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Apple Snags Former Xbox Exec
nandemoari sends along word that Apple has picked up Richard Teversham, a senior Executive from Microsoft's European Xbox operations, ending his 15 years of service to Redmond. Some press accounts assume that Teversham's role may lie in beefing up the games scene on the iPhone and iPod Touch. Forbes goes farther, opining that Apple "appears to be preparing an all-out assault on the handheld gaming market." Other reporting associates the hire with Apple's recent buildout of chip-design expertise.
They didn't make the Xbox from scratch, they made it from a computer...
Sendou Wave Kick!!
the atari lynx was somewhere between an atari 800xl and an amiga. stereo sound, 4096 colors. you could flip the atari lynx's display around 180 degrees to accommodate lefties. it had networking built in so you could link up with your pals. the downside was that none of your pals HAD an atari lynx. while you were playing chips challenge or california games in full color with great sound they were playing tetris on a monochrome gameboy. was there a company more incompetent than tramiel's atari corporation?
I can see some potential here. The iPhone as a gaming platform has been proven in the market already. There are a number of small developers selling games for the iPhone. Probably not because the iPhone is a great platform, but because people are willing to pay small amounts to amuse themselves while they're on the subway or waiting somewhere, and they happen to have their iPhone on them. It's like a Nintendo DS that's smaller and you always have with you - it's a convenience thing. Game developers realized this, and the apple store made it easy to distribute products. A small bit of attention to make the device more game-friendly could make it even more attractive for developers to target this platform.
Hurricane Ballmer hits conference room. Scores of chairs injured and missing.
Maybe Apple will launch an attack on the console market next?! I wouldn't pout it past them, they move so quietly you don't know till it's too late! Imagine a console that is top of the line, but has all the games distributed directly to the console with Apple store, eliminating the retail and the distribution networks.
With Jobs on the sidelines, we're back to the Sculley era at Apple, where senior executives and high-level techies are hired away from competitors to make a splash in the press and foster buzz around the stealth-mode projects. And incidentally rescue some careers that may have been in trouble.
Too bad that's not what creates great products. Usually what it does is create layers of non-accountability somewhere in the clouds above where the engineers and UI designers work.
I think that at this point in time, Apple releasing a gaming console would make as much brand sense as IBM releasing an IBM branded gaming console.
That's what people said about Microsoft in 2001, and the newcomer's product tied Nintendo GameCube in worldwide hardware sales.
PLEASE
They don't make a difference, for every 'HOT' exec there are 10's (100's) of other brilliant people capable of doing the same thing.
Articles like this confirm the current executive manager payment scheme (overpayment by SHIT loads) that is one of the factors of the economic crisis
A new Apple patent filing reveals plans to put a red/green LED around the Home button on the iPhone for diagnostic purposes.
Marketing was one thing Microsoft did very well in the Xbox debacle. If they'd picked up any of the people responsible for quality control, I'd have been worried.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
All things aside the reality is when Microsoft created the first Xbox they (Microsoft) had already poured hundreds of millions into DirectX thus the Xbox was a no brainer. Apple on the other hand is miles behind when it comes to having a mature multi media/gaming toolset/API so I think he (Richard Taversham) will find things are not as simple over at Apple.
Unless Apple can come out with a hardware and software solution to the parallel programming crisis
They're working on it. Check out "Grand Central" and "OpenCL".
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Every year Santa comes down my chimney. There is no other excuse for the toys being there on Xmas morning. I speak here purely from the standpoint of a guy who likes toys and cannot be swayed by your technical crap disproving the existence of elves and flying deer.
Apple launched 1 model. Didn't sell well amongst a crowded market and poor marketing and high price tag. It was cancelled after 100,000 models.
MS launches 2 models of the Xbox. Both sell moderately well but at a loss. It takes MS 5 years to make a profit. Also during that time, their last model suffers major quality control issues that causes them $1.79 billion in extra repair charges on top of the $6 billion that they have already spent. Also the small profit disappears after two quarters. At the rate of profit, it will take MS somewhere between 12-15 years just to payback the original cost.
If you were a stockholder in either company which one would you get more concerned about?
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
The Sega GameGear was way worse, that thing would suck 6 AA batteries dry in under 30 mins.
It used to annoy my friend no end when I would be playing my Gameboy every where while he had to be in the vicinity of a power outlet and have to carry the adapter around.
I thought the same thing, plus the following: who cares about either as an end user. "Waaa! These controllers are too similar, I'm always trying to plug the Xbox controller into the PS2 and vice versa!"
What's so bad about similar controller designs? Do you hear people complaining about how the keyboard and mouse for a PC is so similar to the keyboard and mouse for the mac? No, it makes sense that they're going to be similar, convergent evolution, good design is good design.
Too many games made for both systems? Put that another way: there were too few system exclusives for GP. Who the hell LIKES system exclusives besides the console companies themselves?!? "Woo! I don't get to play the game I want on the console I own! Awesome! Consumer choice sucks, hooray for monopolies!"
I think someone has pride in one console or the other. Which is strange, because they're things you buy, not something that should affect your identity. Then again, I don't understand people who have pride in their local sports team, and a lot of people do, so maybe I'm off here...
Yes, and the DS version sells for 2-3 times the Iphone version. Ever wonder why? And why the consumer is okay with this?
The guy in that video you linked says the Iphone version of the game is better because it is graphically superior and cheaper in cost. He clearly know little about the hand-held market and its history. Every competitor who's ever challenged Nintendo's decades long dominance of the hand-held sector has come at them with the same thing 'better looking' (though not always cheaper games, but usually more expensive hardware) and has been devastated. If the Iphone were only a gaming device it would likely suffer the same fate.
So, you may think $10 for Assassin's Creed on the Iphone is a great deal. Sure. But what if you're the publisher? You might port the game to Iphone after making it for the DS and selling it there for awhile. But what if the DS was gone and Iphone was your primary system, could you afford to sell games at $10 a pop? No. So, publishers are not going to be happy with a $10 price for a game like AC. The only reason the price is so low anyway is because Apple no doubt put pressure on them to lower the price as much as possible, and they did it to test the waters.
Lastly, the graphics are are only marginally better. The battery life is much worse. The control scheme is much worse (Iphone control scheme even takes up screen real-estate!). The durability of the Iphone is worse (no clamshell). And the cost of the Iphone itself it far, far, far higher. Children are not going to be buying it, nor teens, nor parents for children or teens. It costs more than a PS3!
I assert again, Apple has no chance of displacing Nintendo in the hand-held market with the Iphone. It will continue to be at best a secondary market, a throw-away market, while the market-share remains with Nintendo.
"I Don't Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist"
And Sony slapped handlebars onto a SNES controller and called it a Playstation controller. But hey, you think that's bad, take a look at all these automakers blatantly plagiarizing the four wheels/two doors design.
Are you fucking high?