I'm married, my spouse is smart and and hot, and our first date was spent talking about Civ III vs Civ IV and different strategies we've tried. In the early days of the relationship we'd have Sci-fi Friday date nights. We've been together more than five years at this point, our biggest issues are things like rolling our eyes when we catch each other watching guilty pleasures Batman Beyond or Smallville... which is then changed to mutually acceptable shows like Firefly or Battlestar.

Did you ever think maybe, just maybe, there are so many divorced and unhappy couples because all of the pretense and hiding of who you are and what your interests are bites you in the ass? Do you think maybe you'd be happier with someone who is actually intrigued, understanding, or maybe even shares some of your interests that make you different from the other random people s/he could be on a date with?

I understand that there are some things you don't bring out on the first date because there's no establishment of trust yet and there's so little information to go on that little pieces of data might disproportionally color their impression of you. But come on, there are so many movies and adult-targeted tv shows based off of comic books, video gaming has gone so mainstream that you'd think one of the world's biggest problems was the advent of casual gaming, sci-fi and fantasy in general has become something relatively common place in prime time entertainment. Grow a pair and be yourself and find someone who will actually like that about you!

Setting aside Apple TV portion of this thread for a moment, I think you've missed some recent happenings in the Mac space. The last few revisions of the iMac hardware have definitely had a focus on gaming performance. And no, this doesn't mean they have a good price-to-performance ratio, but it does mean some people on the fence (like me) can now at least consider the trade-off when it was previously not a viable option.

In terms of general ecosystem, the increase of gaming performance is also echoed in Parallels' and Fusion's focus on gaming optimizations in their latest versions. I expect the hardware refocus also in part led to Steam's migration to the Mac platform. Finally, the Mac App store does have "real games" on it and they are selling; it's not just Angry Birds HD.

Circling back on the Apple TV, I think media/blogs are making a mountain out of a molehill, and we're all pointing to the mountain and saying "Oh Apple, you're so stupid, this isn't a mountain." I would be surprised if apps didn't appear on the Apple TV, and as we've seen in both the iPhone and iPad, apps directly lead to people making games. That doesn't suggest that it will compete directly with the PS3/XBox/Wii systems, or that Apple is even trying to. It's just the spread of the application eco-system.

No it's not disallowed as of September 2010 (it came up in April 2010)

I very seriously doubt that this is where we are heading in the short or mid-term. I know it's fun to speculate on worst-case scenarios, there haven't been any indications so far that OS X is being groomed to be locked down. Apple has continued to treat the Macintosh as the center of the Apple ecosystem (hell one of the big techie complaints about the iPad is that it requires a computer to set up and that it is not a stand-alone device).

If something like this were to happen, I think it is much more likely that it would take the form of the Mac App Store being sufficiently popular with Mac users that it's just not practical to sell software outside of it as the user base has become blind to it. (This is more or less what what intellitech was talking about) While that is in effect the same situation you're talking about, in that case it would be the users who essentially decided (with their wallets) that is how they prefer to acquire applications, not something that was imposed on users or developers by Apple itself.

I think that's a fair concern, but I'm a little skeptical. There were similar concerns about Steam being a go-Steam-or-go-home platform for game developers, but so far it's been that the major players decide for themselves if they want to use it and it's been a boon for indie game developers who might never have the attention of potential buyers.

There are going to be plenty of firmly-established OS X application developers that are not going to want to use the Mac App Store because they want/prefer their own purchasing platform or can't provide their software within the requirements of a Mac Store Application (system modifications, OS integration, etc). I wouldn't be surprised if Adobe was one of them; despite the tiff over Flash, they are important to the customer base for their other tools.

Even assuming they want to, Apple isn't going be able to tell them to play ball or go home. As long as that door is open, the Mac Store will be the go to place for general consumer applications (convenience, price) and independent development (exposure, low entry point).

That's not an analogous situation though. In the case of iOS, you can only install an application if it's available in the iOS App Store (ignoring jail breaking and such, of course). The only way around that would be to have a web application, which in many ways is a poor substitute for having a native app. But in the case of OS X, you can still install/build any application you'd like. It's not as though using Steam prevents you from buying Starcraft II from Blizzard. In fact, the Mac App Store model is explicitly meant for types of applications that don't have to make system changes or integrate with the OS, something entire classes of desktop applications need to be able to do. Unlike iOS, this isn't attempting to be the only avenue for application installation, it's simply meant to be convenient. (can use your Apple ID, download and update your apps through one central location, develop and distribute paid applications without having to have your own purchasing infrastructure, etc)