Apple finally gets the Game Connection

Love em, hate em, think they are a mindless waste of time, but games have become a really important driver for sales and development of computers. Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft, and Sega have understood and realized this some years ago, and created environments that fostered game development. As the game developers were given ever improving tools and more powerful hardware, games have steadily gotten bigger, better, and more impressive- fueling a game glut as the economies of scale forced prices in an ever downward spiraling pattern. More gaming machines meant bigger game development budgets, and today we have PCs that run games faster then dedicated arcade hardware, and $100 game machines with incredible 3D games.

Where was Apple when all this was happening? Flopping around with idiotic self defeating management. Some within Apple recognized how big games were about to get about 5 years ago, and developed a series of APIs called game sprockets. In essence, this would negotiate the Mac hardware capabilities for game developers so they can write games without having to write their own hardware code. As all things Apple in the mid 90's, they took too long, couldn't get the stuff right and failed to get developers to support them, resulting in the project's killing. In truth, the Mac's primary consumers were the creative professional and education, neither of which require the time wasters that games are. Unfortunately, by neglecting the game developer and customer, Apple was alienating the monstrously large and growing home consumer, who considered games to be as important as word processing. Now we're in 1999, Apple is FINALLY introducing hardware that is on par with PCs for gaming, and is remarkably attractive to the consumer- and what is the hottest game related announcement for Macworld? PSX emulation.

In case you live under a rock, Playstation is a console based gaming system with a retail price of $129.99. It does a credible job rendering games at TV resolutions- but it is far inferior to modern PC gaming (a few minutes playing Unreal should drive this point home very well). The new emulation product, therefore, is very dangerous. For one thing, it alienates the Mac game developers, who now have to compete with hundreds and hundreds pre existing games with far more marketing muscle and clout. Second, big game developers would think twice before wasting the effort to create a Mac version of a game when the PSX version is already underway- they'll get your $49.95 anyway. It could potentially retard Mac native game development, and this is the saddest point of them all.

Now that the I said my devil's advocacy, its time to face reality as it stands right now- barring legal action from Sony, the PSX emulator is real. The immediate effect would be the instant legitimization of the consumer Mac (iMacs) as a gaming machine, and should have a tremendous effect on short-term consumer sales. Hopefully, this should be sufficient to achieve critical mass for Apple, which would then force the traditional game developers to reconsider Apple's viability as a game selling platform. Clearly, Apple has done a good job PR'ing this, as John Carmack's presence shows, and this is indeed good news (Apple's failures with developers are legendary.) Assuming everything plays out, by the time the PSX reaches the end of its viable life, the Macs consumer installed base should be enough demand to spur a healthy gaming Mac native development.

So what's the final analysis? The proof, as they say, is in the pudding. If this was the old Apple, I would be reading the Mac gaming obituary to you right now. But this brave new Steve Jobs iApple is hard to predict- It took me some time to get on board with it, and I must admit I recognize that there is a method to the new Apple's madness. I expect Apple's consumer product to continue to do well with guarded optimism, and along with it the gaming experience allotted to all Mac users.

On an unrelated note, The NBA has just reached an end to the labor dispute impasse- If ratified, we can have NBA basketball as early as Fabruary 2nd- ITS ABOUT TIME!!

I welcome all questions and comments at akoyshman@jps.net or designamics@jps.net