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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
More iPhones than iMac's sold. So they most likely put it on the phone "first" because that is where most developers are at when it comes to Apple products. It's most trickle 'up' then down. Which may not make sense unless you see it from that point of view. For instance it would have made more sense to have it in say a MacPro tower. But, VERY few customers in that area, and everyone would have YELLED at Apple for putting it there when they didn't on any other Mac.
 
Developers Working With Apple to Bring iPhone 15 Pro's Console Games to future upcoming iPad and Mac which will eventually also feature an RTX engine on their M3 processors.
 
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

Valve, the company that for nearly 3 years, has said exactly zip on supporting the M series Macs?
That fails to respond to questions about future Mac support?
 
Once again, we seem to have this delusion of "if you make it, they will come"... as in "if you make a super-powerful chip suitable for AAA games, they will come."

However, what the makers of such games want is not great/fantastic/superior/best ever hardware but MONEY. If the Amiga crowd could summon up a huge amount of money, they could motivate an AAA gaming studio to convert a modern wonder game for Amiga. If the Commodore 64 crowd could pull together enough money, IT could get an AAA game. If the Atari 2600 crowd could...

This- the money part- is what inhibits big games on Mac. Sony & Microsoft spend BIG on subsidizing the development of games, buying major game exclusives if not outright buying whole gaming studios. Apple does not.

Show the big game makers the money in Mac and they will come. Until then, rolling out the M20 isn't going to make it rain AAA games. Why? Because there's no subsidy or sale to Apple potential... and the market that might pay up for that M20 is relatively tiny vs. the other markets- even with inferior chips- where much more revenue can be made.

Look at AppleTV+ as an example. There are a few good original shows on there that pretty much compete with anything offered by other tv and movie makers. How do those shows get made for Apple? Apple put up big money to fund them. AppleTV existed for about 12 years with no such Apple investment in programming. How many big originals exclusive for AppleTV were created in the 12 years?

This whole gaming thing is the same. Show AAA game makers more money to develop for Apple and they will develop for Apple. Else, it's simply more profitable to develop for PC, PS5, Xbox, etc. Just like Apple, they go where they can realize "another quarter of record revenue & profit" NOT where they could put in about the same amount of work to then make relatively pennies on the dollar.

I'm sure there are plenty of big game programmers who would love to develop fantastic games for Mac Silicon. But then there's that pesky "how do we make equivalent money for the same time investment?" problem. Sony is offering $X to develop the new one for them. Microsoft is countering with $Y. What's Apple's bid? Apple offers $0 but catchy spin about how great the new chips are? Let's meet with Sony & Microsoft so we can get paid well for the hard work involved.

When we see an AppleTV+-type structure- AND BUDGET- for AAA game dev on Silicon, get excited... because the big games will certainly come. Until then, Apple could put Star Trek holographic projectors into Silicon branded M20 PRO MAX Mach II Turbo and AAA games will still get made for other platforms that yield big revenue. Lip service has NEVER worked... including all of the years where Macs were basically PC tech and thus easiest to port the AAA games over.

The key part that is missing... the part that has always made big games on the Mac a rarity/afterthought is the part that both Sony & Microsoft do... but Apple doesn't. I expect no change until Apple finds some spare cash somewhere to make it worth more to developers to develop for Mac. Maybe they can get a loan or something to come up with the cash??? ;)
 
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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.
Bah, more lock-in into a near monopolistic digital distribution platform already accounting for 50% to 70% of all PC game downloads around the world, nothing else. If Valve wanted to seriously support games, they should team with Apple and work on a steam-free version of Half-Life 3 for Metal. That would delight a good chunk of gamers.
 
I preordered Collector's Edition of Assassin's Creed Mirage for the PS5 back when Ubisoft announced it. I'd gladly buy it again to play on my iPhone (and to show Ubisoft I want more AAA titles on iDevices) - but I even more curious to know if it'll play on my M2 MacBook Air, or iPad, or Apple TV, because the phone screen's so small.
 
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According to Capcom's website, RE 4 Remake and RE Village will be compatible with Apple devices that have at least M1 SoC.

1694870735595.png



I couldn't find the iOS/iPadOS device requirements for Death Stranding, but there's a Mac App Store page already and it lists the same minimum M1 requirement for Mac so I can only assume the iOS/iPadOS requirement is also at least M1.

 
I expected this during the event. Apple tends to trial its new features on its smaller devices first (Apple Watch, iPhone). Apple made a push for gaming at WWDC, and now the A17 Pro chip technology that will underpin the M3 series chips has 20% faster GPU and ray tracing. Makes sense the technology would come to the iPad and Mac next.
 
More iPhones than iMac's sold. So they most likely put it on the phone "first" because that is where most developers are at when it comes to Apple products. It's most trickle 'up' then down. Which may not make sense unless you see it from that point of view. For instance it would have made more sense to have it in say a MacPro tower. But, VERY few customers in that area, and everyone would have YELLED at Apple for putting it there when they didn't on any other Mac.
It’s no coincidence that all of the really big game company mergers included the acquisition of companies with a large number of developers knowledgable about delivering mobile entertainment. They are aware of the potential opportunities available.
 
This- the money part- is what inhibits big games on Mac. Sony & Microsoft spend BIG on subsidizing the development of games, buying major game exclusives if not outright buying whole gaming studios. Apple does not.
The money part comes in the sales. There are folks like the creator of “Only UP” that are not getting subsidized by anyone and yet still made a good chunk of change from the game based on how well it sold. Many varied games appear on the PC because of the potential sales opportunity from the large market. The Mac market is nowhere near as large.

Apple subsidizing any company that’s not in it for the potential sales they expect to make, would just be throwing money away.
 
The money part comes in the sales. There are folks like the creator of “Only UP” that are not getting subsidized by anyone and yet still made a good chunk of change from the game based on how well it sold. Many varied games appear on the PC because of the potential sales opportunity from the large market. The Mac market is nowhere near as large.

Apple subsidizing any company that’s not in it for the potential sales they expect to make, would just be throwing money away.

Look through threads on Mac gaming. Apple consumers don't want to pay more than a few dollars for an app, abhor in-app purchases, abhor advertising (revenue models), abhor subscription (revenue models), etc. Who among us pays $50-$100 or more for such a game? Will 5 or 10 people say they would? Could that get to 20? To make it worth it to the developer to develop for Silicon vs. the other options, we need more numbers willing to pay up than the numbers that will on those other platforms. Can that many hold their hand up ready to pay? Is there that many using Silicon?

Netflix raises their fee by a dollar and "we" flip out. Are we ready to pay more than the cost of PS5, Xbox, etc games to make up for being a relatively small market? Or do we expect the developers to develop out of love and just accept less revenue & profit for the same time & talent investments? That's where the subsidy model comes into play. Else, it only makes sense to keep developing for the other platforms where the same time & effort yields more profit.
  • Abundant subsidy money THERE... no subsidy money HERE.
  • Abundant size market there... relatively small market HERE.
  • A market accustomed to paying up for game there, rolling with advertising/subscription/in app there... rebels against all of that HERE.
If developers could see "more money" developing for Apple Silicon, they would already be doing it... for years now. How do they make the "more money" developing for our favorite platform? Solve that and AAA games will be abundant on Apple Silicon. Else, "build it and they will come" is the same old spin we've heard for 20+ years... very likely leading to the same yield of AAA games.

Consumer revenue is like ticket revenue for movies. Long before the first ticket is sold, the movie companies have spent many millions funding the development of the movie. If movie-making had to be funded solely on ticket sales, there would be no more big movies made. See YouTube $0 budget, volunteer movies vs. the blockbusters made by the pros.
 
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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.
Ehhh no.
You have to understand that to push 4k ray tracing to a 42” or larger TV you need a lot of power. It’s not like the power sipping your screen does on the iPhone. The iPhone is amazingly power efficient. But once you plug it into a TV it’s going to require ALOT more power. I could see 1080p being spit out to a TV, sure.
But not 4k. That would require the iPhone to have some sort of auxiliary power supply. Like a DOCK ( cough Nintendo switch )
 
Ehhh no.
You have to understand that to push 4k ray tracing to a 42” or larger TV you need a lot of power. It’s not like the power sipping your screen does on the iPhone. The iPhone is amazingly power efficient. But once you plug it into a TV it’s going to require ALOT more power. I could see 1080p being spit out to a TV, sure.
But not 4k. That would require the iPhone to have some sort of auxiliary power supply. Like a DOCK ( cough Nintendo switch )
I am 99% sure that they meant plugging it into a dock that is attached to the TV like the switch is. The Apple Dock, we think you're going to love it.
 
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The Nintendo Switch was far less advanced than the iPhone and iPad when it came out in 2017.

Success has very little to do with technology and much more to do with the games. Apple needs exclusive first party titles, even if they buy a few smaller studios to develop them in house.

I liked your post and I agree with you, but it should also be pointed out that tech does matter sometimes - the iPhone having displayport out via USB-C is pretty important.
 
Ehhh no.
You have to understand that to push 4k ray tracing to a 42” or larger TV you need a lot of power. It’s not like the power sipping your screen does on the iPhone.

The size of the TV doesn't matter - the iPhone isn't powering the TV.

The iPhone is amazingly power efficient. But once you plug it into a TV it’s going to require ALOT more power. I could see 1080p being spit out to a TV, sure.
But not 4k. That would require the iPhone to have some sort of auxiliary power supply. Like a DOCK ( cough Nintendo switch )

Who is plugging a device into a TV to game without that device also being plugged into power?

And no, the iPhone isn't going to need "A LOT more power". It's just outputting to a display. I'm really not sure what you're trying to say here.

You'd want to have it plugged into power since you don't want to be draining the battery for no good reason, but that's pure common sense.
 
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