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Developers Working With Apple to Bring iPhone 15 Pro's Console Games to the iPad and Mac

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Developers are working with Apple to bring the iPhone 15 Pro's console games to the iPad and Mac, Apple executives told IGN.

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In a new interview, Jeremy Sandmel, Apple's Senior Director of GPU Software, and Tim Millet, Apple's VP of Platform Architecture, discussed the iPhone 15 Pro's more advanced gaming capabilities. During the announcement of the iPhone 15 Pro models, Apple highlighted how the A17 Pro chip features a brand new GPU with hardware-accelerated ray tracing, enabling console games like "Resident Evil 4" and "Assassin's Creed: Mirage" to be played on the iPhone.

Asked if these new games will be compatible with Apple silicon iPads and Macs, Millet said that "The developers are going to work with us to do it." Sandmel added:
...one of the things that fundamentally enabled that is this unification of the architecture of Apple Silicon and the iPhone Silicon and the iPad Silicon. And so you can see that they're able to do exactly what you just suggested, which is bring a game to iPhone and Mac that is the same game. It's the same rendering, it's the same rendering quality and it's the same game they had on a gaming PC and a console.

So we really look at these many generations of SoC architecture across the phone, across the iPad, across now, Apple Silicon Macs. And we'd see that as part of one big unified platform, a graphics and gaming platform in particular.
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Since these console games are purportedly enabled by the hardware advancements of the A17 Pro, Apple's first chip fabricated with TSMC's 3-nanometer process, it seems possible that Apple is alluding to next-generation iPads and Macs with M3 chips here.

DisplayPort support is built into the USB-C port on all iPhone 15 models, meaning that the devices can output video at up to 4K/60Hz natively to a DisplayPort-equipped external display or TV with a supported USB-C to DisplayPort cable. On previous iPhones with a Lightning port, video mirroring is limited to 1080p with Apple's Lightning-to-HDMI or Lightning-to-VGA adapters.

Asked if, given the device's DisplayPort capabilities, iPhone 15 Pro owners would be be able to play the likes of Resident Evil 4 on an external display, Sandmel replied:
As you probably know, there's the display resolution and then there's the gaming resolution, and then the frame rates, the game rendering. With technologies like MetalFX's upscaling, we can sort of separate those two things. The game can run at really high frame rates, get really great quality results, and then upscale whatever resolution the display, whether that's the iPhone display, whether that's an external display. So yes, the iPhone can connect to these 4K displays, and it can drive them externally doing whatever you do on the phone, including gaming to these other displays. The resolution and frame rate are going to highly depend on what the game's actually doing.
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The iPhone does not yet offer a dedicated extended display mode, but it is possible to mirror an iPhone to an external display via a wired connection, as well as AirPlay. See IGN's full interview for more information.

Article Link: Developers Working With Apple to Bring iPhone 15 Pro's Console Games to the iPad and Mac
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2023/09/16/devs-working-to-bring-console-games-to-ipad-mac/
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it's nice that they can scale up pretty well between A and M chips...but at the same time it also makes it bad for users

for example ray traycing serves no purpose on a phone, but they put it in and enhanced GPU in order to make M3/PRO (devices that have the thermal and battery capacities for it)

while they could have given us some 20% battery improvement and a more "phone" oriented chip , if they were focused on providing the best for each product and chip category
 
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Originalblez said:
An iPhone as a Nintendo Switch-like device that you can plug into a TV? That would redefine the iPhone and really disrupt the traditional console business.
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Yeah, this is massive. Apple hasn't rushed into the games market, but all of sudden, it's done something that is setting it up to be the biggest player in a few years.

Also, unlike Playstation that upgrades every 5-7 years, it'll be upgrading on a yearly basis.
 
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Originalblez said:
An iPhone as a Nintendo Switch-like device that you can plug into a TV? That would redefine the iPhone and really disrupt the traditional console business.
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Oh yes! I see a time in the not so distance future where you slip your 15 Pro into a neat dock, providing power and DP connections to your monitor. Sit back with your favourite controller, paired to the phone, and let the gaming commence. Before anyone starts hating on this comment - no - of course it wouldn't beat the performance of custom, monster gaming rig. But then you can't fit one of those in your pocket. A more than useful alternative.
 
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Luna Murasaki said:
No mention of the AppleTV?

Would love an AppleTV capable of AAA titles that could replace my Xbox.
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Most likely that’s coming soon. Chances are next Apple TV will come in Pro models for users that demand more, like gamers and cinematographers that demand more. (Which will likely feature higher capacity storage and more advanced Apple Silicon chip, would not be surprised if M3 makes it to Apple TV which would be game changer)

Simply put, A17 Pro is sneak peek at M3 chip, which is going to be MASSIVE game changing chip. (Hence the delay to 2024 launch)
 
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Reactions: Pinkyyy 💜🍎, fatlardo, kostthem and 11 others
It makes sense that the focus is on the iPhone Pro and iPad. The size of that potential ray tracing capable market will always be several times that of the Mac. If the work to make the games macOS compatible is a “freebie”, then it’d be worth it to get whatever additional sales they can derive from the 20 million or so M3 capable Macs sold in the first year.
 
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dominiongamma said:
They’ve been saying this for years, so I’m still skeptical
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True but it feels a bit more likely this time around. In the past for Mac's, most of them had terrible GPU performance as it was all Intel Integrated Graphics. You'd need the MacBook Pro and only in the 15 / 16 inch size to get a dedicated GPU. Even then it was middle of the road performance as far as laptop GPU's go.

Now they have much more powerful hardware and all Mac's are getting a respectable GPU even in the base chips. Plus they can leverage the massive install base of the iPhone and iPad as other platforms these games can run on. That probably gives developers an install base large enough to make this worth a shot. It's ultimately going to depend on how many people buy these games but for once Apple is providing the hardware across their lineup to make this possible.
 
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Will Co said:
Oh yes! I see a time in the not so distance future where you slip your 15 Pro into a neat dock, providing power and DP connections to your monitor. Sit back with your favourite controller, paired to the phone, and let the gaming commence. Before anyone starts hating on this comment - no - of course it wouldn't beat the performance of custom, monster gaming rig. But then you can't fit one of those in your pocket. A more than useful alternative.
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Apple will make billions from battery replacements because of the constant charging and overheating.
 
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Reactions: ConvertedToMac, Pinkyyy 💜🍎, SueperDrive and 6 others
The weak passive cooling of a phone places a hard limit on any dreams of a gaming dock. Sure even badly throttled it'd be faster than a Switch, but that's only because the Switch is ancient hardware.

The iPhone has impressive CPU/GPU performance, but its full power is really only meant to be used in short bursts.
 
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Bah, more content for keynotes, nothing else. If Apple wanted to seriously support games, they should team with Valve and work in a Proton version for macOS. That would enable a good chunk of games. Big devs will come alone if they see people gaming on mac.

But of course, that would give Apple less control of the content that needs to go through that abandoned mac App store
 
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