Hacker News Reader

Comment by obelix | Hacker News Reader

RIP AppleTv. Apple had 3 years to do this and they missed it.

Android apps on the TV. The first person who gets the games to work with Logitech Controller or any generic controller will win - big.

This thing can dent iPhoneOS big time.

View on HN

Android apps on the TV has the potential to be huge particularly if the build these Google TV systems with a decent video chipset (like that Tegra chipset Nvidia's been demo'ing on a prototype Android tablet). Particularly with Logitech, long time maker of TV remotes and game controllers, on board, this could challenge Wii for home gaming, possibly even challenge the Xbox 360 and PS3.

Exactly. If that happens and casual games make it to the TV through this, fun times ahead.

Even otherwise, whoever can handle web flash games correctly with the controller (expect Logitech to nail this again) will win.

While I can see something like this doing very well against the Wii in the casual gaming market, the hardware is too slow to compete with the 360/PS3 graphically for hardcore gamers.

That said, this isn't necessarily a bad thing. Hasn't the Wii been wildly more profitable than its competitors?

We don't know what the hardware for GoogleTV will be yet do we? But you're probably right. The odds that it'd include Xbox360 level hardware are realllly slim. :-(

I'm not counting Apple out yet. We don't know what's happening behind the scenes with Apple TV. It wouldn't surprise me if they had something waiting in the wings. Apple has a pretty good track record of keeping a big project secret, announcing it and shipping it before their competitors have established any fortified position. If you were to combine together all these devices -- Apple TV, Roku, Popcorn Hour, etc there's a pretty big market there. No one has quite figured it out yet. An Apple TV Rev 2 running iPhone OS with an SDK running on cheap ARM hardware sold at a low margin could be hugely successful very quickly.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com