Ok, a few words about this topic : Apple in games.
As they had pretty much nothing ‘big’ to announce at their last press keynote, boys from Apple made the emphasis on how marvelous is their touch platform for gaming, and how huge and successful it has become within 2 years.
That’s an achievement, no doubt.
Does it make Apple a future core ‘player’ ?
Let me doubt, for 3 reasons :
1) Ergonomics
Won’t last long on this one, but if you own, or had the chance to borrow, a touch device (whether iPhone or iPod Touch), and launched a game, any game, you’ve found yourself facing the reality. There is no physical joystick built-in !
Yes, you can sing your Apple fan-boy chorus : touch screen is super reactive, gyroscope is pure innovation, etc…
But you miss the essential : accurate control, and thus, speed, and thus, fun !
The gyro thing commands you to move the device, and lose visibility of what is going on. Couldn’t think of a better fun-killer ! At least for gaming. On a masochist quest perspective, it’s certainly kinda Nirvana. ;-)
Bejeweled-like or board games are just fine with the touch technology. But forget the rest. Even for free it’s not playable for more than a few minutes long.
2) Digital download : too early
I’m convinced that in the next 10 years, 90% of the games will not only be downloadable from the day (minute?) of their release, but also streamed. And not to only one device, but to all the devices you’ll own. I’m sure of that path. But we’re talking 10 years from now, right ? :-)
3) Money
Believe it or not, companies make products they can get money from. And so far, the Appstore is not that profitable, so to say. Big bucks are on hardware for Apple. This can of course be different when they’ll ship 100 million units, like the Nintendo DS. Major game editors will then be more likely to permanently include the touch platform for the release of their worldwide hits. But they’ll seriously address Apple on topic 1) before. Because they’ll never downgrade their hits gaming experience, in the risk of loosing customer trust.
Yes, you understood me. Gaming market is hold by editors, and always will be. The game is THE product, the ‘console’ is only the carrier. Which means a need for Apple to become an editor itself to meet the bucks, and rule upon, or in between the other editors.
Apple already did such a quantum leap with Pixar. They’re capable of lots of things we don’t see right now.
Bottom line:
Talking games, Apple came from nowhere in short time. But the path they’re on is not the core one. The game industry is a powerful battlefield, believe me. And still growing like hell. Apple won’t be able to make it as easily as with the lethargic MP3 market, or the low-end driven mobile phones one. Apple’s DNA is simple : make the products that make the rules. You can think about it for days you won’t find a better definition for what they’re doing.
As everything has an end, I believe that – actual – Apple’s DNA has found it’s limit with games !
Yeeee! See you in 10 years to see what happened ! :-)
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