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Cult of Mac: Our Sources Say Apple Is Developing A Video Game Console

Cheebo

Banned
This rumor from Cult of Mac got brought up in the thread about Tim Cook Meeting with Valve but a serious rumor about Apple actually building a full on video game console to enter the market against Sony, MS, & Nintendo is big enough to warrant it's own thread:

http://www.cultofmac.com/160760/why-apple-ceo-tim-cook-met-with-valve-exclusive/

Apple and Valve may be partnering with each other on a revolutionary video game console.

An unconfirmed report surfaced yesterday saying that Apple CEO Tim Cook was spotted at Valve’s headquarters in Bellevue, Washington. Whenever Cook is spotted out and about, people take notice. The CEO of the world’s most valuable company doesn’t personally visit other tech companies to simply have a chat.

Many speculated as to why Cook would be visiting Valve, maker of popular game series like Half-Life, Team Fortress and Portal. Valve also boasts an incredibly robust online PC gaming platform called Steam that operates similarly to Apple’s App Store.

We’ve gotten word that Cook was indeed at Valve yesterday, and what’s more, Apple is planning a full-on assault to take over the living room. This assault won’t just be limited to the long-rumored Apple HDTV set, but will also include a revolutionary home console as well.

According to sources to Cult of Mac, Apple is working on a television set with an iTunes-integrated touch screen remote and Siri-like voice command technology. The TV set will be coming before the end of 2012. Rumors and patents have said as much for the past year, so that’s nothing new. But that’s not all we’ve heard.

Our sources also say that Apple’s television set will come with an Apple-branded, Kinect-like video game console. The interface will rely heavily on motion and touch controls.

If true, this wouldn’t be Cupertino’s first foray into the console market.

Back in 1995, Apple collaborated with Bandai to product a Mac OS running home console called the Bandai Pippin back in 1995. Things were pretty disjointed at Apple back then, and the company was trying to regain its image under the leadership of Michael Spindler. Apple licensed the Pippin platform to Bandai for a console, but the market was already dominated by the PlayStation and Sega. The Pippin was priced too high to compete and Bandai ended up selling less than 50,000 units before shelving the project.

Back to Valve. The gaming company makes Steam, a PC game distribution network with 30 million active users on both the PC and Mac. Steam is to gaming as iTunes is to music. Recent rumors have suggested that Valve is working on its own console dubbed the “Steam Box.” Instead of another Xbox or PlayStation, the hardware would serve as more of a standard that Valve would license to partners, much like the way Google handles Android in the smartphone space.

Recent Valve job listings also indicate that the company is working on a mysterious hardware project. The Steam Box is rumored to feature biometrics technology in the form of a bracelet or wearable device for recognizing players.

Last year Valve CEO Gabe Newell seemed concerned with Apple’s ‘walled garden’ approach and the possibility of its entrance into the TV market. ”On the platform side, it’s sort of ominous that the world seems to be moving away from open platforms,” Newell told The Seattle Times. ”They build a shiny sparkling thing that attracts users and then they control people’s access to those things.”

If there’s anyone that’s good at manufacturing and distributing hardware, it’s Apple. We don’t know the exact details of why Tim Cook met with Valve recently, but the two companies are obviously talking to one another. Based on what we’ve heard, it’s possible that Apple could be considering Valve as a partner for its entrance into living room gaming.
 

Oppo

Member
If Apple actually starts to care about games, I.e. does a dedicated controller or cuts a partnership with Valve for Steam connectivity.... man. it's gonna be a bloodbath.
 
D

Deleted member 80556

Unconfirmed Member
ok3lf7.gif


The worst possible manufacturer enters the console business!

I'll be very catious of this one if it's true, maybe Valve can make it work. Maybe.
 
I dont believe it.

How are they going to do a "kinect like system" when everybody hates it, and MS prolly owns all the patents?

Beyond that, it would be a failure anyway since it sounds like a weak piece of crap.

Apple has never been a fit for the games business: Cornerstones of (core, console) gaming:

Lots of hardware losses, razor/blade model, hot, noisy, powerful hardware. Appealing to the younger male demographic.

Apple hates all of those things. Apple doesn't sell hardware they arent making a huge profit on, which is impossible if you want to play in the traditional console space. They also appeal to women first/
 

Hoo-doo

Banned
I dont believe it.

How are they going to do a "kinect like system" when everybody hates it, and MS prolly owns all the patents?

Beyond that, it would be a failure anyway since it sounds like a weak piece of crap.

Yeah, everyone knows that the most powerful console always wins.
 

Dabanton

Member
I dont believe it.

How are they going to do a "kinect like system" when everybody hates it, and MS prolly owns all the patents?

Beyond that, it would be a failure anyway since it sounds like a weak piece of crap.

Whose everybody?

Forum dwellers you mean.
 
I dont believe it.

How are they going to do a "kinect like system" when everybody hates it, and MS prolly owns all the patents?

Beyond that, it would be a failure anyway since it sounds like a weak piece of crap.

Apple has never been a fit for the games business: Cornerstones of (core, console) gaming:

Lots of hardware losses, razor/blade model, hot, powerful hardware. Appealing to the younger male demographic.

Apple hates all of those things. Apple doesn't sell hardware they arent making a huge profit on, which is impossible if you want to play in the traditional console space. They also appeal to women first/

Hey.

Nintendo exists.
 

Derrick01

Banned
I'll repeat what I said in the original thread but if they're going to jump into the console business, one with much different standards than the previously almost non-existent mobile market, with just motion and touch then they're going to get embarrassed. They'll have to sell entirely on brand name alone because they won't be able to play anything that console gamers like to play. This isn't the mobile market where people want to just waste 10 minutes at their job here and there.

Thankfully I have serious doubts that Valve would involve themselves at all unless there was a controller. There were heavy rumors about them working on one to go with their steambox, and they've been developing big picture mode for a while now which was designed to work with a controller. I doubt they scrap all of that to work with Apple.
 

Gravijah

Member
I'll repeat what I said in the original thread but if they're going to jump into the console business, one with much different standards than the previously almost non-existent mobile market, with just motion and touch then they're going to get embarrassed. They'll have to sell entirely on brand name alone because they won't be able to play anything that console gamers like to play. This isn't the mobile market where people want to just waste 10 minutes at their job here and there.

Thankfully I have serious doubts that Valve would involve themselves at all unless there was a controller. There were heavy rumors about them working on one to go with their steambox, and they've been developing big picture mode for a while now which was designed to work with a controller. I doubt they scrap all of that to work with Apple.

if anyone could enter the console gaming market on name alone, it's apple.
 

Chittagong

Gold Member
Bad news for Apple fans if true. The reason why their products have been so superior has been their intensely focused product and OS lineup. When they really focus their products will be amazing - like iPad. But when they spread thin their products are mediocre - like Apple TV and Mountain Lion. Spreading into TVs and consoles means less focus for iOS portables and even less to OSX.

I can see them being really succesful though and changing the games industry, their ecosystem is way superior to Sony and Nintendo. It'll be between them and Microsoft to battle it out in the living room.
 

Cheebo

Banned
Usually they do opinion pieces, how to's and reviews. They don't usually run rumours so I wouldn't like to say.

They are a long standing Apple site that doesn't tend to post endless rumors. The mere fact this one is big enough to warrant them to stake their claim on it is pretty big. If a nobody apple site posted it no one would care, but CultofMac is part of the big leagues when it comes to Apple sites.
 

Derrick01

Banned
if anyone could enter the console gaming market on name alone, it's apple.

I know and that's what scares me. Especially if they refuse to take gaming seriously by putting out a motion and touch only machine. Gaming would suffer from that since everyone will flock to Apple like they did with the phones and tablets.
 

Auto_aim1

MeisaMcCaffrey
Sounds possible. Apple had patented a Kinect like device last year.

To be effective, it is also important that such devices be capable, when desired or necessary, of economically but effectively and precisely providing feedback to the user. Thus, such devices should incorporate audio and/or visual mechanisms for reporting to the user the effects and results of the 3D input.

http://gizmodo.com/5839850/did-apple-just-patent-xbox-kinect
 

dc89

Member
They are a long standing Apple site that doesn't tend to post endless rumors. The mere fact this one is big enough to warrant them to stake their claim on it is pretty big. If a nobody apple site posted it no one would care, but CultofMac is part of the big leagues when it comes to Apple sites.

Yeah I'm a big reader of it! It's a very good site indeed. I know they don't post many rumours but to be fair to me I've never really read any of their rumours before!

What was the last big rumour they ran which turned to be true?
 

watershed

Banned
A new challenger has arrived! It'd be interesting to see this happen for real. As long as it comes with physical controls like buttons then its fine with me. I wonder though how apple would manage it. I'm imagining an all digital distribution model.
 

Cygnus X-1

Member
Sure this is maybe the best moment. Sony's brand is at the weakest and Microsoft's X360 is slowly declining. Nintendo also is pretty weakened in the west and thus.....yeah, it would be the right moment, provided they enter the market during this ox max. next year.
 
If this has a regular controller too (analog sticks, buttons, etc)... yeah, bring it on.

Motion/touch only? they can keep it, i don´t want that.
 

tuffy

Member
In order for an AppleTV to really work, Apple needs to bypass the Comcasts of the world and cut deals with content providers directly. Some of that content would be games, so this sort of deal makes sense.

Of course, ISPs like Comcast don't want to be relegated to nothing more than dumb pipelines of packets while Apple rakes in a fortune on content, so there will be some conflict if it comes to that.
 
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