Cupertino to bring its A-game?

One column on Apple gaming in a week might be unusual; but two on the same day, espousing essentially the same idea? Perhaps some greater power is at work. Shortly after reading Arik Hesseldahl’s Byte of the Apple column at BusinessWeek the other day (“Apple Needs to Get Its Game On”), I saw Macworld’s own gaming guru Peter Cohen’s latest Game Room blog entry.

Both pieces suggest that in order to really get into the gaming market, Apple itself should take up the reins for development. Here’s Peter:

This situation has to be turned around, and Apple has the capacity to do it. That could be by starting an internal Mac game development studio that makes best-of-breed games. It’s a proven model that’s been used successfully by Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo over the years.

And Mr. Hesseldahl:

And while we’re on the subject, why doesn’t Apple try its hand at building good games for the Mac on its own? Apple is full of creative people turning out great software, but why hasn’t it ever turned out a game? After all, gaming is in Apple’s very DNA. Early in their pre-Apple careers, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak (some accounts suggest that Woz did most of the work) created Breakout for Atari.

Now, I’m a not a hardcore gamer; I’ve admitted to owning a PC for playing a few things, and Gadgetbox readers know my fondness for the Nintendo DS, but I still agree with both of these distinguished gentlemen: if you want something done right, do it yourself.

The last time I remember gaming coming up in a Macworld keynote was the ill-fated appearance of Halo back in (hard to believe) 1999. Let’s not forget, after all, that Bungie was a Mac game developer long before being bought by Microsoft. But since the transition to OS X, hardcore gamers have been scarce on the Mac platform due, at least in some part, to a sense of Apple snobbery: For Apple, gaming is an afterthought at best, and more often, is treated like mere child’s play. What better way for them to turn that perception around than to produce a truly great game themselves?