Just to preface we're talking about full AAA ports, and not mobile ports of AAA brands (e.g. Diablo 3, Forza, Eve Online, etc).
Absolutely. Games like Borderlands, GTA, Grand Theft Horse (aka “Red Dead Redemption”), although to further clarify, I would expect them to also run on iPads and iPad Pros (but the full experience, not a downgraded version).
Depending on the circumstances, they may share the source code / assets, or they may ask for consultants (i.e. time = money) from the game studio to make sure the port goes ok. The port is not a guarantee of a success. A bad port could also give tarnish reputation.
Certainly true. Let us add some numbers from industry sources:
- A full port of a current generation or older AAA title has an estimated cost of $250,000 to $750,000.
- A remastered version (improving all the assets to native resolution, etc.) ranges from $1,000,000 to $2,250,000 million.
Let us say that Apple offered $5,000,000 per port. For remastered ports, they would get a 6-12 month exclusive. Since both Apple and the studio have reasons to ensure that the port is good, let us include that the studio gets ”final cut”.
For less than the price of a single Apple TV+ movie, they could get 50 AAA games in various genres and of various ages. They would want to work with Epic to ensure that Unreal was as optimized as possible, with Unity for their engine and (maybe) Crytek for theirs. This would also make it easier for new games going forward to support the platform.
Remember when the Apple TV was marketed and spun as a gaming system? The hardware is quite decent, but it still hasn't really taken off today.
Apple was definitely wrong to not either develop a first party game controller or ensure that it works with top tier controllers for other platforms. They remedied that last year with support for PlayStation and XBox controllers. This year they added support for the new controllers from MS (including the one that makes me happiest - the adaptive controller giving a better experience to those who need it).
Very few people buy it for the games.
Clearly. Until Apple Arcade there was clearly not enough compelling content. Apple Arcade has added a lot, but probably not enough yet to be compelling on its own. As a package (all the content apps, fitness apps, and games together), it is way more interesting than it was.
For PC in recent years, there's a heavy focus on online competition, so you have your MOBA and Fortnite crowds.
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Hardware here makes a difference because many of these gamers pursue high FPS at high quality graphics. For Macs in comparison, it kind of feels the most talked about game recently is Civilization 6. If I were AAA developer, I would barely even look at the Apple ecosystem.
You mentioned
Fortnite and I will point out that it is available on macOS and iOS.
League of Legends,
World of Warcraft (both “retail” and classic),
Hearthstone,
Heroes of the Storm, Warcraft III: Reforged and many others are also available, so there is clearly some market, as none of these were done by Apple. A unified platform with both Keyboard/Mouse and top tier console controller support is likely to improve things.
It certainly helps that Sony going to x86 in the PS4 made a lot of PlayStation developers happier. It makes cross platform development just a tad easier.
In exactly the same way, Apple Silicon should do that for Apple’s platform. Especially with the improvements in SwiftUI, and support from Epic/Unity (and maybe CryTek), one can develop a game that will run on all Apple Silicon platforms with a single code base. That gives a developer AppleTV, AS Macs, and iPad and iPad Pro tablets. Shared state using their own platforms or the newly improved Game Center. If they are all Metal based, then even supporting existing Intel Macs is reasonable.
All 3 consoles do a lot of marketing campaigns to make sure they are known as gaming and living room systems. There's too much content out there that reiterates this.
Marketing is certainly something Apple does well. If they decide to make a push for this market, expect to see Billboards and, TV and Online ads that talk about the unified experience (player starts on Mac, moves to iPad, goes to friends house and picks up on AppleTV).
On the Switch, you have heavy pushes on 1st party brands such as Mario and Animal Crossing, both which are established IPs and still have a significant following.
Nintendo is a special case as they have a great deal of their own IP that has not been on many other platforms (iOS is one of the few to get some of their IP).
All consoles have done extensive focus group studies on many facets of console gaming. Seeing the Apple TV control in gen 3/4, it's easy to assume that Apple has not.
Not sure the remote is indicative of how much market research Apple did on console gaming. While they were not very popular, they did have MFI licensed controllers that were competitive (just neither amazing nor cheap enough to justify purchase for most people).
the fact that Apple opened up their platform to leverage console controllers may hint that it's kind of throwing darts a little bit to see what sticks.
Add to that their support for mouse/keyboard games on the iPad and it seems they have decided they are interested in the space.
The Apple TV right now as a gaming system doesn't really have much at the moment to attract these crowds which probably have the highest visibility.
That was they whole point of my original post. It is my speculation that the next AppleTV will have compelling hardware specs. The question is what else is needed to make it compelling as gaming platform.
When people spend $400-700 for a gaming console, they are thinking "I am buying for that game for now, but there might be opportunities to buy more later because this is a gaming system with big future titles to come". If they had a choice of buying an Apple TV version or PS4 version of GTA 5, you can bet that most will buy the PS4 version because it's future proof with a lot more ROI.
Now change the question:
If someone is deciding to purchase a $400 PS4 and a $30 game (older AAA title),
vs. an $150-$250 (with or without a controller bundled) AppleTV, with a $30 game that runs on it, an iPad/iPad Pro, and/or a Mac and things are a bit different. Especially if Apple gets 10-20 AAA titles for the platform (maybe even does a bundle deal where one gets 10 games for $100). Add to that all the other things the device does and it might be compelling.
Apple never owned their own content, and now owns their own studio. I would not be at all surprised to see them do the same in the gaming space.
