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The press has been speculating about it for years now, but on Wednesday we finally got to see Apple's debut game console - a not totally unexpected revamp of the Apple TV, bringing it with a radically revised interface, access to the App Store, and a Wii-inspired waggle remote. And thankfully we saw games too - a mixture of established mobile hits, more traditional console games and more tantalisingly, fully exclusive titles. But the sting in the tale is this: Apple TV is both a set-top box and a micro-console - jack-of-all-trades products that have thus far failed to enthuse the mainstream.Perhaps the biggest challenge facing Apple is the status of the set-top box itself - and whether we actually want or indeed need one. The Smart TV revolution has thus far failed to birth a new gaming platform, but there's a very strong argument that it has reduced the amount of bespoke boxes we need tucked beneath our living room displays. NetFlix, Amazon Instant Video, BBC iPlayer - these services dominate the majority of our media consumption and a Smart TV is dead in the water if it does not support them. Elsewhere, 1080p-capable media streaming boxes have collapsed in price to the point where Rupert Murdoch is practically giving them away.
Meanwhile, at the other end of the spectrum, top-tier games machines that also offer advanced media playback experiences have also failed to gain traction. The most spectacular case in a point is Xbox One - a machine built around the concept of the closest integration yet between gaming and media. As good as the Kinect functionality is, the basics are really all we need. Elsewhere, much cheaper offerings more in line with the Apple TV's feature set have also underwhelmed, Amazon's Fire TV foremost amongst them.
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