Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot: AppleTV to become gaming platform

Cleve Nettles
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May 28, 2009
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Ubisoft CEO YVes Guillemot is no stranger to the video game world.  The head of the company behind hits such as Assassin's Creed and Splinter Cell has repeatedly addressed the topic of the next generation of consoles.  When asked by a financial analyst on a call this week he said:

"We will see more customers coming to the video game industry .. they will start also to come under the boxes you see under the TV because those TV boxes will be more powerful.. We will see more consoles on which we will be able to put products. As for the next generation of consoles we can't give you a date but from what we see there is a lot of energy to improve the consoles [that are out now.] We are already working on some of the elements that will appeal in the next generation."

He then dropped a little bomb:

“There’s a new entrant in the business - Apple, with the iPhone. And we don’t think they will stop there.”

We've talked about our vision for an AppleTV gaming device before.  In essence, the ARM-based iPod Touch platform could be ramped up to take the duties of the HDTV portion of the device while at the same time offering the same games that are now on the iPhone and better ones that will come along in the future.

Gaming is a family affair for the Guillemot family.  His older brother Michel runs GameLoft, one of the most aggressive developers of games for Apple's iPhone.

Kokatu Via Distorted Loop

 

Comments (5)

NoComment (not verified) | May 28, 2009 - 7:42am

Anyone ever thought about how easy it would be to use an Iphone OS3.0 device as a gaming input for Apple TV (or any other type of gaming platform)? iPhone OS already has the functionality built in it (communication via bluetooth, planned for devide-to-device ommunications in games, but could be easily enhanced) and the motion sensor, compass and touch screen would be GREAT to use as an input device with a small display (dynamic input controls, options, etc.)

w00master (not verified) | May 28, 2009 - 11:41am

For gaming, I still believe for most gaming applications the touchscreen (while works fine for mobile) would be terrible for "console" use.

WE NEED BUTTONS.

Unless you want to be stuck solely on Wii-esque games. Sorry, but I'd love to play FPSs & action based games which imho still are terrible on the iPhone platform.

Hansköbi | May 28, 2009 - 7:52am

Where is the bomb in "“There’s a new entrant in the business - Apple, with the iPhone. And we don’t think they will stop there.”"???? He THINKS that Apple won't stop there.....well most don't think they'll stop there.....you can think a lot.....he doesn't say: we know Apple doesn't stop there. 

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | May 28, 2009 - 8:15am

it would be cool to have an apple tv dev kit with iphone api's (as an option net necessity, it would only have to be as powerful as a wii, which wouldn't make anymore expensive than it is now.

Reallynotnick (not verified) | May 28, 2009 - 2:34pm

Why would the Apple TV share with the iPhone? Wouldn't it make more sense to slap an Nvidia 9400m (or hopefully even something better) and allow it to run OSX games? It just makes too much sense!
The idea that computers and game consoles have to run separate software is pretty dumb. It would be awesome if you could play your games on both your Apple TV on the big screen and on your computer. The Apple TV would offer a more solid hardware spec so developers could develop with that more in mind but they could easily transition the game to any other OS X computer.
Ok sure you could easily connect your computer to your TV but people want the solid integration that a game console has, like the Apple TV has. Everything you can do on the Apple TV you can do on a Mac but it is just so much easier on the Apple TV.

Maybe I am blurring the lines too much between these two products but I really believe they could co-exist.