Pachter: Apple will have a game console soon

lol; i predict an Apple 'console' with no d-pad or analog stick(s) on the wireless controller- just a tilt sensor and one button!

What would apple have to gain other than another dud set top box like Apple TV?

well, that's no-brainer. that's what I've been saying ever since games sales in AppStore really took off (more than 2 years ago?), like hundreds of other people. Maybe we should all become "analysts"?

Of course:"Pachter: Apple will have a game console soon" should read,"Pachter: Apple will have a game console again soon" The Pippin was actually nice. But Apple's partner Bandai didn't want to market it. Apple at the time didn't know how to market it, and unfortunately chose the wrong partner perhaps. A modern Apple Game System could be quite effective, except. And it is a big EXCEPT. Apple does not sell at negative margins. They have to get the "make it up on license fees" mentality and that is foreign to them. Their development environment is FREE for Macintoshes, and also for iPhone OS, the license fee there is to sell in the App Store. Well, or load onto an actual device. But I am not sure the gaming industry is ready for an electronic downloads only for purchase mechanism. That would likely be the Apple model. It would be another interesting "hobby" for them like Apple TV is.

Apple's pound of flesh comes out of the backend now, so conceivably they could spin just enough to allow brick and mortar sales of game titles, but I'd put money on electronic distribution only if, and a big if here, they get into game systems at all. After all a new device might impact sales of the iPad, and the iPad itself might be a pretty sweet low end game machine as well depending on the production units graphics performance. But as a separate product line, I am pretty doubtful it is in the immediate or near term future.

Pachter is pretty much considered a joke to real gamers. I wouldn't listen to anything he says.

I've been syaing this for months now. The have all the pieces they need already, software, content delivery, developers, hardware. And in reality, they only have one competitor: Nintendo. And in that domain, any competition is a) good; b) bound to make some decentmoney.

The only way this will happen is if Apple buys Nintendo. I forget which exec said it, but there was recent mention that Apple was saving up for "bold acquisitions" and that would sure as heck be bold. Their gaming status is absolutely "by accident" because it's just a by-product of the iPhone, an already successful endeavor in it of itself. AppleTV is nowhere near as successful, and to attach gaming to that could in no way be seen as a "serious gaming" move, and developing their own new console is essentially the same as that.

I wrote about this idea last week. It might interest you http://appleweblog.com/2010/02/apple-esta-preparando-su-propia-wii

You know, it's not like Apple would have to lay out millions of dollars to develop this platform. Use a Touch, iPhone or iPad as the controller and play the games you have already purchased in low quality or upgrade to games made just for the TV.

I have yet to hear why they shouldn't do this, other than maybe to keep from cannibalizing iPad sales, which means they might do it next year.

I feel like there's some misinterpretation of facts with this article.

In his show on GameTrailers, Michael Pachter does indeed talk about how the iPad, with its already established app store with many many games in it, would possibly creep up on some of the consoles thus making Apple in some way a competitor in the video game space and I think the article is correct in its reading of Pachter's words.

That being said, I don't recall anything said about Apple TV in either that or any other episode at all. The only mention of Apple TV was in the article you linked from July of last year. I like Pachter's comparing the Apple TV to what Microsoft did with the XBox 360 as a games/media device. However, that information and speculation is by now surely completely outdated, especially in light of the iPad announcement.

So when the article header claims that Pachter says that Apple will have a game console soon, I'm not sure that's accurate given that the video was talking about the iPad, not as a console but as a device that will come to overlap with consoles and the other source is an old outdated source.