In many ways, I feel that Apple and Nintendo have similar philosophies. They both make their products based on the integration of hardware and software and both companies are filled with people who have a passion for making great products. However, the similarities pretty much stop there. While Apple focuses on hardware and software, their computing devices are primarily tools to be used by others. Apple is not a content driven company. Nintendo is a content driven company. On top of that, Apple is terrible with gaming. I'm not even talking about the ill-fated Pippin. I understand that machine came from a very different Apple from a different time. I'm talking about their latest Apple TV. They could have owned the micro console market overnight. They had the marketing, the right product and everything but they made one stupid decision that killed their chances of doing that. They required developers to use the Apple remote for every game. Third party controllers could be used but there had to be an option for the TV remote. This severely limited the types of games that could be released on tvOS and had a huge impact on the quality of the games.
Nintendo on the other hand understood that not all developers would want or need to use the DS's touchscreen or the Wii's motion controls and didn't require them to. So how is it that Apple, with all the talent they have and all the successes they had over the years could overlook this stupid mistake? The answer is simple. Apple is not a gaming company. The executives never worked for a gaming company and they don't understand games. Now, before anyone mentions anything about Steve Jobs not being there, I would think that if he were still around, he would have not only required the tv remote to be used with every game, he probably would have banned third party controller support altogether. After all, the point of Apple TV was to not have to use so many different TV accessories.
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