I would think most people can admit that the number of people playing iPad games on an external display with a mouse and keyboard is quite possibly the very smallest segment of the entire gaming market.
I'm not even sure there is a single game that both goes full screen on an external display and allows mouse and keyboard control.
Even then, what I actually said was "The answer is almost every single person who games on an external monitor and mouse and keyboard isn't doing it from an iPad." Which is just true - they're doing it from a computer.
This is pretty much copium. The hardest thing about developing games for Apple's platforms is the fact they are supporting another operating system, which is an ongoing drain on resources even after the initial development work is done. This is why there is still so little gaming support on the Mac. When you then look at the iPad, you're adding an additional complication of the fact that the game has to support a touch-first interface to even be allowed on the store in the first place.
There is only a tiny amount of developers who are going into their existing games and redoing the UI so it can adapt between touch, mouse/kb, and gamepad on the fly. There are some, and those experiences are sublime, but it's literally a handful of games despite mouse and keyboard and gamepad support being available on iPad for something like 5 years already?
You seem to have fully understood all of Apple's keynotes over the last few years but not investigated how that applies to the real world where you need third parties to actually do stuff. For the most part the devs just aren't going to put in the work to bring the experiences that you would want them to bring, in the way you'd want them to bring it, to the iPad. And the years roll on.
I don’t know what portion of the market that iPad users who are playing with external displays is, nor does really anyone else. I’m sure there are more on other platforms if you count dedicated consoles like the Xbox or PS, but those are also obviously consoles, so of course that would impact the numbers. Also, I am not placing the limit of “with keyboard and mouse”, because as I said before, many people even gaming on the Mac don’t use keyboard and mouse, but a game controller instead. Ultimately, I don’t think it really matters whether or not iPad users using external displays is a majority or not. Clearly people do it, whether they’re the majority or not is mostly irrelevant. And Apple is increasingly competing with those other platforms, so if it is a major downside as you say that some games don’t fullscreen, then I’m sure Apple will get developers to change that.
Again, I’m talking about external display support for games in general, not only with keyboard and mouse, because many people prefer a controller, or prefer to use the iPhone or iPad’s on-screen controls, but have the bigger screen. Almost every review of portable monitors I see, a reviewer connects an iPhone or iPad to it for gaming purposes.
And again, if you narrow things down with “control with keyboard and mouse”, then sure, I’m sure the iPad is probably somewhere in the minority there. But that’s also skewed, because as I pointed out before, many people prefer game controllers over keyboard and mouse control.
So I don’t think this is “copium”, I think there’s clear evidence Apple is pushing hard into gaming, and so far, their efforts have actually paid off quite nicely. Major titles like Assassin’s Creed have already joined, and not just released a Mac port, but iPad and iPhone version as well. And one thing to consider is that the game porting toolkit actually has tools for automatically creating on-screen touch controls for the game. So game devs don’t really have to do much if anything really in order to touch optimize their games, because that part is automatic, and they can refine it from there if they want/need to. It’s essentially like what Steam Link does, but as a system porting tool that bakes those touch controls in. Again, the Game Porting Toolkit removes a lot of the heavy lifting required to port over. Apple is actively addressing such barriers with the porting toolkit to make it as simple as possible to port games over. And this is something that no other gaming platforms really provides. So it makes it far easier for game devs to port games to Apple’s platform than it is often even to do so for consoles. As Apple continues to improve the game porting toolkit, and get more game devs onboard, I think Apple’s going to be in a very good position.
When considering this, one must consider the limitations before that made it harder for game devs to port their games to Apple’s platform, and why this is a more recent trend rather than something years longer now. Because Apple had less unified platforms, in order to target, say, iPadOS and macOS with a game you originally developed for another platform like Windows, you basically had to manually code two versions of your game. One for Intel Macs, which required different stuff to run, especially back then, and one for the iPad. Because Macs were stuck on Intel chips, Apple couldn’t really pull off a game porting toolkit like the one they now provide. So much of the work to port a game to Mac and iPad was manual, and required much more time and a larger development team for each platform. This meant that many games passed up porting to either. It was too much effort, and I think that’s not just laziness, but was actually true in many cases.
Now, we have the game porting toolkit. This removes the majority of the heavy lifting required from the developers, and does the heavy lifting for them, dramatically simplifying the process. Each year, the porting toolkit becomes more robust and automatic, requiring less direct input from game devs. At some point, if you’re a game dev, and you could plug your game into a software that pumps out a version compatible with another market of devices that likely represents millions of untapped customers, then why wouldn’t you? Sure, the game porting toolkit isn’t quite there yet, you still do a little bit of manual tweaking and refining, but it is getting very close to that, and at some point it almost certainly will be there. I think for most game devs, it will remove reasons to not port to Apple’s platforms, and the wide market base of Apple’s smartphones and tablets will likely draw many game devs to port to tap into that market.
I have seen several developers put in the work to do just that. Again, I have a more optimistic view of developers apparently. And I think Apple is clearly putting more emphasis into gaming, and making the tools and deals/agreements with game studios required to get big console titles onto the Apple ecosystem. The biggest difference here is that for years, Apple themselves weren’t pushing as hard for better gaming on their platforms, there weren’t the incentives, Apple wasn’t going out and making deals with game studios, Apple wasn’t buying game studios, and Apple wasn’t providing the tools to make it super simple and easy for games to port. The game porting toolkit literally caters to even lazy devs, because most of it is automatic. There’s clearly more momentum for more console-level gaming on Apple’s platforms. And yes, I get that third parties have to do stuff, but I think third parties will and are doing stuff now with these tools and with Apple actively working to win game devs over. Big picture trends like this tend to take a few years to more fully play out, but I definitely see far more new game titles including ports to Apple’s platforms on day one, or soon thereafter at least.
At the end of the day, I’m not saying everyone should replace a Mac or PC for gaming with an iPad. I have a handheld console for some gaming, even though I also have an iPad and Mac. I’m saying that clearly we are making progress on the gaming front on Apple’s platforms, and it’s a rate of progress we’ve never really seen before on this front with Apple’s platforms. Ultimately, I think the age of console-level gaming on Apple’s platforms is just beginning, and I think the future looks very bright. 👍🏻
