Former playstation executive phil harrison reckons apple will triumph in the vg world

richymcdermott

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/308406/news/apple-will-own-games-industry-in-10-years-phil-harrison/

I guess many of us who own iphones,ipads who buy apps have thoughts on what would apple do different from the likes of nintendo,sony,microsoft

We seen nintendo new controller which to me shares resembles to the ipad in ways , both are innovative companies in their markets

And while sony and xbox trying to be more multimedia entertainment system apple could rule on this part with their itunes store that has a large media base when it comes to music,movies.

I think it be interesting to say the least, for me anyways,anyone share same thoughts.

Retr0gamer

If they can't give me anything other than rubbishy distractions then I'll still be buying proper games. It might change but until that happens I'll be doing proper gaming on anything that isn't an apple.

Duggy747

Apple will eventually find the moment to take on the gaming market, but moreso in the market of people who don't really play games with their biggest competitor being Nintendo.

Meh, I'll always be a PC gamer anyways. Nothing since the PS2 has given me good reason to stick with them, I had a 360 but I grew bored of it and used it more to stream stuff to the TV than actually play games on it.

In fact, I only used the Xbox controller to play certain games on my PC :pac:

Chairman Meow

Awesome. Maybe they could team up with nintendo so in 10 years we can all waggle our way through angry birds or some other ****ty app store game

JohnMarston

Could you imagine an apple games console? A new version every year. Everytime you turn it on there would be an update. And it would contain a myriad of pointless add-ons.
And all the console would play is java games.

NTMK

JohnMarston wrote: »

Could you imagine an apple games console? A new version every year. Everytime you turn it on there would be an update. And it would contain a myriad of pointless add-ons.
And all the console would play is java games.

An update that requires a complete reinstallation:rolleyes:

If apple end up doin consoles i wont be buying

stevenmu

JohnMarston wrote: »

Could you imagine an apple games console? A new version every year. Everytime you turn it on there would be an update. And it would contain a myriad of pointless add-ons.
And all the console would play is java games.

And the controller would only have one button.

JohnMarston

Oh and it would cost about a months wages

Chairman Meow

And it would be completely ****. But look nice.

calex71

Chairman Meow wrote: »

And it would be completely ****. But look nice.

And outrageously overpriced, don't forget that

um7y1h83ge06nx

It would have a cool, glowing Apple logo.

Plus it would come with giving the owner the smug satisfaction that they're better than everyone else, for free. :P

TerrorFirmer

and worst of all, somehow it'd still sell by the truckload.

Redlion

And on top of all that horribleness, I still won't believe it's not butter!

Dont be at yourself

100 million+ iOS devices
100 million+ iTunes account with credit cards and one-click purchasing
A massively wide demograph, but mostly young, professional
No licensing fees, dev kits or other barriers to entry - you only pay Apple a percentage of revenue

I can see why it would appeal to developers.

The Apple TV is going to be key to their gaming ambitions (if they have any... It kind of just happened on iPhone/iPod/iPad). The same chip family is going to be used in all future iPhones, iPads and Apple TVs, so it would be great to be able to run the same game on whatever device you had to hand - all with cloud syncing. Controls are a barrier, but only for traditional games. Games tailored to the interface (Angry Birds, Flight Control, Sword & Sworcery, Infinity Blade) have all been great fun and very intuitive to play. For a lot of people, those kind of games are enough, especially at a couple of euro a pop.

JohnMarston

NekkidBibleMan wrote: »

Controls are a barrier, but only for traditional games.

I think most gamers are gonna tell you they like using a controller. Devices like the kinect can be fun but will not make the controller obsolete

Gandalph

"Your Apple Gamestation is Syncing"

"F**k off gamestation I wanna play angry birds!!"

hooradiation

NekkidBibleMan wrote: »

No licensing fees, dev kits or other barriers to entry - you only pay Apple a percentage of revenue

I am unsure where you're getting that idea from.

it's USD 99 per developer account per annum, you cannot do anything worthwhile without one of these.

The dev kits are apple products, like iPods/Phones/Pad and iMacs.
You simply must use apple hardware to develop on, attempting to do otherwise just leads to heart ache.

As for barrier to entry, apple are still the gamekeepers of the format and are less than transparent when it comes to why apps fail their certification process.

Dont be at yourself

hooradiation wrote: »

I am unsure where you're getting that idea from.

it's USD 99 per developer account per annum, you cannot do anything worthwhile without one of these.

The dev kits are apple products, like iPods/Phones/Pad and iMacs.
You simply must use apple hardware to develop on, attempting to do otherwise just leads to heart ache.

As for barrier to entry, apple are still the gamekeepers of the format and are less than transparent when it comes to why apps fail their certification process.

Right, but €99 for a developer license and €1,000 for a "dev kit" that also doubles as a workstation and PC is a drop in the ocean compared to what Sony, Microsoft or Nintendo charge.

Their App Store restrictions are similarly a lot less strict than the other platform holders.

hooradiation

NekkidBibleMan wrote: »

Right, but €99 for a developer license and €1,000 for a "dev kit" that also doubles as a workstation and PC is a drop in the ocean compared to what Sony, Microsoft or Nintendo charge.

Well, PS3 dev kits are about 2 grand USD as are the Wii ones. Microsoft keep the cost of theirs a secret, but recently released a "much cheaper" one, so it'll probably be about the same.

Also, don't forget to fact in the multiple pieces of apple hardware you'll need to buy if you want to port your app to the three main mobile platforms and if you want to ensure that it'll work with more than just the models you have, you'll need to source older ones and buy the latest ones too.
It's not exactly cheap.

NekkidBibleMan wrote: »

Their App Store restrictions are similarly a lot less strict than the other platform holders.

They may be less strict, but that's not what I said. I said they were less transparent. When apps fail the apple certification process for reasons such as "limited functionality" or "duplicating functionality" there is a hell of a lot of scope for what that could actually mean.

Retr0gamer

hooradiation wrote: »

Well, PS3 dev kits are about 2 grand USD as are the Wii ones. Microsoft keep the cost of theirs a secret, but recently released a "much cheaper" one, so it'll probably be about the same.

There's probably be licensing fees on top of that though and look at the online stores and how hard it is to get games on to them.

Dont be at yourself

hooradiation wrote: »

Well, PS3 dev kits are about 2 grand USD as are the Wii ones. Microsoft keep the cost of theirs a secret, but recently released a "much cheaper" one, so it'll probably be about the same.

Not quite as simple as that. If you or I go to Nintendo, Sony or Microsoft with 2 grand, they're not going to hand over a dev kit, a debug kit or SDK. They're probably not even going to return your email.

With Apple, I, and literally millions of other people, can spend $99 and have the exact same access to iOS devices, tools and SDK as the biggest developers in the world. The barrier of entry is like night and day, and saying otherwise just isn't true.

Also, don't forget to fact in the multiple pieces of apple hardware you'll need to buy if you want to port your app to the three main mobile platforms and if you want to ensure that it'll work with more than just the models you have, you'll need to source older ones and buy the latest ones too.
It's not exactly cheap.

You can test it using their SDK and whatever hardware you have. You don't need to jump through the crazy compliance testing of the other platform holders. You can also submit apps to Apple at no extra cost, and you're not penalised if you fail. If an indie developer gets in a position where to can submit a ROM to Sony or Nintendo for certification, and it then fails compliance testing, they are in deep doo-doo. No such worries for an iOS developer.

They may be less strict, but that's not what I said. I said they were less transparent. When apps fail the apple certification process for reasons such as "limited functionality" or "duplicating functionality" there is a hell of a lot of scope for what that could actually mean.

Less transparent than what? Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft turn down pitches from studios to get published on PSN, WiiWare and Xbox all the time, often without reason. We seldom hear about these, because it's not in a studio's interests to badmouth platform holders.

K.O.Kiki

I'm still unsure whether 99c games will encourage or destroy innovation.

socky2011

think of it this way

K.O.Kiki wrote: »

I'm still unsure whether 99c games will encourage or destroy innovation.

future apple developer thinking the same as you wrote: »

I'm still unsure whether 99c games will encourage or destroy innovation oh great idea for a game angry birds with apples instead of birds and original ideas instead of pigs and best of all this will take only 10 mins to make yay.

Dont be at yourself

socky2011 wrote: »

think of it this way

Or think of it this way:

I'm a small (one man?) developer, who has just mortgaged my house and got a loan from some friends to get the resources to build a PSN game. I really want to make a quirky colourful game with these cute little angry birds and military pigs, but I'm not sure of its appeal to the wider market. My rep at Sony has been advising I go for something a little more gritty. I can't afford this to fail, so think I'll have to scrap the birds and pigs and go for space marines and zombies.

hooradiation

NekkidBibleMan wrote: »

Not quite as simple as that. If you or I go to Nintendo, Sony or Microsoft with 2 grand, they're not going to hand over a dev kit, a debug kit or SDK. They're probably not even going to return your email.

With Apple, I, and literally millions of other people, can spend $99 and have the exact same access to iOS devices, tools and SDK as the biggest developers in the world. The barrier of entry is like night and day, and saying otherwise just isn't true.

But we're not talking about some lone guy with his latest angry birds clone, we're talking about actual developers. Sony won't give you the time of day, true. But they do deal with real companies.
Stuff for apple devices is nice for a lone person, or a small 3-5 man outfit, but beyond that? With the way the costs go up and how unreliable the revenue can be it's just a waste of time.

Dont be at yourself

hooradiation wrote: »

But we're not talking about some lone guy with his latest angry birds clone, we're talking about actual developers. Sony won't give you the time of day, true. But they do deal with real companies.
Stuff for apple devices is nice for a lone person, or a small 3-5 man outfit, but beyond that? With the way the costs go up and how unreliable the revenue can be it's just a waste of time.

Remedy, a fully fledged developer, spent 8 months developing Death Rally for iOS. It's easily to the same production standards a console downloadable title. It recouped its entire development costs in 3 days.

It's quite a leap between that and the costs of a blockbuster like Modern Warfare, and we probably won't see something that ambitious for years, if ever. But if people are happy playing these smaller, cheaper games, it'll still be a goldmine for developers.

Square Enix, Epic, Remedy, EA, Ubisoft and loads more have had a lot of success on the iOS platform, and their ambitions are only going to increase as more of their revenue comes from the platform.

socky2011

NekkidBibleMan wrote: »

Or think of it this way:

I'm a small (one man?) developer, who has just mortgaged my house and got a loan from some friends to get the resources to build a PSN game. I really want to make a quirky colourful game with these cute little angry birds and military pigs, but I'm not sure of its appeal to the wider market. My rep at Sony has been advising I go for something a little more gritty. I can't afford this to fail, so think I'll have to scrap the birds and pigs and go for space marines and zombies.

yeah i see what your saying about it allowing creative ideas but i'd hate to see 99c games become the norm as innovative games like bioshock for example can't be made in this kind of market (as far as i know)

Jazzy

its amazing just how much I hate Apple. please stay out of video games apple