According to Jez Corden, journalist at Windows Central, Apple has recently approached many Xbox engineers and may consider designing its own console.
Source: Arnaud Gelineau – Frandroid
After Microsoft’s crazy takeover of Activision Blizzard, whose turn is it to make the video game world tremble? And why not Apple. The war of the giants seems well and truly launched and it seems to go to a higher level. Microsoft does not hide that its new competitors are no longer Nintendo or Sony, but rather Facebook, Amazon, Google… and perhaps even Apple.
The latter attempted a foray into the video game world recently with Apple Arcade, which continues its interesting path away from the spotlight. But the Cupertino company is not taking its first steps in the sector and has had an ambitious project for a long time.
Xbox engineers approached by Apple
In his podcast, Jez Corden, a reporter at Windows Central, explained that he heard that Apple had approached Xbox engineers “to make your own console. » «I don’t know if it’s virtual reality, metaverse or something like that“, he moderates, however, adding that he also has no strong source or document or photo to support it. “It’s just something I heard, I don’t know if it will come to fruition or even if they already canceled it. »
In itself, this is not a new fad for Apple. You have to go back to 1996 to find traces of a first attempt hitting an apple in video games. The Pippin is a console designed by Apple and Bandai to compete with the Sega Saturn, the Nintendo 64 and even the latest one that is shaking up the market, the PlayStation. But it will be a fiasco.
The Apple Pippin console attempted in 1996
However, the idea was not bad: a multimedia console before its time with a Macintosh processor, audio inputs and outputs, capable of offering video games, but also Internet browsing or the possibility of programming java games. However, the result was too light for a console (few games) and not powerful enough for a computer, all for more than 620 dollars (about 550 euros HT), a fortune at the time. Bandai will even stop marketing from mid-1997.
The new-look Apple TV media box relaunched in 2015, with more storage, a faster processor and a dedicated App Store, was also inducted to double as a potential games console. Same multifunction concept in view. But the video game aspect has never really been pushed. The remote control which was to turn into a Wii-style controller will never prove to be ergonomic or easy to understand for many games, with a catalog that is starving at the time.
The new Apple TV launched in 2015 was also to serve as a video game console // Source: Apple
The VR headset in the background?
It is finally the arrival of Apple Arcade in 2019 which marks the most serious step of Apple in the field of video games. After a half-hearted start, the catalog is enriched over the months, renowned publishers come to offer more and more titles, the controllers of the main consoles are compatible, and the desire for a broad family service is respected. . Here, no shooting games, survival-horror or other violent games in sight. Apple derives its strength from a technically square offer and can boast of a service present on several platforms in its ecosystem (iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple TV, etc.).
Does Apple really need a console? Clearly not in good condition. If the Californian company went to try to poach engineers from Xbox, it was probably more to work on its famous virtual reality headset project, promised as a gateway to different fields and the famous metaverse that does so much shudder the giants of Tech. So why not video games? It is still necessary to have the operating system which allows it and possibly to know the codes of the video game to perfect the whole. Microsoft and Xbox have it, Apple a little less. Without content, the container is useless and vice versa.
NBA 2K21 Arcade Edition on Apple TV can be played with Xbox and PlayStation controllers // Source: Frandroid
As with Google with Stadia and Amazon Gaming Studios for a time before refocusing, the failures have often been at this level, understanding the rules of the industry and not coming to conquered territory thinking that being a tenor of Tech enough to crush everything. Making smartphones or video games remain two totally opposite things in their approach and mentality.
Design a gaming offer around a product
With a video game market worth billions of dollars, it is certain that the potential for new users to be captured is attractive and worth the investment. Apple has more serious assets to put forward if the desire takes it to throw itself a little more into video games: dizzying funds for ambitious projects or recruitment, the patience necessary not to launch a product that is not finished, technological know-how, servers, the cloud and a strong community of fans on the lookout for new things.
It now lacks the ability to concoct a more suitable material support and to inherit specific content that is more robust to seduce than simple games from the App Store refactored for VR.
In this, Microsoft’s gaming talents interest him if he does not buy studios that Apple would not know what to do with in the long term. A good support, headset or other, the statutory security of the company and the studios would rush themselves to offer content on a new product signed Apple even at delirious prices. In this, the apple brand could be a serious challenger for Microsoft or even Tencent, the ogre in the making.
2021 is behind us. It’s time to do our recap of the games that have marked us. Obviously subjective choices, selected as much for what they have offered to new consoles (and old ones) as for pleasure…
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