Where Did Apple TV Games Go Wrong? – AppleTV 4 Jailbreak (appletv4jailbreak.com)
Where Did Apple TV Games Go Wrong?
UPDATES: COVID-19
By Jared Newman8 minute Read
When Raw Fury Games published its minimalist strategy game Kingdom: New Lands on iOS in January, creating an Apple TV version made sense. The iOS code was easy to port onto Apple’s set-top box, and the control scheme translated smoothly from the touch screen to the Siri Remote.
But five months after launch, Kingdom: New Lands has only sold about 600 units on Apple TV, versus 54,000 sales for the iOS version and about 35,000 sales for the Xbox One version that arrived about a year ago. Raw Fury cofounder and head of mobile Gordon Van Dyke hasn’t soured on the platform, but he says the publisher is unlikely to release any Apple TV games that it can’t easily port from existing iOS apps.
“If we were to only release this on Apple TV, it probably would have been a struggle,” he says.
Van Dyke’s comments exemplify Apple TV’s state of inertia as a video game system. Ever since Apple launched its fourth-generation TV box in late 2015, the gaming side of the platform has floated on without any clear direction or purpose. Developers say they have little incentive to create new games specifically with Apple TV in mind, so most games are iOS ports that are better enjoyed on an iPhone or iPad. The result is a game system trapped somewhere between success and failure. It’s an easy-to-ignore feature rather than a competitive advantage, one that Apple could really use as it bleeds market share among streaming boxes.
Apple isn’t the only company whose streaming box hasn’t made a mark on the gaming business. Amazon’s Fire TV and Google’s Android TV platforms are in a similar situation, and previous attempts at mobile-inspired gaming boxes, such as Ouya and GameStick, have been commercial flops.
In fairness, Apple has historically never placed a major emphasis on gaming. Still, the world’s most valuable company is in a unique position to do better. Its focus on high-end hardware potentially allows for better games than, say, an Amazon Fire TV Stick, and the company has a track record of rallying developers behind new devices like the iPad and Apple Watch. It also has the advantage of an enormous ecosystem with some of the most dedicated tech consumers. Some pundits even thought those advantages would help Apple TV take down the traditional game console business.
It’s not too late for Apple TV gaming to break free of its inertial state. But for that to happen, Apple would have to make a commitment to video games in a way that it never has before.
[Photo: courtesy of Apple]Remote Possibilities
In December 2015, not long after Apple TV launched, the device boasted 1,002 games, and gaming was by far the leading category in its App Store, according to Appfigures. Gaming on Apple TV has since grown by 170% to 2,704 games.
Still, that’s nothing compared to the hundreds of thousands of games in the iOS App…
https://www.fastcompany.com/40457373/where-did-apple-tv-games-go-wrong
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