. They could revenue share with Youtube, but then Google is only getting a slice of the revenue, instead of the whole lot from Google's own TV device. Google is already getting squeezed out of their own Android ecosystem by companies like Samsung and Amazon rolling their own default apps and services for their devices. On an open Android platform on the TV, that effect would be considerably magnified.
  - Pxtl 13y ago
    Google makes money off the Play Store, I imagine; a TV is a good Play Store client.
- drone 13y ago
  I agree that its best for Google to focus on enabling Ouya (or any other nascent console developer). I'm not even sure what benefit there is to Google to own a particular piece of hardware, when they could be taking a slice of the pie from lots of hardware manufacturers (through ads, of course, or enabling technologies). A better place for Google, IMO, would be looking at how they can re-define what the console experience should be - they have a potential Kinect killer in Glass. I'm afraid that Apple might be out of their league in this regard. Everything about the AppleTV screams "day late and dollar short" to me. I'm not sure their expertise in mobile experience can be easily translated to the big screen in front of the couch. Just throwing some common games on an AppleTv and calling it a gaming console seems a little silly.
- Pxtl 13y ago
  I imagine that if Google expands the Play Store standards to include console apps that do not conform to the all-touchscreen conventions of Android, then Ouya will be able to get Play Store support. The Ouya guys insist that they tried to get Google to support them but that you must have a touchscreen to get access to the play-store.
  - tmzt 13y ago
    Certainly, and the reasons those standards were put in place were good ones. There where devices with less than usable touchscreens (including resistive) and in some cases no touchscreens. These are the myriad of devices from Shenzen, one after another, running Android derived from AOSP. At the same time, these devices were only one of the problems. Google was fighting against companies putting the Market on devices that could barely run Android, couldn't run 3D games that were available in the market, didn't support playback of video formats that were commonly used in the games and other applications, and had other limitations. The availability of the devices contributed to Android's popular image as a low-end platform, with Apple's iPhone being the premium device. Remember, this was during the Android 1.0 and early 2.0 days. At the same time, it was clear that Android needed to support multiple platforms. I asked one of the developers in IRC at the time when we would see a "set-back box" running Android, or systems for vehicles. The response was along the lines of "let's concentrate on phones first." Now we are seeing a perfectly reasonable restriction in the Market (now Play Store) license being used to exclude a new product category from the officially supported application store where Google collects a healthy cut. Also, doesn't the Ouya controller have a touchscreen, and even run Android on it's own internal CPU/GPU? It's not clear to me from the Kickstarter description but it would make sense. The trade-off here for Ouya is either collecting the share of the revenues for themselves, including possibly through their own free-to-play credits system, or having a large number of partially supported games which were not designed to use a controller. I can see that whether it was the original plan or not, having their own application store makes sense for Ouya if they can get the developer attention they need. That's really what I'm talking about here, Google's careless implications of creating a competing console may have the effect of confusing potential buyers at Target or GameStop as to which Android console to buy. The result being they buy neither.
programminggeek 13y ago
Um, if Apple makes apps available for the Apple TV and can nail the user experience, they might really have something. A $100 Apple TV with $1-5 games and a lot of free to play would be such a better deal for most consumers than the $500 consoles with $60-70 games. Also, there is a window for a Steam box to do well too. OUYA might not be getting rave reviews now, but I think it's going to grow into an interesting niche for sure.
- Pxtl 13y ago
  Steam box is going to be in a very different market - Valve's plan is to have three tiers - a lite ARM-based Miracast client for people who have a gaming PC and want to stream gaming from it to their TV, a full PC with a drive and all the bells and whistles, and a middling low-power solid-state device. The last one, the "better" box as Newell calls it, is the one that will be most directly competing with normal consoles, but since it will still require full X86 hardware and beefy gaming processors, I don't imagine they'll be able to get it under $400.
- untog 13y ago
  Both Google and Apple have an interesting controller too- smartphones. Games running on an AppleTV and controlled via an iPhone seem like a pretty decent concept.
  - programminggeek 13y ago
    The smartphone is not the same as a proper controller with tactile feedback.
    - untog 13y ago
      No it isn't. But it is free. And people have already demonstrated that they're more than happy to use smartphones as controllers, by downloading games and playing them.
      - splawn 13y ago
zeckalpha 13y ago
"Google has now set its sights on making its own Android-based video game console. The kicker? This is supposed to be in response to Apple doing the very same thing." Who knew Apple would ever have an Android-based device?
- jere 13y ago
  Zing >I will spend every penny of Apple's $40 billion in the bank, to right this wrong. I'm going to destroy Android, because it's a stolen product. I'm willing to go thermonuclear war on this.
- drawkbox 13y ago
  Nice one. It is definitely in response to Apple but also more likely they are seeing OUYA and GameStick (also amazon but no console yet) make their own App stores outside of Play! and they want to give developers options to take their Android games to the TV but also not lose out on that bank. They have to now that OUYA and Apple are doing this. It will lead to cool things though, controller ready games and multiplatform gaming/everywhere gaming on remote screens everywhere where as console gaming is stuck at home only for longer sessions/deeper gaming.
baggachipz 13y ago
"It’s hard to imagine Google and Apple not delivering a product with ten thousand percent more refinement, so it may be the case the Ouya won’t be long for this world." L O fucking L. Especially in Google's case, their MO is to always throw the half-baked product out onto market, call it "beta" for 5 years, and make it good eventually. That's not bad in itself, but the author has no idea what they're talking about. Apple will start with a small, lacking-functionality ("on purpose") product, have it be incredibly closed, and polish it up for the second release (if any). Judging by their history with Apple TV, I wouldn't count on a homerun here either. Did Forbes hire a 12-year-old fanboy to write this?
- myko 13y ago
  Wouldn't Android and Google TV/Nexus Q be Google's foray into this space? Seems about right on schedule for a homerun on their part. Apple TV doesn't need much to become a huge hit. Open up the SDK and the App Store, allow control of games with iPhone/iPad and with a good performance boost it certainly has potential.
  - baggachipz 13y ago
    Google TV is still a steaming pile (I've owned one for a while now), and Apple TV has no industry support. It's just an expensive Roku with fewer channels/apps. As others have said, Google stands to gain nothing from this, especially when other manufacturers are already making an Android console. Apple could, but they have been rudderless since ol' Steve went.
    - mamp 13y ago
      They seemed a bit more game focussed at WWDC with Sprite Kit, Dynamics and game controller support.
    - sandis 13y ago
      How is Apple TV "just an expensive Roku"? $99 certainly is not a high price point. Not to mention that Apple TV actually costs $0.99 less than Roku 3.
gmu3 13y ago
I think it is a little unfair to oversimplify the Ouya to just indicating "people were indeed interested in a cheap console that plays phone games on their TV." In addition, one of Ouya's biggest draws was its openness which Google and Apple will have a harder time competing with than just releasing a cheap console with better polish.
- megablast 13y ago
  You really think many people care about openness? People care about $99 consoles, and $1 games.
  - pezh0re 13y ago
    As someone who purchased the Ouya during their kickstarter, the openness was a huge deal to me. It's the same thing that makes me long for a Valve produced Steambox. Give me something that I can tear apart (both hardware and software) and do my own thing with it.
coldcode 13y ago
Forbes never sees anything coming, or even stuff already here. We should stop paying attention to them.
yalogin 13y ago
If (when) Google develops the console, they are developing the software for it as well. What is stopping Ouya, Roku or Samsung from integrating this directly into their hardware and circumvent the need for an additional box altogether? This is not a console war between Apple and Google, more competition between Apple and Android since I think again the big winner will be Samsung here. Also its not a war but just a continuation of what's going on in the mobile space.
Zigurd 13y ago
The real market opportunity is games that are fun. You do not need to realistically model blood and brain-matter splattering or how sweaty arm-hair behaves on athletes in order to have fun. And it's not a hardcore vs. casual dichotomy, either. Exploitative in-game purchases in casual games are as bad as all the bloody war games.
socialist_coder 13y ago
Apple announced their controller standard as well so we will see more and more iOS games come out that support the controller. I have been saying this same thing for about 2 years now- the age of consoles is almost over. A Sony/MS box is not going to be the thing that delivers your living room entertainment, it will be a mobile device, ipad, or set top box from that same ecosystem. Disc based games need to die but Sony/MS won't let them quite yet. Android/Apple are coming into the living room gaming arena from a completely different perspective that fits better into the current times. 100% downloadable, integrated with your smart phone / tablet, no more 5 year product cycles, etc. The advantages for being able to just ignore 3 generations of past consoles and come up with something completely new are huge. Now we just need to see what the Steam Box is going to do.
- sinnerswing 13y ago
  Google's going to manufacture smart watches and consoles? Another wannabe-knee-jerk-lets-copy-Apple product from Google. Why am I not surprised.
  - css771 13y ago
    Apple still haven't even released a console and Apple apologists are already quick to jump on the "Apple invented everything under the sun" train. Why am I not surprised? If anything, it's Apple that's copying others here.
    - sinnerswing 13y ago
      You're right. Google's going to be first to market by releasing crappy, half-baked beta products and Apple's going to "copy" them.
- jmduke 13y ago
  Disc based games need to die but Sony/MS won't let them quite yet. No, the gamer demographic won't let them die. Microsoft had a push in the right direction with the moves they were experimenting with for the Xbox One: unfortunately, they had to backpedal on them because people were too outraged.
mullingitover 13y ago
My take on this, and maybe I'm wrong, is that Apple and Google have some really cool knives in development, and they're hoping to succeed with them when they jump into the long-running console industry gunfight.
- embolism 13y ago
  Bringing knives to a nerf-gun fight.

38 points by drone 13y ago

tmzt 13y ago

Well first I would argue that we did see this coming: AAA games make money but so do casual and free-to-play games. Wii established the precedent, and follow on devices such as the Ouya expand the market for console devices for casual games. Also, Roku 2 shipped a version with a game remote and Angry Birds. My concern is that it is too early for Google to introduce an Android gaming console, without establishing a standard for games to be developed against. The first Ouya's have sold out (to the chagrin of the presale buyers), but customers don't need the confusion of multiple incompatible consoles at this stage. Having a different market application is probably fine, but the developers need to be able to publish to multiple markets and still customize the games for the for the console they are targeting. I believe that actions taken by Google at this stage could prevent Android gaming consoles from becoming established, and they should be willing to defer to the first mover, Ouya, in order to build an economy of compatible Android gaming consoles later.

simonh 13y ago
What's in it for Google? There's always been a reasonable argument that it benefits Google to have a diverse mobile device ecosystem, in which open standards compliant browsers and apps that can access Google services are a baseline feature. Their nightmare scenario was a world of locked down mobile device platforms with browsers hard wired into proprietary web portals and services that cut them out of the loop. TV is a different medium though. It's useless as a web browser platform and Google app style services have never worked will on them either. The control interface is just too clumsy. So as a general web and services access platform it's not that attractive. What TV is good at is video presentation and games. Google's never going to make any money on games, either on mobile or on a TV platform. They do have youtube though, so that's really the only viable route they have towards revenue on the TV. The problem is, nobody making an Android based TV device has any incentive to include a youtube service on it except Google. If Samsung say produced an Android based TV device, what's in it for them to support a Youtube app? Better to strike a revenue sharing deal with Netflix, Hulu, HBO, etc. They could revenue share with Youtube, but then Google is only getting a slice of the revenue, instead of the whole lot from Google's own TV device. Google is already getting squeezed out of their own Android ecosystem by companies like Samsung and Amazon rolling their own default apps and services for their devices. On an open Android platform on the TV, that effect would be considerably magnified.
- Pxtl 13y ago
  Google makes money off the Play Store, I imagine; a TV is a good Play Store client.
drone 13y ago
I agree that its best for Google to focus on enabling Ouya (or any other nascent console developer). I'm not even sure what benefit there is to Google to own a particular piece of hardware, when they could be taking a slice of the pie from lots of hardware manufacturers (through ads, of course, or enabling technologies). A better place for Google, IMO, would be looking at how they can re-define what the console experience should be - they have a potential Kinect killer in Glass. I'm afraid that Apple might be out of their league in this regard. Everything about the AppleTV screams "day late and dollar short" to me. I'm not sure their expertise in mobile experience can be easily translated to the big screen in front of the couch. Just throwing some common games on an AppleTv and calling it a gaming console seems a little silly.
Pxtl 13y ago
I imagine that if Google expands the Play Store standards to include console apps that do not conform to the all-touchscreen conventions of Android, then Ouya will be able to get Play Store support. The Ouya guys insist that they tried to get Google to support them but that you must have a touchscreen to get access to the play-store.
- tmzt 13y ago
  Certainly, and the reasons those standards were put in place were good ones. There where devices with less than usable touchscreens (including resistive) and in some cases no touchscreens. These are the myriad of devices from Shenzen, one after another, running Android derived from AOSP. At the same time, these devices were only one of the problems. Google was fighting against companies putting the Market on devices that could barely run Android, couldn't run 3D games that were available in the market, didn't support playback of video formats that were commonly used in the games and other applications, and had other limitations. The availability of the devices contributed to Android's popular image as a low-end platform, with Apple's iPhone being the premium device. Remember, this was during the Android 1.0 and early 2.0 days. At the same time, it was clear that Android needed to support multiple platforms. I asked one of the developers in IRC at the time when we would see a "set-back box" running Android, or systems for vehicles. The response was along the lines of "let's concentrate on phones first." Now we are seeing a perfectly reasonable restriction in the Market (now Play Store) license being used to exclude a new product category from the officially supported application store where Google collects a healthy cut. Also, doesn't the Ouya controller have a touchscreen, and even run Android on it's own internal CPU/GPU? It's not clear to me from the Kickstarter description but it would make sense. The trade-off here for Ouya is either collecting the share of the revenues for themselves, including possibly through their own free-to-play credits system, or having a large number of partially supported games which were not designed to use a controller. I can see that whether it was the original plan or not, having their own application store makes sense for Ouya if they can get the developer attention they need. That's really what I'm talking about here, Google's careless implications of creating a competing console may have the effect of confusing potential buyers at Target or GameStop as to which Android console to buy. The result being they buy neither.

programminggeek 13y ago

Um, if Apple makes apps available for the Apple TV and can nail the user experience, they might really have something. A $100 Apple TV with $1-5 games and a lot of free to play would be such a better deal for most consumers than the $500 consoles with $60-70 games. Also, there is a window for a Steam box to do well too. OUYA might not be getting rave reviews now, but I think it's going to grow into an interesting niche for sure.

Pxtl 13y ago
Steam box is going to be in a very different market - Valve's plan is to have three tiers - a lite ARM-based Miracast client for people who have a gaming PC and want to stream gaming from it to their TV, a full PC with a drive and all the bells and whistles, and a middling low-power solid-state device. The last one, the "better" box as Newell calls it, is the one that will be most directly competing with normal consoles, but since it will still require full X86 hardware and beefy gaming processors, I don't imagine they'll be able to get it under $400.
untog 13y ago
Both Google and Apple have an interesting controller too- smartphones. Games running on an AppleTV and controlled via an iPhone seem like a pretty decent concept.
- programminggeek 13y ago
  The smartphone is not the same as a proper controller with tactile feedback.
  - untog 13y ago
    No it isn't. But it is free. And people have already demonstrated that they're more than happy to use smartphones as controllers, by downloading games and playing them.
    - splawn 13y ago

zeckalpha 13y ago

"Google has now set its sights on making its own Android-based video game console. The kicker? This is supposed to be in response to Apple doing the very same thing." Who knew Apple would ever have an Android-based device?

jere 13y ago
Zing >I will spend every penny of Apple's $40 billion in the bank, to right this wrong. I'm going to destroy Android, because it's a stolen product. I'm willing to go thermonuclear war on this.
drawkbox 13y ago
Nice one. It is definitely in response to Apple but also more likely they are seeing OUYA and GameStick (also amazon but no console yet) make their own App stores outside of Play! and they want to give developers options to take their Android games to the TV but also not lose out on that bank. They have to now that OUYA and Apple are doing this. It will lead to cool things though, controller ready games and multiplatform gaming/everywhere gaming on remote screens everywhere where as console gaming is stuck at home only for longer sessions/deeper gaming.

baggachipz 13y ago

"It’s hard to imagine Google and Apple not delivering a product with ten thousand percent more refinement, so it may be the case the Ouya won’t be long for this world." L O fucking L. Especially in Google's case, their MO is to always throw the half-baked product out onto market, call it "beta" for 5 years, and make it good eventually. That's not bad in itself, but the author has no idea what they're talking about. Apple will start with a small, lacking-functionality ("on purpose") product, have it be incredibly closed, and polish it up for the second release (if any). Judging by their history with Apple TV, I wouldn't count on a homerun here either. Did Forbes hire a 12-year-old fanboy to write this?

myko 13y ago
Wouldn't Android and Google TV/Nexus Q be Google's foray into this space? Seems about right on schedule for a homerun on their part. Apple TV doesn't need much to become a huge hit. Open up the SDK and the App Store, allow control of games with iPhone/iPad and with a good performance boost it certainly has potential.
- baggachipz 13y ago
  Google TV is still a steaming pile (I've owned one for a while now), and Apple TV has no industry support. It's just an expensive Roku with fewer channels/apps. As others have said, Google stands to gain nothing from this, especially when other manufacturers are already making an Android console. Apple could, but they have been rudderless since ol' Steve went.
  - mamp 13y ago
    They seemed a bit more game focussed at WWDC with Sprite Kit, Dynamics and game controller support.
  - sandis 13y ago
    How is Apple TV "just an expensive Roku"? $99 certainly is not a high price point. Not to mention that Apple TV actually costs $0.99 less than Roku 3.

gmu3 13y ago

I think it is a little unfair to oversimplify the Ouya to just indicating "people were indeed interested in a cheap console that plays phone games on their TV." In addition, one of Ouya's biggest draws was its openness which Google and Apple will have a harder time competing with than just releasing a cheap console with better polish.

megablast 13y ago
You really think many people care about openness? People care about $99 consoles, and $1 games.
- pezh0re 13y ago
  As someone who purchased the Ouya during their kickstarter, the openness was a huge deal to me. It's the same thing that makes me long for a Valve produced Steambox. Give me something that I can tear apart (both hardware and software) and do my own thing with it.

coldcode 13y ago

Forbes never sees anything coming, or even stuff already here. We should stop paying attention to them.

yalogin 13y ago

If (when) Google develops the console, they are developing the software for it as well. What is stopping Ouya, Roku or Samsung from integrating this directly into their hardware and circumvent the need for an additional box altogether? This is not a console war between Apple and Google, more competition between Apple and Android since I think again the big winner will be Samsung here. Also its not a war but just a continuation of what's going on in the mobile space.

Zigurd 13y ago

The real market opportunity is games that are fun. You do not need to realistically model blood and brain-matter splattering or how sweaty arm-hair behaves on athletes in order to have fun. And it's not a hardcore vs. casual dichotomy, either. Exploitative in-game purchases in casual games are as bad as all the bloody war games.

socialist_coder 13y ago

Apple announced their controller standard as well so we will see more and more iOS games come out that support the controller. I have been saying this same thing for about 2 years now- the age of consoles is almost over. A Sony/MS box is not going to be the thing that delivers your living room entertainment, it will be a mobile device, ipad, or set top box from that same ecosystem. Disc based games need to die but Sony/MS won't let them quite yet. Android/Apple are coming into the living room gaming arena from a completely different perspective that fits better into the current times. 100% downloadable, integrated with your smart phone / tablet, no more 5 year product cycles, etc. The advantages for being able to just ignore 3 generations of past consoles and come up with something completely new are huge. Now we just need to see what the Steam Box is going to do.

sinnerswing 13y ago
Google's going to manufacture smart watches and consoles? Another wannabe-knee-jerk-lets-copy-Apple product from Google. Why am I not surprised.
- css771 13y ago
  Apple still haven't even released a console and Apple apologists are already quick to jump on the "Apple invented everything under the sun" train. Why am I not surprised? If anything, it's Apple that's copying others here.
  - sinnerswing 13y ago
    You're right. Google's going to be first to market by releasing crappy, half-baked beta products and Apple's going to "copy" them.
jmduke 13y ago
Disc based games need to die but Sony/MS won't let them quite yet. No, the gamer demographic won't let them die. Microsoft had a push in the right direction with the moves they were experimenting with for the Xbox One: unfortunately, they had to backpedal on them because people were too outraged.

mullingitover 13y ago

My take on this, and maybe I'm wrong, is that Apple and Google have some really cool knives in development, and they're hoping to succeed with them when they jump into the long-running console industry gunfight.

embolism 13y ago
Bringing knives to a nerf-gun fight.