I think apple are making a games console. It’s a dirty rumor to start spreading as the case with any rumor but all the signs point to apple launching their own games console at least within the next year. Here are my reasons for believing this:

Apple have filed a patent for a games system that has partiqular emphasis on allowing players to listen to their music which is stored locally as they play. This is probably the unique feature in the application (for a patent) as successful patent applications have to have a unique feature that has never been done before.

Ok so it’s obvious that apple are planning a games machine of some sort. Or at least the patent has been filed. However what form will it take?

I think it will be an upgraded version of the Apple TV system. I’d has not been updated in a while and apple have been very hush on that front. So an update must be due. Jobs and co sweetly and cleverly linked Apple TV with the iTunes store for buying music and movies. This type of on demand has been proven to work well with apple and they have perfected the service making buying songs, movies, tv shows and games(iphone) all too easy.

Adapting their current model for such an on demand service to let users download full games onto their Apple TV (or apple tv like device) would be as simple as adding the content.

Apple has been employing lots of games developers from various parts. Advertisements were found showing that apple have been looking for game developers to add to their team. This can only mean an interest in the sector with the type of candidate required  being highly competent in 3d rendering systems, physics and AI.

Apple have headhunted  Bob Drebin from ATI. An updated Linkedin profile reveals that Apple has poached Bob Drebin, the former CTO of the graphics group at AMD/ATI. But what would they even need with someone that has experience in graphics hardware. This can be explained by my next theory which is that Apple are going to make their own processor for their games machine. Yes, I believe that apple will harness their purchase of PA Semi and make a CPU for their games console sporting a very high memory bus and multiple cores. Bob Drebin from ATI would be a good advisor when making a chip with a graphics renderer and Apples current involvement in the OpenCL project could provide the software platform. However the OpenCL project is aimed at harnessing the abilities of GPU’s for general purpose use by running non graphics processes on them. Apples intention for  exactly what they want to get out of the OpenCL project is not clear and it is rumored they are not interested in using OpenCL to take advantage of offloading “normal” processes onto the GPU.

It is rumored that Apple has been speaking to the big boys in the games industry such as EA, Ubisoft and Epic Games. This may be why some have rumored that Apple was going to buy EA. I personally think this is ridiculous and not likely to happen.

All in all I speculate that Apple will update AppleTV to a games console supporting it’s existing feature set. It will have a Cell like processor made by Apple and their newly purchased skill set and IP with PA Semi. It will be an entirely download only platform where games will be purchased online. I think it might use OpenCL to run either a CPU-GPU architecture or only a CPU where the graphics rendering is also done on the custom made chip.