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Soundwave on 10 September 2015
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Nuvendil said:
Soundwave said:


For what its worth, AppleTV has been selling considerably better than the Wii U has. Early in its product cycle it was kind of a neglected product by Apple, but since 2012 with a new revision, sales have picked up dramatically:

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=178147655&postcount=204

Apple TV estimated shipments - ZhugeEX
2007- 0.3 million
2008- 0.3 million
2009- 0.7 million
2010- 1.6 million (REV2)
2011- 2.8 million
2012- 6.5 million (REV3)
2013- 7.0 million
2014- 6.0 million

These sales will likely increase a lot with this new model, so that while it won't have PS4 sales most likely, it will be likely outselling the Wii U by a mile and even the XBox One. 

Also while this particular model isn't neccessarily the be-all, end-all, I mean I think we have to consider that over time the hardware performance of this device will likely increase by leaps and bounds. An A9X processor for example could probably allow for games like Metal Gear Solid V to be played. 

But I think obviously the focus will be on more casual experiences. 

The issue is also that even if it *can* run MGSV, why would Konami put it there?  The consumer expected price of games on consoles is $40 to $60.  And the audience of mainstays in the console space are those interested and accustomed to upfront payment and repulsed by the image of f2p for their primary experience.  And companies like Konami and such have built development of those games around that price point and business model.  The mobile market, on the other hand, is opposite: consumers expect $0 to $5 tops, desire no upfront payment, etc.  Such an environment is not conducive to games built around the core game market model.  And simultaneously the established fans of such games would be repulsed by those tactics that dominate mobile.  And this device is tied into that market.

 

Not saying that this device will flop.  Apple has a dedicated foundation of fans who will buy this for one.  And it will get a few mil from other places.  It's just going to face the issue of selling like a dedicated device to a crowd not interested on the whole in the dedicated gaming thing and with a market that won't interest the dedicated gaming fans.  I think it will do enough for Apple to be satisfied, don't see it going further unless Apple gets extremely hands on with the app store and game development.

It's not really not aiming to compete with Sony/MS right now, but it's problematic for Nintendo primarily I think because this could eat up a lot of the kids/cheap parent crowd over time. 

Skylanders was just announced for this too, so you can kinda see where it's going. At the same time though, mobile games are getting more and more advanced all the time too ... there's nothing to say Monster Hunter and Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy for example won't be playable one day on AppleTV because they already are on iOS. 

This could become the second best selling "game console" fairly quickly. Nintendo right now is averaging about 3 million Wii Us/year, Microsoft is in the range of 7 million XBox One's/year. Apple right now was selling 6-7 million/year of this, but that likely could increase to 10 million/year, which would effectively make them no.2.