Damn. That infamous Apple induced insanity which includes extreme agitation, delirium and all sorts of hallucinations has been once again mandated worldwide. Happy MacWorld.

No kidding. Looks like the rumor mill is in “full creative mode.”

If Steve only delivers on a fraction of the speculation, we’ll have something interesting. I gotta a feeling 2006 will be a wild ride. Best grab ahold of somethin’ sturdy cause the ride is about to take off! Enjoy!

It would suck to be Billy Boy or Uncle Fester this year. Methinks they’re gonna watch more and more of their Dark Empire slip away, bit by bit (as it were).

Apple to buy Nintendo! It's true! I swear!

It is somewhat possible to make the mini a gaming machine. Just look at the XBox 360. XBox 360 is just a specialized PC machine. (PC in a generic terms; not windows) All Apple has to do is convince enough game makers to make games and decide what type of OS to use. (OS X, a striped down specialized version of OS X, or an entirely different OS) The last thing is to make it incredible dumb proof when loading games. Something like insert DVD and play.

I would like to see the mini be an home entertainment system, somewhat like the new iMac G5 (just the remote control portion). I am talking watch cable TV, DVD movies, record shows, and on occasion cruise the internet all with a click of a remote, keyboard and mouse. All that for less than $500.

Apple does own Nintendo. In fact they own 5% in stocks. Look at their portfolio of assets. The question, are they going to purchase 100%.

What the hell is this guy smoking...

XBox was a somewhat specialized pc, from the hardware-point of view. XBox 360 has a completely different architecture with a three-core powerpc and an optional (!) harddisk (development-kits for the 360 are simply modded PowerMacs btw.). That has nothing to do with a "specialized pc" anymore. If you call it pc, you would have to call the Gameboy a notebook.

The Apple-Nintendo-theory is a little bit strange, but somehow it would make sense... Both, Apple and Nintendo are very innovative companies, both care about user-friendly software. Apple lacks the experience and fanbase in the gaming market, Nintendo lacks the style of Apple's products (although their next console indeed looks somewhat "Apple-inspired").
But, honestly, i really don't think that's ever gonna happen. Nintendo is aiming at a completely different user-group.

Does Apple plant some of these more ridiculous stories? What better way to divert attention from any possible leaks than try to drown them out in a sea of stories each more unlikely than the rest. So for example, they may not release a Mac Mini based video game console, but they might sunrise everyone with a home entertainment system, DVD, photos, TeVo, and light internet, based on the MM. That would sell where a game system would be a hard slog. Look how hard MS has had to work to get the X-Box accepted.

...and in Japan the 360 still doesn't really sell well (smth. around 5000/week, Sony still sells 60.000 PS2's in the same time).

Apple might want to try to get vendors to actually start making more games for the APPLE MACINTOSH first, before they create a whole new platform....


good grief.

If you recall, the original plan for the X-Box was that it would encourage PC game development since not many changes would be required. In practice this didn't work because as the PC architecture progressed and the X-Box hardware stayed the same, programming techniques became too different to achieve any synergy between them.

You boost console game performance by tweaking the code and writing directly to the limits of the hardware. Try this with a PC, and you get unstable code, as everyone's hardware is different.

You're actually calling the Pippin a foray into the video game market. Puh-leeze. The Pipping was a science project and a piss poor one at that.