As an Apple nerd, I regularly chat with my friends about things Apple is doing or that we wish Apple was doing. A recent thought of mine that I shared with the group seemed to resound with basically everyone, though: a gaming-centric version of the Apple TV. We’re already at a point where games in the App Store range from basic mobile games to full-fledged AAA titles. While some of those can, I assume, work passably on a high-end iPad, I really think that having a version of the Apple TV for them would make a ton of sense for Apple.
The formula would simply need:
- An Apple TV device with a high-end M-series processor.
- A ton of storage capable of handling large game installations (and support for a microSD card similar to the Switch would be ideal.)
- A controller.
High End Apple TV
I don’t think this would really require much, if any, new innovation from Apple. I could be completely wrong, but I would guess that Apple TV models really just involve putting in new chips. Just do that but with the insanely beefy M-series processors that power iPads and MacBooks. Adding an M-series processor to an Apple TV should be much simpler than trying to build something gaming-centric from scratch.
I think this idea also has a lot of appeal because plenty of people end up operating in the opposite direction, using their gaming console for various streaming services. Having a streaming device with a small footprint that can also play any number of high end, AAA games seems like a win.
Big Storage Energy
Modern games take up a lot of storage. I realized that when I recently decided to buy MLB The Show 24 on the Nintendo Switch. My SO bought the system itself, though I end up using it periodically. Having not really played video games for a few years, I thought it would just buy it from the Nintendo online store available through the device. Fortunately, I realized before doing so that the game was 80 GB, and only about 20 GB were available on the device (which had nothing more than Mario Kart 8 and Switch Sports installed.) I ended up needing to buy an SD card so that I could eventually buy MLB. It wasn’t all that long ago that World of Warcraft was a massive game at 80 GB due to all of the aspects of it. Now it’s not at all uncommon, which means that storage is a major requirement for anything gaming-centric.
In a perfect world, an Apple TV focused on gaming would offer a lot of on-board storage but also support a microSD card similar to the Switch so that users wouldn’t be forced to constantly uninstall and reinstall games based on what they wanted to play to fit everything on a single device. It’s just the nature of the beast that after buying a few games, users could easily be bumping their head against even 512 GB of storage, and Apple hasn’t historically been known to make storage cheap. I think forcing users to pay egregious prices for storage would basically kill this idea before it could get off the ground.
Controllers
This aspect of the concept is one of the more interesting and open-ended ones. The Apple TV today already has Bluetooth controller support. Apple could either opt to make their own controller or simply partner with another company for it. I personally would love to see them just partner with Logitech for something like this. They’ve already worked with Logitech on keyboard cases, and I frankly like Logitech’s offerings much better than Apple’s. (I’m actually typing up this post on a Logitech Combo Touch.) Logitech has made great controllers previously, though they’ve definitely shifted their focus away from this area.
On the other hand, Apple could continue to just let customers pick whatever 3rd party controller they wanted. In that scenario, though, I think they still need some type of partnership so they can offer up a bundle that includes the Apple TV, some type of controller, and (optionally) additional storage.
Closing Thoughts
Do I actually think something like this will happen? I’d personally like to see it, but I’m not sure if there’s enough of a market for it. I think it would fill a nice niche of people who want to play games they see in the App Store but either:
- Don’t want to play them on a touchscreen or on a controller paired to an iPad awkwardly propped up on a coffee table.
- Don’t have a device where they want to install a high-end game that’s going to take up all of their storage and make their standard-tier phone or tablet molten hot.
I also think it would be attractive to casual gamers who want to play either more than what’s available or want to play at a better quality than on something like a Switch or a Steam Deck but don’t necessarily want to spend the money on a PlayStation or Xbox when they’ll mainly use it for various streaming services rather than gaming. Whether or not that’s enough for Apple to justify making additional hardware is tough to speculate, though.
I could also see this being a good opportunity for Apple to really expand the Apple Arcade and make it a much more attractive, compelling offer than what it is today… something that’s an afterthought for Apple One subscriptions. Whether or not that’s an attractive proposition to Apple is another matter entirely, though.
Ultimately, this is something I’d love to see so that I can do all of the same streaming that I do today while also playing games a little better than what the current Apple TV supports. Buy in from developers and publishers would allow for a greatly expanded gaming catalog which grabs the parts of the market that like gaming but not enough to actually want to buy a proper console.