Everyone has wondered whether Apple will ever hop into the gaming industry just like their little known competitor. They seem to have been getting their feet wet with games recently by getting many popular EA titles ported to Mac OS X, the most recent and dramatic of these ports being Spore. Now it seems that they are taking things a bit further. Apple inc recently updated their trademark so that it covers: “Toys, games and playthings, namely, hand-held units for playing electronic games; hand-held units for playing video games; stand alone video game machines; electronic games other than those adapted for use with television receivers only; LCD game machines; electronic educational game machines; toys, namely battery-powered computer games”.

Not only is this pretty specific regarding a hand-held system, but it also implies that they intend to use it. This is different from a simple patent, such as the motion sensing hand-held patent by Nintendo, which are created simply so that no one else can take that idea if the company in question wishes to pursue it. No one is going to prevent Apple from making a console, which means this trade mark update isn’t necessary unless Apple is going to use it. Oh and if Steve Jobs is reading this, whatever you do, don’t call it the iGame.