Game Room Weblog: Gaming with Boot Camp: This changes everything
#43
Posted 07 April 2006 - 06:57 PM
You have no idea what you are talking about, Nintendo make more money the both Microsoft and Sony do from their gaming devisions.
#44
Posted 07 April 2006 - 10:57 PM
And booting Windows is another attempt at marketshare out of many.
I'm not convinced of this. The ability to boot Windows is just a side-effect of the Intel transition, which was made because of IBM's failure to deliver on its promises - not because Apple saw some great marketing opportunity. (At the time Apple merely acknowledged that the possibility existed but were decidedly unethusiastic about it.)
It was of course only a matter of time before someone found a hack to install XP on the Mac. You can be sure that Apple's developers were working overtime to get the Boot Camp beta out in anticipation of this. But if Apple really wanted people to use Windows on their Macs they would sell them with XP pre-installed along with OS X; most consumers simply use the operating system(s) that the computer they buy comes with. (That said, the average consumer would probably consider the whole concept of using two different operating systems on the same computer as redundant anyway.)
#46
Posted 08 April 2006 - 01:15 PM
I don't dispute that Nintendo is an incredibly well run company. However, a good portion of last years profits weren't generated from sales of products - they were generated from currency markets and fluctuations in the relationship of the dollar and yen. Take out these profits and Nintendo only made about 500 million and actually did worse in 2005 than in 2004. This is still better than the gaming units of Microsoft and possibly Sony as well. However, these two companies aren't just in this market to sell games - they are using games as a driver for their other products.
In my opinion, Apple needs to somehow get games onto Macs. Lets say that I am a Windows user because there weren't enough games on the Mac. Now I can switch using Boot Camp. I'm still going to play my games in Windows and since I already have Windows software, I will stay in Windows to run that as well. Later, upgrades become available for my software. I can buy Mac versions at full price or I can pay the reduced, upgrade price for my Windows software. What am I most likely to purchase? Windows software. What motivation do I have to switch to OSX? If not given one, I really just switched hardware, not platforms. As a result, Dell and HP can respond with better hardware and get me to switch back.
Apple still needs to provide a motivation to get me to move over to OSX.
So, how does Apple generate incentive to move your software over to Mac versions? For the gaming switchers, they need games (after all, this was what kept me off the Mac in the first place). How does Apple get the necessary games? I would suggest that one option is to capitalize on iTunes. Per a recent study by ABI Research, on-line revenues in the gaming industry will transition to game and content downloads vs. subscriptions. Since iTunes already represents such a model, they are in a prime position to dominate it - they have the expertise and the user base.
The reason that I indicated Nintendo is I doubt that either Microsoft or Sony would release their titles through such a service (both compete with Apple in other areas). 3rd party vendors have already shown a lack of intrest in the Mac and so who is left? Nintendo. They get access to a new user base and easy access to a proven platform to sell content. If we go back to the start of iTunes, it was limited to just the Mac. This was actually favorable to the record companies because it limited the impact of persons buying songs and then making them available on line. Once it became clear that this wasn't a problem, it was opened up to Windows. The game industry has the same option here - release on the Mac only and see what happens. If successful, move to Windows as well. In the meantime, Apple has jump started development on the Mac and provided new opportunities to the gaming industry.
It was just an idea related to what Boot Camp may allow for gamers. It probably wont happen, but its fun to think about where this exciting change may lead. As stated above, Boot Camp gets one to change hardware but not necessarily platforms. Games could be such a trigger and so I thought I would propose one such way that this could occur.
#47
Posted 08 April 2006 - 02:19 PM
As far as the Revolution goes, if anything it's going to do better then the gamecube. Developer support has improved by a solid amount, online gaming, and the best part being it is radically different from its rivals thus should be able to find a nice unique market share.
If anything the PS3 is the one in trouble, it's being delayed, having issues with blueray, is likely to be very expensive, and is 12 months behind its biggest rival the xbox 360.
I think you need to sit down and do some research before making comments. It's not as simple as sony and ms outselling Nintendo's home consoles, take a look at the handheld market which Nintendo are doing insanely well in.
As the DS proves, Sony, the playstation brand, and all the marketting and money Sony want to chuck into a system doesnt make it sell. The DS is millions ahead of the PSP world wide, and out of the two systems is the only one to have million wide sellers. What's not to say the Revolution wont follow this same suit.
#48
Posted 09 April 2006 - 06:01 AM
For one thing, that does absolutely nothing to fix the underlying problem -- that there aren't enough games available for the Mac. Sure, the Mac could run games built for Nintendo consoles in emulation, but that's no different fundamentally than playing games using Windows XP and Boot Camp -- it's bringing users to the hardware platform, but not the operating system.
Secondly, Nintendo plans its own online gaming download service for Revolution that will let Revolution owners buy and download games for older Nintendo consoles to play on their Revolution. Any similar arrangement with Apple would cannibalize their efforts, plain and simple.
Third, Nintendo is dead serious about being a content developer for its own hardware -- in that way, the company mirrors what Apple is doing. Enabling their games to operate on another platform would fundamentally dilute that value proposition.
And when Nintendo has opened up its licenses to be developed for other platforms, the results have been an unmitigated disaster -- do you remember the Zelda/Link game for Philips CD-i? Yeah, neither does anyone else -- and there's a reason why.
No -- ultimately, software developers need their own reasons to support the Macintosh as a games platform -- because the software is easy to develop and because there's a ready base of customers who crave their titles. Unless those fundamental factors change, we're going to continue to see Mac development wane.
I certainly think "hardcore" game ports are on their way out. While there's bound to be a Mac market for them for the next couple of years until the transition to Intel hardware is complete, fewer and fewer Mac users who take games seriously are going to be interested in waiting six months or a year for a popular title when they can just go to the store and buy what they want right away and run it on Windows.
#49
Posted 09 April 2006 - 08:47 AM
I think these former Mac people's exodus led to a sort of self-sustaining downward spiral. People didn't buy Macs because there weren't as many games on it. Software companies didn't release Mac versions of games because gamers weren't buying Macs. Etc, etc. So now I think it's safe to say that at this point the vast majority of Mac owners are people who don't really care much about games, or at least who are content to own a Mac, buy a PS or Xbox, and sacrifice the PC games.
But now you should see the Mac demographic expand to once again include lots of people who like games and there is a potential to reverse this downward spiral. Like I said, people who want the ultimate gaming machines will continue to buy Alienware computers. But there are going to be many more average to high-average gamers using Macs now, and I think that's really where the bulk of the market for games is. So for one it will become more and more profitable for a company that only wants to develop games for the Mac because they will have many more gamer consumers on the platform interested in buying product. And I would imagine that as Mac marketshare increases at some point companies only developing for XP will start thinking more and more seriously about customers who will increasingly own Macs and prefer the convenience and pleasure of games native to the Mac OS. Some of these new Mac owners may not have bothered installing XP because they would like to play games but not quite enough to fork out $300 for XP; releasing a Mac version would let companies tap into these folks' wallets.
I think that it is very dependent on marketshare size, though. So let's see what happens; one analyst said his research showed marketshare for the Mac would double. If that happens, it might be enough to get game companies' interest. It could grow less, it could grow more (I actually wouldn't be too suprised if it tripled, but I am possibly biased /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif ). We'll just have to see how much it really does grow, and see at what point Windows-only game companies decide they can make enough money on Mac games to justify the development costs. Obviously PC game companies often decide there is enough money in the Xbox market to release games for both PC and Xbox, there is no reason why the same could not eventually be true for the Mac (not that there will ever be as many Macs as Xboxes (though that would be cool), but that it will be lucrative enough to develop for).
One thing is clear, though, Mac-only game companies should really benefit from this dual boot ability as more people who like games will buy Macs.
#50
Posted 09 April 2006 - 11:08 AM
Third, Nintendo is dead serious about being a content developer for its own hardware -- in that way, the company mirrors what Apple is doing. Enabling their games to operate on another platform would fundamentally dilute that value proposition.
A very good point. Good luck getting Jobs' and Iwata's egos in the same room. /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif
#51
Posted 09 April 2006 - 05:15 PM
Another issue that is nice about the windows platform is the community support for games that just doesn't exist on the Macintosh platform. For example, I really love playing the game RUNE on my macs (and it runs fine in X), and the windows version STILL has an active users community developing mods and patches while the Mac version has NOTHING. I realize that this isn't the Mac developers problem and I don't blame them for this, but if you really like playing computer games then the mac platform is pretty disheartning at this point. Anyways, I will NOT switch to a windows machine for anything, but I would definintely install Windows on a Macintosh if it meant I could play games and enjoy all the gaming goodness that the windows platform offers.
Just my 2 cents.
Douglas
/forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif
#52
Posted 10 April 2006 - 03:27 AM
I realize that these two games are a bit older, but so what?
These are two games from companies that have effectively abandoned the Mac with A-list game development, as well -- MacPlay and Gathering of Developers. So I'm not sure they're the best example to use to gauge the continued support of Mac game publishers in general.
#53
Posted 10 April 2006 - 11:31 AM
I was gonna install Windows on my new Macbook and then run to the store and buy some PC games--but I guess I'll hold off until I make sure they can run! I just assumed with 256mb of vram that just about any current PC game would work.
#55
Posted 10 April 2006 - 01:10 PM
Douglas
/forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif
#56
Posted 11 April 2006 - 02:23 PM
Now, with this Boot Camp, the part that really strikes me as supporting my claim that Jobs had been ignoring the gaming market is that in EVERY article I've read about this, including the great 3 page roundtable with the Macworld guys, gaming is the number 1 point.
In no article has anyone spoken about something like Quicken or web development apps or anything (Ok, these guys did mention Office in passing). My point is that for years I and many others have been screaming at Apple that they are simply losing due to one thing---they won't support or push gaming.
People, most people, buy computers to do office type stuff, do web type stuff and game. In the past 5 years, you could add "do digital life type stuff." On 3 of those 4, the Mac rules and everyone knows it. Certainly there are some professions that remain in the dark ages and only produce software for the PC, but for most regular people they simply want a computer to do those 4 things.
Why oh why Mr. Jobs have you consistently ignored this market? We'll spend millions on reaching out to scientists, but we'll ignore the gaming market.
Well, at least now, there is some option. I, for one, am very concerned about the future steps of Apple. I mean, everyone seems convinced this won't mean the end of Apple OS or or programs for the Mac. I was glad to see the roundtable's ideas about Office, but as an outsider, it would still seem possible for companies like Intuit to simply say "buy the PC version." I hope I am wrong and you guys are right. But, will this actually harm the gaming industry to the point that Mac companies simply fold up and vanish? Won't all porting cease? I was glad to see that Blizzard remains, for now, committed to Mac gaming, but I'm worried.
I just wish Jobs had acted sooner to do something for this sector of the market.



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