‘Why has Apple TV’s gaming ecosystem bombed?’
October 9, 2018 by Steven M. Peters
iOS developers regret an opportunity missed.
A conversation overheard on Twitter Tuesday morning:
Why has Apple TV’s gaming ecosystem bombed? It’s hard not to point directly at the initial decisions for ‘on-demand-resources only’ and ‘all games must be playable without a gamepad’. Those two things (since fixed) were enough to wipe out developer interest in the platform
— Steve Troughton-Smith (@stroughtonsmith) October 9, 2018
The big Q is have the right lessons been learned for Apple’s next big software platform, UIKit-apps-on-macOS? If Mac is relying on iOS apps as big part of its future, it needs to not poison the well w/ some Apple-centered developer-toxic feature. Could be over before it begins
— Steve Troughton-Smith (@stroughtonsmith) October 9, 2018
No gamepad sold with the ‘console’ is a big problem. Apple TV sells in low digit millions, fraction of those who also bought controllers is surely a tiny number.
— Benjamin Mayo (@bzamayo) October 9, 2018
Plus, hard to port the big games that get attention to it, and it’s for a market that would balk at paying normal console game prices even if they did put the effort in. Also doesn’t have the discoverability/marketing/press for games that consoles have.
— Matthew Bolton (@matthewbbolton) October 9, 2018
I would say lack of discoverability on the Apple TV store as well, combined with the inability to link to your own app, or purchase it via off-device, unless it has an iOS equivalent.
— James Thomson (@jamesthomson) October 9, 2018
It’s a shame as for me as a user, it would have been a great platform.
— Richard Beck (@richard_beck) October 9, 2018
probably the future of Apple TV gaming relies on streaming just like the Nvidia Shield
— Mike Gonzalez (@mistercarter7) October 9, 2018
Agree with this. If you look at NVIDIA GeForce Now, Google Project Stream, Microsoft xCloud… all these companies heavily investing in streaming to massively increase their player-base, increase access to gaming to more devices and more people.
— Mike R (@lightsout565) October 9, 2018
My take: Not having spent any serious time gaming since the Ocarina of Time (Nov. 1998), I defer to these guys for the state of play on Apple TV. It’s not a pretty picture.
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