To be serious competition in gaming they'd need to get a decent swag of AAA exclusives, either moneyhatting 3rd parties for existing popular franchises, or building their own 1st party development groups. I'm not sure Apple is terribly interested in doing either of those things. I think they will be happy for Apple TV to be useable as a game streaming machine, but I'm not sure they will see it as a core function that will achieve mass market penetration. Apple TV largely only sells to Apple fans. Eveyone else pretty much uses devices they already own, with an HDMI port, for streaming content (laptops, tablets etc) or they buy the much cheaper options like Chromecast.
It seems like the Motley Fool is a bit like a collective Michael Pachter. They give good tock market investing advice by having a very sound general grasp on the market. But when it comes to making specific predictions about one single product they are no better at reading the tea leaves as anyone else. They, or the person writing the article, may also be Apple fanboys.
Anyway, I think MS and Sony are seeing the writing on the wall for the traditional console model and moving towards streaming means they will be ready for that evolutionary step when it happens. I think hardware with download and physical disc capacity has at least one more successful generation to run.
Also you have to ask yourself whether Apple thinks a small proportion (currently) of the maybe 120 million households worldwide that buys at least 1 console every generation is a market worth spending time money and effort going after if they can just as easily try to get those same people to buy Apple phones and iPads and wean them onto Apple TV using current functionality.
“The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt.” - Bertrand Russell
"When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace."
Jimi Hendrix
