Will tvOS support two remotes for games?

Does anyone know whether tvOS will be able to support dual remotes for playing games ? Or better still using one or more iPhones as a game controllers ?

If so any pointers to sample code for establishing such connections?

Accepted Reply

tvOS apps can use the remote and up to two MFI game controllers. See the GCController reference and the DemoBots sample as a good starting point.

Replies

TvOS supports multiple controllers via bluetooth so, yes, the iPhone

with compatible bluetooth version can be a controller. I haven't dug deep

enough into the docs or samples to point you in any particular direction

though.

tvOS apps can use the remote and up to two MFI game controllers. See the GCController reference and the DemoBots sample as a good starting point.

So only three players altogether? How come the SteelNimbus controller has four indicators?


And can you not use more than one AppleTV remote as game controllers? Something like Beats Sports (or other Wii like motion games) seems like it would require this for simultaneous multi-player (i.e. Tennis).

You can only have a single AppleTV remote paired at any point in time.

Well that certainly limits the type of games that can be made then. Disappointing, but thanks for the answer.

I just rewatched the Beat Sports segment of the keynote and noticed they said "up to 4 players with an iPhone or iPod touch".

Are Harmonix rolling their own companion app for iOS to work with Beat Sports? Or is there a more elegant way to do this?

It just seems a little clunky for every multiplayer game to have a separate companion app.

"tvOS apps can use the remote and up to two MFI game controllers."


Are you sure only two MFi controllers? I thought four controllers could connect. MFi controllers have LEDs for four players. Also GCControllerPlayerIndex in GCController supports up to 4 players.


typedef enum GCControllerPlayerIndex : NSInteger {
     GCControllerPlayerIndexUnset = -1,
     GCControllerPlayerIndex1 = 0,
     GCControllerPlayerIndex2,
     GCControllerPlayerIndex3,
     GCControllerPlayerIndex4,
} GCControllerPlayerIndex;

We're hoping the Apple Remote app will be updated to essentially mimic the new remote functionality. That would make it a universal remote app for others to join in the fun easily.

I'm also hoping that Apple will take this approach. If every multiplayer tvOS app requires users to download a corresponding iOS controller app, I imagine that will clog the App Store pretty quickly. Wouldn't Apple want to avoid such confusion?


Is it possible to get confirmation from an Apple representative that the Apple Remote app will indeed be updated to allow iOS devices to act as additional controllers within multiplayer games? If Apple is not planning such an update, is the preferred solution really to write our own controller apps? Thanks in advance for the clarification. 🙂

What was the source of that reference? Perhaps they only support two MFi controllers (which would be lame) and up to 3 external remotes (iPod/iPhone).

I know people with 5 Apple TVs in their home. It's dissapointing that they wouldnt be able to use all of the remotes as controllers for games.

I've put together a framework that solves this problem, at least in part. It makes it easy to create software-based controllers that interact through the MFi profiles (which is probably how the Apple Remote will eventually do it). It does, however, of course, require the use of a companion app. No practical way around that that I've been able to identify.


https://github.com/robreuss/VirtualGameController

If anyone is looking for a sollution for adding iOS devices as controllers, I highly recommend you look at this project: https://github.com/robreuss/VirtualGameController

I managed to connect the iOS devices and Mac with the Apple TV using Bonjour (NSNetService class). If you make AppleTV the broadcaster of it's service and you let the iOS devices search for that service and connect to it. You can use the Input and Output stream to send and receive data between the devices. The possibilities from that point are limitless.


For more information:

https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/Cocoa/Conceptual/NetServices/Introduction.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/10000119i