An Apple TV game console faces the same problems as other microconsole failures

Recent reports suggest that Apple is gearing up to revamp its Apple TV line as a game-playing microconsole with an announcement later this week. Those reports have got us looking back at our original thoughts on the whole microconsole market, first published almost exactly two years ago and reprinted below.

That analysis came out when the PlayStation TV was the most recently announced entrant into a crowded field of low-power, low-priced gaming boxes meant for the living room TV. The years since have seen a few other entrants in the TV microconsole space, most notably the Amazon Fire TV and Nvidia Shield. Neither of these seem to have made much of an impact on the gaming world or the world of TV media devices, where less gaming-focused devices like Roku and Chromecast dominate sales.

With Apple set to shake things up (though we're still in the dark on the details ahead of an expected announcement Wednesday), our overall analysis remains pretty much unchanged—these kinds of gaming microconsoles are products that serve a niche market need at best. The things people are looking for in games on a mobile device are fundamentally different from what they look for in a TV-based living room console. Trying to build a platform that works for both splits the market in ways that are confusing for both developers and consumers.