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One product did manage to surprise me. And I swear it had nothing to do with
the exquisite Italian lunch they served,
our only source of sustenance for the day.
The ApeXtreme,
which looks somewhat like a prehistoric
DVD player with lots and lots of ports,
is being marketed by Apex as "the natural progression of game
consoles." Inside the rather enormous
box lies a 1.4GhZ PC with a specialized Via chipset, an Ethernet port, and
HDTV-ready video output.
The embedded Windows XP software launches a menu allowing you to play video
(DVD, VCD, or MPEG-4 format), audio (compact disc or MP3s), a picture slideshow
(played automatically with JPGs stored in the root directory of the CD you feed
it) and, hey, PC games too.
The integrated software, developed by newcomers DISCover, utilizes what
they're dubbing "Drop and Play" technology. Insert any game supported
among their database of over two thousand titles, and it will automatically
install and update. Drop and Play utilizes the ApeXtreme's online capabilities,
and will upgrade itself to support new titles (and upgraded patches for existing
titles) as they're released.
This was demonstrated to us using EA's Madden 2004. The game launched
rather quickly, on its own volition, and played smoothly - save an occasional
stutter, which I'm told is a side effect of the incomplete, prototype unit being
used.
The demonstration came at the tail-end of a press luncheon at Piero's, an
Italian restaurant on Convention Center Drive that, without having actually seen
a menu, I know I can't afford. Free food and drinks were had by anyone on the
invite list, though they refused to serve alcohol from their extensive bar.
"That's fucked up," grunted Player 2 while lighting a cigarette.
Indeed. This, for obvious reasons, made the ApeXtreme a hard sell on us.
Apex's marketing department is dubbing the unit a "console," they
say, because they believe the keyword familiarity will entice gamers. They also
say that the ApeXtreme "won't replace the XBox or Playstation 2, it will
compliment them," being that it's a unique, separate product.
Even though, you know, we're meant to believe they're part of the same
console genre, which has never been a "complimentary" market.
Apex president David Ji arrived in the middle of the presentation, sat for
five minutes, and left, without speaking a word. For some reason, we were asked
to applaud this magnificent feat.
A short Q&A session concluded the presentation, with questions ranging
from the vital ("Will the ApeXtreme play Doom III and Half-Life 2?")
(Yes.) to the absurd ("So can this play XBox and Playstation 2
games?") (Um, no.). I, however, was concerned with the "console
familiarity" conundrum.
"Are you guys working with any publishers?" I asked. "I mean,
I know you're not going to have any 'exclusive titles' or anything, but...are
you cross-marketing at all, or are you just depending on preexisting software to
push your product?"
The Apex representative contemplated this for a second, if that, and smiled.
"No," he chuckled, "we don't need to! I mean, it plays PC
games, you know?"
He laughed. I nodded, silently. I obviously needed to dig a little deeper.
I found an actual software developer from DISCover at the Apex booth later
that evening, and asked the same question.
"Let's take a random example," I added. "Vice City.
Highest selling game since, I don't know, Mario 3, right? Based on the
specs I'm seeing here, the ApeXtreme would offer the best way to play Grand
Theft Auto." He smiled and nodded, enthusiastically.
"Isn't that, you know, huge? If you're marketing this thing as another
'console,' don't you need to kind of fake a 'killer app' like that?"
An Apex guy, who overheard my little speech, nodded, pulled out his Palm
Pilot, and walked away. I ought to get paid for this shit.
"Yeah," the DISCover rep replied, "I see what you mean, and
agree. We're actually really close with EA; they even send me prerelease copies
of their software, to make sure it's fully supported by the time it hits the
market.
"Also," he added, wide-eyed, "Microsoft themselves
approached us with the idea of putting 'ApeXtreme Ready' stickers on
their software, so there's that too."
Good move, I thought, it's a start. My marketing side was
satisfied, but the gamer in me had a question too.
"Let me give you a hypothetical situation," I said. "Let's say
I'm really into old games an amateur programmer. Let's say I want
to play emulators develop my own little games, and want to fire
up some Famicom games play them on my TV. Can I, you know, browse a
directory structure and, say, launch my own programs?"
"No," he said, "there's really no way to do that with our
software."
"So this thing can only play games supported by your Drop and Play
software?"
"That's correct," he said, "but, I mean, we support
practically everything. That's my job."
"Mm." My follow-up seemed natural enough. "So what security
measures are you taking to prevent this from being hacked into?"
"Actually," he half-smiled, "this came up just a couple days
ago and, well, we're thinking of doing nothing."
Brilliant. Fucking brilliant. Draw in the mainstream crowd with the ease,
draw in the hardcore crowd with the possibility of a cheap box. And why not?
It's not as if they have any software to push.
This thing just might work out.
CES had some other stuff too.
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