
What developers say Apple needs to do to make the Apple TV a gaming console - extraterra
https://arstechnica.com/?p=1391091
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nilkn
It's definitely the lack of a bundled controller. The Siri remote is
completely unsuitable for the great majority of games. While third-party
controllers exist, it's not a viable proposition for a studio to make a
controller-required game when so few Apple TV owners have such a controller.
(And in fact, while this may or may not be true today, I believe at least
initially Apple required all games to be playable with just the Siri remote,
so controller support could never be more than optional.)

If Apple had bundled in a controller and funded a few high quality games that
don't have microtransactions, it probably could be a pretty serious game
console.

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b_tterc_p
“A few high quality games” seems like it’s handwaving a rather large part, no?

~~~
nilkn
I don’t think so. Apple has a vast budget. Even just bundling a controller
would’ve made a significant difference with no funding of games.

I also don’t think they would’ve needed to fund entirely new games, just
support a few indie ports to kick it off, similar to what Nintendo did with
the Switch.

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newscracker
> Apple needs to do more than just offer developers the tools to make games
> for its platforms. It needs to sell consumers on the fact that these
> machines are for games.

Apple needs to do a whole lot more first for the Apple TV to be considered
close to iOS devices. The remote is an abomination that Apple should get rid
of and then go back to the drawing board with a new design team. Usability
wise, it's terrible — tiny, slippery, symmetrical shape where one can't figure
out quickly where the buttons are and doesn't have enough buttons for control
(the behavior when the side edges are pressed is unpredictable and annoying).

As for tvOS, it's neglected by Apple to such an extent that there's not much
going on in every release. It's still a "hobby" project that Apple can't
decide to spend time and money on. After all these years of apps on the
platform, there is still no straightforward way to update apps individually
from the App Store! Seriously, if that's not a sign of it being a hobby
project or almost abandonware, I don't know what is.

Apple needs to show that it's serious about the Apple TV, for real. It seems
to be distracted with things not directly related to Apple TV. If the past and
this year are any indication, it's clear that there won't be a game controller
from Apple for the foreseeable future. There are other broken things that need
to be fixed for Apple TV to be taken seriously in this space.

~~~
SOLAR_FIELDS
I have the remote for the 3rd generation of ATV, and I would also describe it
as slippery. Usually what happens is you're typing something in (instead of
using Siri, which actually works quite well usually) like your password when
you have someone over that shouldn't know it, you are swiping left and right
across a 26-letter row and always swipe just a little bit too far and have to
go back to the letter you wanted. If you have an iPhone nearby it works
perfectly to just use that keyboard though as well.

I'm not sure if it's the input device itself or the software for the keyboard
input that's worse, but it does need a rework.

TVOS is alright - I found it better for navigation and visual aesthetics than
the Roku that I had switched from - though Roku might have improved in that
realm since that was three years ago.

Symmetrical did bother me too. Far too often I would pick up the remote and
start moving my thumb over the "wrong" side of the remote, having to switch it
around. I finally fixed that by buying some nice rubber cases from Amazon
which made it bigger and easier to hold (also prevented it from slipping out
of my hand, as it is a little slippery as well) and also let me quickly
identify which side was the correct one for your thumb, since the rubber
encasing covers the "wrong" side.

I didn't have much problem with the side buttons, but one thing did stand out
about that button that your comment reminded me of: The hilariousness of
figuring out that it existed when I first bought the thing. I had plugged in
the ATV and could not for the life of me figure out how to get past the
welcome screen. After five minutes of head scratching I do a quick Google and
figure out you actually have to press down on the square on the remote.
Ohhhhhh. There was a whole thread of people on the Apple forums who had the
same problem of not monkey pressing the right button to figure out how the
thing worked.

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simonh
I've been interested in Apple TV for ages, but the demo setups in the apple
stores have been terrible. My WDTV is on it's last legs so I'm in the market
for a replacement TV client for streaming video. I'd like that to be an Apple
TV, but for £200 it needs to be a properly viable games machine, or it just
doesn't offer enough value over a £30 Chromecast.

Nintendo had the controller issue solved 12 years ago with the Wii. Come on
Apple!

~~~
dawnerd
Get an nvidia shield. Plays any file you can throw at it and they update it
pretty regularly. My original shieldnis still kicking and working great.

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andrewmcwatters
Apple doesn't give a shit about games, and they're a detriment to the
company's overall brand image anyway. This much is crystal clear, and there's
no incentive whatsoever to be a game developer working in Apple's ecosystem
save the UNIX background. Everything marketed as game-capable on any of
Apple's products is convenient happenstance that they're taking advantage of,
and none of it is planned for.

VR on iMac Pro: Great you finally had enough pixel fill-rate to catch up with
sub-$2k systems. No one plays VR on iMac Pro. Who's the demographic there?
Professionals? Nah, performance is still better on Windows systems.

Metal: Instead of letting vendors write the graphics drivers, you do, so you
control the graphics stack, too. Great, but not for games. This might make
your expensive windowing system run a bit better on your 5k monitors, though.

ProMotion: Fantastic for professionals, especially artists, and great for
consumers, but those rates are utilized mostly in hardware accelerated
software, and not for usage in iOS games. Unless the game is simple and has a
low polygon budget, you're not holding consistent 120 FPS. It's not happening.
Maybe in legacy titles finally ported to iPad and iPhone.

Game capabilities in Apple's hardware are possible with them pursuing other
features, but they are never a focus. That's perfectly fine! But Apple will
never produce a game friendly platform and you need to understand that when
developing games.

Engines that conveniently have the ability to compile to Apple's hardware
targets should be thought of as a nice-to-have and not a core feature.

Apple's iPhone games are a development-expensive variant of the flash games of
yesteryear, with far less accessibility to young artists and developers.

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earenndil
Ahhh so _that_ 's why high-quality games keep coming to ios.

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andrewmcwatters
Ahhh, but they don't. They're ports.

