Apple now interesting in making a gaming machine?

Rumors in the market states that the iPod maker Apple is now recruiting a team to work on a videogames project at the company. And this group is said to be headed by the former LucasArts technical director Mike Lampell.

The primary source for this rumor is the online news website GameSpot which refers to a tip from a source described as a tech-sector recruiter. The source claims that the company is hiring engineers with a solid background in videogame development.

The company might be the market leaders when it comes to selling digital music and mp3 players but they have little presence in the gaming market. They do sell a couple of games for the Mac platform with help from publishers such as Aspyr but Mac is generally not considered as a platform for playing games.

There are some games available for their portable music player Apple iPod but the simple interface means that not many controls are available to make it usable as a gaming machines. It would be interesting to see what Apple would do if this rumor were indeed correct.