The rumor that won’t die: Apple’s perpetually pending video game console

Aurich Lawson

There are some things you can always seem to count on in the video game industry. Activision is always working on a new Call of Duty game. Ubisoft's Beyond Good and Evil sequel is always "just around the corner." The PlayStation 3 is constantly hitting its stride. And Apple is perpetually on the verge of releasing a living room video game console that will revolutionize everything.

The latest person to buy into this never-ending speculation is none other than Valve co-founder Gabe Newell. He pontificated about an Apple console when speaking yesterday to a class at the University of Texas' LBJ School of Public Affairs. As Polygon reports, Newell told the class that Apple, and not the existing console makers, is the real threat to Valve's pending entry into the living room hardware market:

"The threat right now is that Apple has gained a huge amount of market share and has a relatively obvious pathway towards entering the living room with their platform. I think that there's a scenario where we see sort of a dumbed-down living room platform emerging—I think Apple rolls the console guys really easily. The question is can we make enough progress in the PC space to establish ourselves there and also figure out better ways of addressing mobile before Apple takes over the living room?"

It's hard to blame Newell for trying to be prepared, I suppose. Succeeding in business often means expecting the unexpected and planning for every contingency. But the thing that really gets me about this quote is the matter-of-fact way Newell considers a pending Apple console play. It doesn't matter that Apple has shown almost no official interest in gaming on the TV since 1996's ill-fated Pippin, and that Apple CEO Tim Cook said as recently as last May that he is "not interested in being in the console business in what is thought of as traditional gaming." That doesn't matter—Apple could still "roll the console guys easily" and will "take over the living room" at the drop of a hat, whenever it decides it wants to. The company has only held off doing so for this long because... um... hmm...

But wait, this isn't just some random blogger saying this. This is Gabe Newell, a big name executive at a major gaming company. Does he maybe have insider info that the rest of us don't? In fact, now that I think about it, didn't Apple CEO Tim Cook meet with Valve last year? And didn't some "insider sources" detail some sort of game-playing Apple television set right after that meeting?

No so fast. Newell said shortly after those rumors circulated that Cook never actually visited Valve after all. And that rumored, gaming-powered Apple TV set was supposed to come out before the end of 2012... so maybe that information wasn't so reliable after all. But don't let that dissuade you—Apple is "still working on gaming."

This kind of thing keeps happening. Way back in 2006, it was the Mac Mini that was going to "advance over the video game market," and Apple was supposedly hiring game programmers for a super-secret project. In the years since, it has taken little-to-no concrete information to get the Apple game console rumor mill churning again. In 2008, it was a gaming-related trademark filing that got things going. In 2009, TUAW was amassing the evidence for an Apple game console from scraps like the company's hiring of former gaming executives. In 2010, Steve Jobs' mention of "strategic opportunities in the future" somehow meant that Apple was going to buy Sony with its spare cash. In 2011, Time magazine asked if this was the year Apple would launch a video game console (the answer, in case you were wondering, was "No"). Analysts, of course, have never let go of the idea that the Apple TV game console is "coming soon."

These days, it's the Apple TV that is most often cited as the stealth entry point for Apple's "ultimate game console," simply by allowing the thousands of iOS games to access the TV. Never mind that controlling games designed for a touchscreen might not be the most natural thing to do on a living room HDTV (no, things like iPad or Magic Trackpad controls don't instantly solve this problem). Apple did file a patent to let other devices act as Apple TV controllers, including what looks a lot like Sony's DualShock, but the vast majority of iOS games are not currently designed with this kind of control scheme in mind. For those that are, if people really want to play them on a TV with button controls, there are third-party devices that already add this functionality. Others are jumping on rumors of a new Apple TV graphics chip as evidence that the box will soon support 3D games, but there could just as easily be innocuous supply chain explanations for such a change.

I can see why the idea of an Apple game console is so alluring. The iPhone and iPod touch came out of nowhere to form a major gaming platform that has already decimated the market for dedicated handheld game systems from Sony and Nintendo. But those iOS devices largely succeeded on their own merits first as media and communication devices before there was even an App Store for game developers to work on. They only became gaming powerhouses after there was a sufficient installed base for other purposes.

Apple has now sold more than 10 million Apple TVs, but the 5-year-old streaming box has often been referred to as a "hobby" inside Cupertino. It's certainly possible that millions more will rush out to scoop up an Apple TV if Apple ports all its iOS games over, but at this point that's putting the cart before the horse a bit. Plus, if people are hankering for games like Angry Birds on their TV, they canalready play them on devices like the Roku 2.

Sure, it's impossible to prove a negative, and if Apple does decide to make a move for TV-based gaming, there will be tons of people saying they told us so. But even a stopped clock is right twice a day. Apple may eventually take a run at the game console market, but those claiming that move is perpetually "just around the corner" are like prophets constantly moving the date for Armageddon as their previously predicted doomsday passes by without incident.