Apple games yes, consoles no

Stan Beer
Thursday, 07 December 2006 09:33

Opinion and Analysis

Anyone who suggests that Apple Computer would even consider going head-to-head against Sony, Microsoft or Nintendo in the games consoles space would have to be off their rocker. However, Apple entering the games market is a distinct probability.

Apple always has and, while Steve Jobs is around, always will make its money by selling hardware not software. Games consoles is a hardware loss-making business period.

So the problem for Apple is how does the company make money on games while still making money on its hardware. There are a number of possibilities.

Some sort of variation on the iPod already presents itself as a possible contender to be a portable games device. Apple is known to have a patent for a touch screen device that could take on different personalities and menus depending on what mode it will run in. One of the modes could be games.

The home is a different question. What does Apple put in the lounge room? So far what we have heard about is a device called an iTV, which we have naturally assumed to be purely a device to stream videos from a Mac to your TV. Could it also be used to stream games processed on a beefed up Mac? Could it have some local processing capabilities, although that would add to the cost? Would the games be downloaded from iTunes and burned to DVD or even stored on a large hard drive? Who would develop the games?

There are a lot of unanswered questions. However, Apple is not a company content to sit still. In order to grow, it has already dropped hints, without actually saying so, that it wants a piece of the mobile phone action. When it pre-announced the iTV, Apple signalled its intention to move into the lounge room of consumers. There is no reason to assume that it will simply stop at videos.