Xbox creator: games have defeated Apple

Apple hasn't conquered the established console gaming industry, as some might have you believe, rather it's gaming itself that has defeated the iPhone pioneer, according to Xbox co-creator Seamus Blackley.

Speaking in an interview with Edge, Blackley argued that Apple never intended its devices to be used for games, and that their current success as gaming platforms is testament to how unstoppable the medium is.

"They hated videogames," he claimed. "The victory of games is utterly complete with Apple. It's a total victory.

"They tried real hard to make the iPad about word processing and music, and the audience just doesn't want it. It's beautiful. You don't need to have a games strategy anymore."

"You need to have a strategy so that your platform isn't disadvantaged in playing games, because gaming is going to be the number one activity on any platform.

"The highest calling of any digital device is to play a game," he added.

According to Blackley, the audience for gaming is bigger now that its has ever been and consoles, albeit loosely defined, have reached near ubiquity.

"All kinds of people are releasing consoles," he insisted. "They're called iPads, and Facebook. What's happened is not that the console business has died, it's that it has won."

Being capable of playing games is now any hardware's basic litmus test for commercial viability, he argued, whether it be a phone, an e-reader or a laptop.

"You can't release a device that's not a console now, and if you release one that can't be a good console, it will fail. It's just true."

Blackley co-wrote the initial proposal for the Xbox proposal and put together the team that eventually built Microsoft's first home console. He left the company in 2002 and has recently been working at a Hollywood talent agency representing game developers.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...defeated-apple