[Macworld.com]

Some people are speculating that iTV -- Apple's forthcoming media streaming device -- will also include some game-playing capabilities. Some people couldn't be more wrong. [more]

[JScott]

Wow. Peter, since you have to maintain a certain amount of professionalism I'll say it for you. What a freakin idiot! How the hell did this idea get into this guys head? He must have had a deadline and no ideas. Either that or he dropped acid at lunch. You pretty much summed it up in your article but nothing about the iTV says "game console" to me. And your absolutely right in stating the obvious that Apple is in no way able to, nor should play in the console market.

[Grapho]

I agree. Funny how the Mac was preserved as a toy at some point, now the PC is the toy. I actually have friends that use their computer exclusively to play games. This friend of mine would not benefit at all switching to a Mac because all he uses it for is internet and games. He also has a Play Station II that he hardly ever uses, he likes his PC games thou. My bother on the other hand dose not play games, he switched to a Mac can could not be happier.

[sigma8]

Yeah, I don't think the iTV will be gaming that much. However, it is within the realm of reality, I think, that it might make a foray into incredibly casual gaming. Games that you can play with an Apple Remote, maybe. Or whatever remote ships with the iTV. Maybe it will have a legitimate ipod-like scroll wheel, as opposed to the more limited "old" shuffle wheel.
I highly doubt they are doing anything ambitious with the first iTV, in regards to gaming, but they might be establishing a potential framework.
Also, even though you brushed it aside, it would be very cool if they did work in support for playing your Mac games through the iTV. I don't think this would amount to any real threat to any established players, not by a long shot. It wouldn't be perfect, the fonts would probably be illegible. But for something like MAME it would be really nice.
However, I suspect there is a slight delay, as it probably transmits a compressed stream.. This could make it impossible to do.

[Zobeid]

This article is so true, and yet so sad.
Before I ever had a Mac, I had Amigas. Before I had Amigas, I had Atari computers. Games were good for Atari, they were good for Amiga, and they are good for PCs. I dream of Apple someday waking up and realizing games are good for Macs -- but after all these years, I can't believe it'll ever happen. The anti-game attitude is too deeply embedded in Apple's corporate culture.

[monkeysan]

Peter
First off, thanks so much for at least doing me the courtesy of a close read. I'm sure you know what it's like to have people light into you without even bothering to carefully read your work.

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Ive spent the last two days forming a point-by-point rebuttal on technical grounds why I think iTV, or whatever Apple will call it when it ships next year, isnt going to be Apples answer to a game console.

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Wow. Too bad you didn't publish that. Instead, you simply attacked me personally

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This was usually followed by me laughing to myself. The idea is so totally from outer space, I couldnt even figure out why I gave it enough thought to form a rebuttal.

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and

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..even if Ruby wants to delude his readers into thinking a device being billed as a way to watch digital downloads is a trojan apple.

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and offered nothing in response, except:

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Its Apple itself that makes the conclusion problematic.

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Weak sauce, Peter. Although, at least you weren't ignorant enough to start yapping about Pippin.
But let's take a look at what I actually said in the column:

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All of this basically means that Apple could be on the verge of launching a slimmed down, single-core Mac Mini capable of streaming interactive content from a host com-puter and capable of storing and playing casual games locally.

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and then let's look at what you said in your 'rebuttal'.

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Its not that iTV wont be a game console or an interface to let Mac users play games on their computer at all

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What fierce disagreement! Thanks for setting me straight, Peter, I was afraid you were going to use me as a straw man.
Oh, yeah. I cut you off midsentence, how rude of me. You continue with

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that much is as patently obvious as the nose on your face..

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Patently obvious. I guess that's why you've never bothered to write about it. In fact, I guess that's why no one else had bothered to write about it either.
But there's more. You close with accusing me of deluding my audience, remember?
I'll quote it again anyway.

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even if Ruby wants to delude his readers into thinking a device being billed as a way to watch digital downloads is a trojan apple.

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Now, I'm confused. I understand the part about me deluding my readers, but what exactly is it I'm deluding them into?
The only thing I can possibly glean from the rest of your 'Apple can't do games' littany is that you don't think iTV will succeed at providing a gaming component to its digital media strategy because they. . . just. . . can't.
But that couldn't be it, because that would be an argument that assumes its conclusion as one of its premises. And that's a bad argument.
Maybe you were just saying that Apple has a bad track record with games, so it will suck at them in the future.
Oh, but that can't be it either, since you yourself spend most of your article outlining things that Apple has begun doing right, though you neglected to mention the launch of Apple games on ITMS.
That's okay, you also neglected to mention that I was basing my speculation in part on Ars Technica's interesting musing about whether the iTV might get a Conroe-L processor.
There's also this gem:

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Apple is so far away from being able to complete with Sony, Microsoft or Nintendo as a games developer, the mere idea is beyond ludicrous. Its absolute fantasy.

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Sure is. Good thing I never said Apple would try to compete with them as a game developer.
Whew.
In any event, let's get to the conclusion of your 'rebuttal':

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Whatever iTV turns out to be, I'm sure itll be great. But I dont think itll replace the Wii, Xbox 360, or PlayStation 3 on any gamers wish list.

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NO! NO! Say it isn't so! You DID use me as a STRAWMAN, since I never said they would either!
Oh Pete, I'm truly disappointed.

Cheers,

Aaron Ruby
aka monkeysan
Smartbomb author

[rgberry]

Monkeysan.
Great response. I thought Peter's article was pathetic as I read it. He didn't point out any factual information to support his ranting and emotional tirade. Who knows what Apple have planned. Peter's obvious dislike for the idea certainly aint gonna prevent it from happening IF that's what Apple have planned.
Me personally, having worked in IT for 17+ years, if I was Apple, I would be giving the iTV the ability to deliver game content (graphics and sound) to the living room (reusable graphics, sound and game parameters cached on a iTV local HDD or in the iTV's memory). The potential is huge. Start a game on the host computer as a service and play it in your living room. Obviously there are technical road blocks here, but then Apple are genius at overcoming such problems - they "think different". Just because they don't have all the ducks in a line now doesn't mean that they aren't busy herding them into that there line.
Anyway, great speculative analytical journalism Aaron. Keep up the great work.
As for you Peter, "settle pettle" as some of us say in country Australia. Your opinion may be right, but for heavens sake man, at least provide evidence to support your theories and cut the personal attacks. It's not necessary and highly unbecomming. This is Macworld, not MacDailyNews.
Rossco. /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

[Peter Cohen]

Aaron, Aaron, Aaron. You can't have it both ways.

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Further, according to some, its very possible video card drivers could be written so that graphic output data could be sent to a network port instead of the monitor connected to the card. That opens the possibility of using iTV and a wireless controller to remotely play Mac/PC games (cough WoW cough) in your living room.

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So is the "trojan apple" of which you speak going to be a single core Mac mini that plays casual games or something that allows you to do network monitor access? Make up your mind. Even if it is the latter, if there's any network latency at all, that rules out online gaming, even of the casual kind.

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at least you weren't ignorant enough to start yapping about Pippin

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Oh, please -- this from the same journo guilty of this howler?

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Its worth remembering, however, that Steve Jobs was a former employee of Nolan Bushnell. We all know how failing to protect the platform stung Atari. And it was Jobs who had a hand in making the classic, Breakout, so hes certainly not devoid of game cred.

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Oh yeah, THERE is strong evidence. Jobs' work at Atari consisted of circuit board design for Breakout, which he depended on Steve Wozniak to help him with. That certainly isn't a Eugene Jarvis-level of gaming cred.

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Patently obvious. I guess that's why you've never bothered to write about it.

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You're damn right about this, Aaron. Just like I've never written about Final Cut Pro's capabilities as a gaming development application -- because it ISN'T.

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The only thing I can possibly glean from the rest of your 'Apple can't do games' littany is that you don't think iTV will succeed at providing a gaming component to its digital media strategy because they. . . just. . . can't.

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You're missing the point, Aaron -- it's not that they can't -- it's that they won't. They've got more than four billion in cash in the bank. If they wanted, they could start their own game studio skunkworks, beef up their developer relations group and create a set of tools to make it easier for developers to make Mac games. But they haven't done any of those things. And any kind of coherent game strategy depends on third party support.
Given that just doesn't exist at this point, I'd say its absence is pretty telling that there isn't any secret strategy to make the iTV a game system. Your mileage, of course, may vary.

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Oh, but that can't be it either, since you yourself spend most of your article outlining things that Apple has begun doing right, though you neglected to mention the launch of Apple games on ITMS.

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Certainly not by ignorance -- I just published two pieces on iPod game development last week. The reason it didn't factor into my editorial here is because it has nothing to do with iPod games on the iTunes Store: this is is in response to your hypothesis that the iTV has something to do with gaming. Which I've asserted, in the strongest possible language, it won't.
Come Q1 of 2007, one of us will be proven to be correct on this issue. Only time will tell whether it'll be you or me.

[sigma8]

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Come Q1 of 2007, one of us will be proven to be correct on this issue. Only time will tell whether it'll be you or me.

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In 2005, people who said the 5th gen iPod would in no way be used for gaming (apart from bricks and paratrooper and solitaire) were proven correct....until a subsequent patch in 2006.
I'm not sure sending video data over the network port is possible at anything less than gigabit speeds. Maybe it would work for 640x480. I am going to have to agree that initially, there will be zilcho games on the iTV. I just don't think the technology is there yet. Or the desire.
However, I can't help but think that if the iTV is successful, that they will encourage mac game developers to develop applications adhering to a certain spec that would be controller+tv friendly, and eventually the iTV will be a conduit to playing mac games on the TV. I don't think they'll even bother going down that road until they have a foot in the door, though. Compared to their gaming competition, whatever minimalist games they could offer through the iTV would be meaningless to consumers.
However, once they establish iTV as the media hub, they would have a foundation of strength from which to attempt a small gaming foray. Exactly like what they're doing with the iPod now. Advertising the 1st gen iPod as a Gameboy killer would have gotten them into the failure bin, fast. But adding minor gaming features to it after its established is a nice "under the radar" move. Who knows if it will ever amount to anything, but it would seem they plan to do more with it. It's also interesting that iPod games are very well suited to the device...well except that they suck the battery dry.
As good as PSP games are, they're not really suited for waiting in line or riding a bus. Whereas the ipod games are well-suited for those short downtimes. PSP games are better off when you're stuck on a five hour flight. And of course, DS > all /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

[bynkii]

I think Peter was being WAY too nice. Ruby's post is one of those "if i'm vague enough and generalize about everything, I can't really be wrong pieces". The first sign to me that it's going to be kind of silly is this line:

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Maybe, then, Nintendo really got it right when it started dressing up the DS like an iPod.

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Okay, just because it's white, that doesn't make it an iPod wannabe. The Wii is going to be huge for reasons that have nothing to do with it's shell.
The rest of the article is just linking random things:

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Maybe the advent of iGames, the introduction of iTV, and the application for a patent covering handhelds with more than one touch-sensitive region are really the sawing sounds of building a new. . . Trojan. . . Apple.

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What's touch sensitive have to do with the iTV? It's not got a screen. What, Apple's going to release a touch-sensitive television? Monitor? Tablet? We don't know, and the article certainly doesn't tell us. It just jams that patent fact in there like it means something on its own, but it doesn't. It's just a patent.
The quote from Iger is not describing anything new. He's describing a home wireless network and Bonjour service detection. This is not magic, nor is it new. I can do this now with iTunes. No trojan horse there, just the idea that setting up a network isn't analagous to torture.

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A plausible argument by Roughly Drafteds Daniel Eran has the iTV being held just long enough for Apple to introduce 802.11n, which would allow 200 Mbit connections to an access point, nearly 10 times the a/g variety and more than enough to stream DVD-quality content wirelessly from a Mac (and possibly a PC). That would help explain the inclusion of an HDMI connection on Apples new device. As Eran points out, you dont need an HDMI connection if you are simply streaming downloadable 640X480 content.

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A plausible argument for WHAT? What is this arguing for? The bleedin' OBVIOUS? Who here thinks that Apple is not going to upgrade the quality of the movies they let you download when the iTV comes out? Right, no one with a brain. However, what Ruby's "oooh, a plausible argument" is overlooking is another thing the HDMI port could be used for...movies from your Mac. Hmm, let's see here. It has an Ethernet port, probably Gig-E. If it does support 802.11n, and then logically, there's a hardware refresh to support 802.11n on the Mac line, then I could stream movies from my Mac Pro/MacBook (Pro) to the iTV, and watch it on my television, without the current direct connect dance. Even better, download movies via iTunes, stream them to iTV and watch them.
Wow...yeah, that's a hell of a trojan there. Wireless Tivo. Woo.
And the stupidity continues. (Hey, he got upgraded from silly).

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Some have speculated that the iTV may also be destined to get one of Intels Conroe-L processors, which it would need to process the HD content Apple eventually wants to sell over iTunes.

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A device that will most likely need to process HD content will get a CPU that will allow it to perform that function at an optimal level.
MY GOD, I'M BLINDED BY THE BRILLIANCE.
Crap, I was blinded, I spelled "Obviousness" as "Brilliance". Sorry about that.

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Further, according to some, its very possible video card drivers could be written so that graphic output data could be sent to a network port instead of the monitor connected to the card. That opens the possibility of using iTV and a wireless controller to remotely play Mac/PC games (cough WoW cough) in your living room.

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Excuse me, why does God need a starship. DOH! Sorry, but I was still blinded from before.
WTH? Video card drivers interfacing with a network port? Dude, it doesn't work that way Video card drivers don't do ANYTHING other than send commands to the VIDEO CARD. In fact, the data they send isn't properly formatted for network transmission. That would be the job of, (more obvious, cover your eyes), the network drivers. You see, the OS could route graphic output data to the network drivers, and the two would work together to ensure that it was properly formatted for network transmission. The OSI 7-Layer Model, it's your friend.
However, what the HELL does that have to do with the iTV as a GAME MACHINE? Wait, I have it, nothing. At this point, the iTV is doing EXACTLY what it would be doing with movies...streaming data from a source to a TV. That's it. For the iTV to be the origination point of the games, well, you then need a keyboard, and multiple input devices. Oh wait, we have that, it's called a Mini.

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Convenient then, that on September 7, 2006, Apple filed a patent application for a handheld electronic device with multiple touch-sensitive devices. Sure, the primary application of the patent is likely to layer a touch screen over the iPods display, but ap-plications that involve improving gaming control with Apple products is not far-fetched.

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SIGH... do you have to warm up before you stretch like that? Here's a test for Aaron, and anyone else who thinks that paragraph is anything but dumb: Take a piece of glass about the size of an Xbox controller, and with a sharpie, draw some pictures of controls. Now, sit with it on your lap, and look at your TV as someone else plays a video game you're familiar with. Attempt to follow along hitting the right controls on a smooth, featureless bit of glass that you can't look at. See how easy that wasn't?
Touch screens only work when you can LOOK AT THEM. I have a touch screen phone. I live this. Every day. You can't play WoW or anything else that well when you have to look at the controller as much as you look at the screen, unless by "play" you mean "dying a lot".

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All of this basically means that Apple could be on the verge of launching a slimmed down, single-core Mac Mini capable of streaming interactive content from a host com-puter and capable of storing and playing casual games locally.

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Only if you think logical deduction is "a bunch of random facts that make no sense". I notice that the iTV is the size of a piece of bread. And I imagine it will get quite warm. SWEET! THE iTV IS A SAMMICH WARMER FOR GAMERS! That would be really handy. Cold grilled cheeses suck.
What? I have used EXACTLY the same amount of logic to determine that the iTV will be a networked, HD-Streaming sammich warmer as Aaron did in his conclusion. I took a physical characteristic and a likely operational side effect and created a totally inane operational purpose from them. Mine didn't even require a random patent application, so it fits Occam's razor better.

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Several developers have bemoaned the current, closed nature of iPod gaming. Persua-sive Games Ian Bogost has written that for now the iPod is as closed a development platform as they come. Which means that the iTunes Game Store is a walled garden with the tallest of slick, stone walls.
This is likely intentional, despite the fact that many longtime Mac game developers are fuming over being locked out of the garden, even after years of faithful support.

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Now we get to the "Let's throw in some random, unrelated statements about games on the iPod to prove my point that the iTV will somehow be a gaming system for "casual games", because I don't really have any supporting evidence beyond really, really, wanting it to be true." This is a popular tactic on the Intarweb, to distract you from the lack of solidity of the central thesis.
Not that this article has a central thesis. That would make it FAR too coherent.
Look, he does it again:

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Its worth remembering, however, that Steve Jobs was a former employee of Nolan Bushnell. We all know how failing to protect the platform stung Atari. And it was Jobs who had a hand in making the classic, Breakout, so hes certainly not devoid of game cred.

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What the heck does Jobs' job THIRTY YEARS AGO have to do with anything? By that logic, Apple's going to start shipping Pong machines. Oy vey.

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It would be truly ironic if a Trojan Apple rolled out of Cupertino. Instead of using games to gain convergence, Jobs and company may just use music and video to wrap up games into a neat set-top bundle. And the cultural ubiquity of the iPod brand certainly wouldnt hurt iTVs aspirations to breach our living room walls.

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It would be nothing like ironic, but I don't expect Ruby to have a grasp of such a subtle, elegant concept such as irony. He manages to say nothing that really supports the iTV as a games unit, other than having "iTV" and "games" in the same article. Close to each other. Many times. But now, thanks to the great ban against critical thought and analysis on the Intarweb, people are buying into this schtick. Ruby should start selling stuff, he'd make a mint if the reaction to this article is a guide. Wait, he is...he's selling Aaron Ruby.
He needs a better PR department.

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After all, it was an apple that started Homers great war.

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No, it was Helen being a little tramp that did that. The (golden) apple just meant that Paris had the support of the weakest and most ineffectual deity around. Look how that worked out for him.

[Ahruman]

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Apples taken stewardship of OpenAL, a positional audio standard that some games use for 3-D soundas long as youre using an audio card from M-Audio or an interface like the Griffin FireWave.

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Er, what? OpenAL supports software rendering of audio. On the Mac, this is done using the 3D Mixer audio unit. While it is possible to use OpenAL only when hardware support is available and, e.g., use CoreAudio and the 3D mixer otherwise, i sincerely doubt that this is common the performance advantage would be minimal, unless positional audio is completely disabled in software - only mode, although (due to the vastly superior design of CoreAudio) there would be much less risk of stutter.
Edit: its possible that positional audio was being confused with surround sound. Positional audio works with binaural (plain stereo) and to an extent even mono sound output.

[ljocampo]

I didn't want to break into what seems to have turned into a rebuttal bash. But, I see iTV as a content streamer. A technology that can and probably will allow for interactive programming. It might not be power gaming, nor do I think Apple wants it to be, but Apple does support the educational market, and interactive educational software, not necessarily entainment software, will sell more computers to families with young children in the living room. /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/cool.gif