Theorizing a Big Apple Push Into Gaming 364
Ian Lamont writes "Terrence Russell has outlined an interesting theory about what industry Apple intends to break into next. He points to games. Forget Pippin II, or an iMac gaming rig — he thinks the mobile realm is where Apple will make a big product push. It's not the first bit of speculation about Apple's renewed interest in gaming, but Russell's theory may have more legs, considering Apple's invitation to develop games on the iPhone SDK, its strong mobile product line, and a Apple trademark extension filed three months ago."
I'm definitely not knowledgeable with Mac, but... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:iPippin? (Score:0, Interesting)
If by "fail" you mean that nearly everyone that had one really like them and wanted to buy them, but GM wouldn't let them buy out their leases because they didn't want to upset the oil industry, then yes, it was a complete and total failure...
The Pieces are in Place (Score:1, Interesting)
then look how they adapted the i-phone to a music specific device (iPod Touch) and the concept of an "iPod Play" doesn't seem to far fetched to me.
Re:I'm definitely not knowledgeable with Mac, but. (Score:3, Interesting)
Ironically (Score:4, Interesting)
Doesn't get much more mainstream than Spore (Score:5, Interesting)
I agree there's no way they are going to have a platform for game development for all platforms. Whay would they? Apple wants to sell Apple platforms.
But Apple is pushing in a very big way for mainstream names to come to the platform. We've already seen demos from Nintendo and from EA, in particular a Spore demonstration. Now those were proof of concepts but it's pretty obvious both parties are interested in extending those relationships into real working games.
Games on the iPhone will be different due to how control schemes have to be altered. But we'll see names from many big players, and games from big franchises.
This may strike people as another nGague, but this time Apple is still focused on the core reasons for owning a device - and also making is useful for gaming, which is I think the right mix for a portable device that is not only a game system. I think it will be more successful than other non-gaming mobile platforms, because it has better support for graphics and control and a really good display for gaming.
Re:iPippin? (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:iPippin? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Ironically (Score:3, Interesting)
Of course they're heading into games (Score:5, Interesting)
If you want crazy theories about what Apple could do as far as gaming goes... how about, instead of selling Mac Pros with two quad-core Xeons, they start making them with one quad-core Xeon and one Cell. Sure, it would take a mountain of work to make Xcode optimize its compiler to execute code for running on two different architectures simultaneously, especially one as odd as the Cell, but Xcode already generates universal binaries for x86 and PPC at the click of a button, and Apple's got the resources these days to make Xcode optimize as much as possible for the Cell, and make decisions about which code to run on the cell and which to run on the Xeon.
Why would they try a crazy architecture like that? Well, in the markets Mac Pros are aimed at; video editing, rendering, Photoshop, scientific computing- Cells can, in certain circumstances, run circles around the competition. It could grant a speed advantage for certain tasks that Windows PC's would have no hope of matching. Throw in a quad Xeon, a Cell, and finish up making the OS offload some processing to the graphics card, and you've got a computer with three extremely different and very fast processors to throw at different sorts of problems.
But wait, didn't I say something about games? Well, if you're selling a computer with a Cell in it already, along with a graphics card, (how long could it be before Apple starts offering Blu-ray on Mac Pros...), could they license PS3 compatibility from Sony? They wouldn't even have to license it, Sony could sell a PS3 compatibility client for Mac Pros. Before you say "Sony would never do that," remember that Sony loses money on each PS3- they're in this for market dominance, not hardware profits.
Anyway, that's my crazy conspiracy theory regarding Apple gaming, to go with the "already happened so it's not even news" theory regarding iPhone gaming above.
Cards are fine, but Apple drivers suck... (Score:2, Interesting)
Did you know that nVidia Quadro FX 5600 ($2800 professional 3d sterio super duper workstation card) performs poorer than ATI HD 2600 XT ($130 card) for example in apple pro application benchmarks?
http://www.barefeats.com/harper10.html
I have 8 core mac pro with 8800 GT (a really good video card in the PC world even today) and majority of animation effects in OS X are choppy as hell and google earth is barely usable with it (5 year old PC with single core and 4 generations older video card beats it).
So, yeah Apple and video has a long way to go.
Re:iPippin? (Score:3, Interesting)
Also, Sony may have failed with Betamax, but they succeeded wildly with 3.5 inch floppies and their Walkman line of cassette players. Both sides of the HD-DVD/Bluray war spent exorbitant amounts of money on promoting their format. The truth is that Bluray was the superior format and was always going to win. HD-DVD had a minor price advantage at the beginning, but that was about it. It never had a chance. Especially when the largest technology companies in the media industry were all backing Bluray. (Many had even contributed to its development!)
Relax, not a DS replacement (Score:3, Interesting)
Indeed (though I don't think the DS has the accelerometers). You are however I would point out saying that it's just like the DS, and the PS3/Wii - except it's like both at once since it combines the two things. Is that not somewhat different and new?
You can relax though, just because the iPhone may be popular for gaming does not mean it will replace the DS.
Now can you admit there is potential?
Re:iPippin? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Um, no. (Score:4, Interesting)
http://www.ea.com/platform_mac.jsp [ea.com]
http://www.feralinteractive.com/ [feralinteractive.com]
http://www.insidemacgames.com/ [insidemacgames.com]
AllegroGL (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:They've already shown support (Score:3, Interesting)
That could be just posturing...
Are you talking about Spore or the character creator? Spore isn't coming out until September.
Whatever they were thinking to put out - I always figured it would be some variant of Spore, if anything. I still think we'll see something from them, they may well hold back the more popular titles hoping to cut down the percentage. I still think we'll see something from them.
Re:Can't see it happening (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm studying CS at a German university and Macs are essentially taking over the department. The Sun lab was discarded in favor of an Apple lab and I'd say that Apple is the most popular choice for laptops with Lenovo as the second; lecturers are even more Apple-friendly than the students. Dell and HP don't come near.