Sounds like Apple has been courting them pretty hard for A17 Pro. I’d expect Mac to follow much more aggressively moving forward. The M series architecture is solid.
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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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I'm wondering if on the iPhone it will be a totally different model. The PS5 sold 19 million units in 2022 vs 225 million iPhones, over 11 times more. Simplistically if you are selling 11 times more product then there is an incentive to port your product even if you charge a lower price.
isn't apple releasing a platform to recompile windows games to apple silicon Macs also? a mult-path approach would help lots.
They've done this from time to time, for the media attention. When big developers don't leap onto the platform, they stop spending money. I'd love for this time to be different.
There is a PS5 controller that hooks in. A lot of cool stuff. Used with controller it’s gonna be cool. Would be nice to bring AAA games to Apple Arcade that would be great.
An iPhone 15 Pro Max has about the same number of pixels as a 1440p display, so I am expecting an internal rendering resolution of 900-1080p and then MetalFX upscaling to 1440p (XBox Series S resolution). Hopefully you are aware thay most current gen console games render at 1080p and are upscaled to 4k using FSR2 (and infamously, Star Wars Jedi Survivor renders at 720p internally).
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Proton is, effectively, a Linux version of CrossOver, made with Valve's specifications to make sure games run on Linux.
Apple's Game Porting Toolkit is also, effectively, a macOS version of CrossOver, made with Apple's specifications. This was announced at WWDC and gave some more detail in the Platforms of the Union keynote. The only difference is that the latter is a tool for developers to see how much more work would need to be done to make a native macOS version (instead of merely running it). But there are a number of people in the Mac gaming community (however small that is) that have been able to run various DX 11 and DX 12 games with not much effort.
So yes, Apple is doing pretty much what you're suggesting.
The iPhone will need a TV interface when you plug it into an external display if they really want to make it a console competitor. Ideally, give it the iPad’s stage manager and let it be 100% controllable with a Gamepad. Maybe an Apple designed Gamepad?
Relatively small if you’re talking macOS. If you’re talking iPadOS/iPhoneOS, that a base of folks that, currently, drive the majority of the profits made from gaming today, and will continue to drive the majority of the profits made from gaming well into the future.
And, again, those using iPadOS and iPhoneOS are paying MILLIONS of dollars a year many buying “top-up” packs from 9.99 to 99.99 and more per month! AAA publishers realize this and over the last couple years have been buying up mobile development houses. The question isn’t if they’ll finally figure out how to get a piece of that pie, but when.
Mac has gotten pretty much the 2023 game of the year - Baldur's Gate 3. Mac has RE and getting Death Stranding. We are getting more RE games, Stray, and many more to come. Apple Silicon is pretty much new from a developer POV so give it more time.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???
This is a bit ridiculous. Most of the games these days are still cross generation. RE 4 Remake is a NEW game, but can run on PS4. There are VERY FEW exclusives to just the current gen hardware.
Also, the Mac received the pretty much won 2023 Game of the Year - Baldur's Gate 3 which is PS5 and Xbox Series X/S exclusive (meaning not last gen supported).
Geez people expect the moon, it will NEVER be parity. Heck Windows doesn't even have Final Fantasy 16, Horizon Forbidden West, will NOT have Spider Man 2 at launch....and many more.
What I find quite interesting is that the A17 Pro is probably a better gaming chip than the M1. Faster single core, very close in multi core, and possibly even faster in the GPU, with ray tracing. Given that the Pros come with a minimum of 256GB storage this time, and DP out over USB-C... it's interesting.
Okay what on earth is going on at Cupertino? This is really out of character for Apple. They never do interviews like this, let alone with gaming news publications, publications that have mocked them for years
I wonder if the trial with Epic Games had anything to do with this. I honestly feel like that trial was a wake up call to Apple execs that they've left a lot of money on the table treating the video game industry like dirt compared to other entertainment mediums they actively support.
Ever since that trial, we've seen a complete 180 at Apple in regards to games. Since the trial we've had Metal 3, Apple introducing their own upscaler with MetalFX, the Game Porting Toolkit, and signing deals and giving bags of cash with major AAA developers to do Mac ports. Games NO ONE thought would ever come to Mac have come.
Well hey, I hope they keep up this energy. We desperately need competition in the PC gaming space to reduce the dependency on Windows. Valve's efforts with Linux gaming is great but it's not enough. Mac on the other hand would have the potential to be a disruption in the industry
I wonder if the trial with Epic Games had anything to do with this. I honestly feel like that trial was a wake up call to Apple execs that they've left a lot of money on the table treating the video game industry like dirt compared to other entertainment mediums they actively support.
Ever since that trial, we've seen a complete 180 at Apple in regards to games. Since the trial we've had Metal 3, Apple introducing their own upscaler with MetalFX, the Game Porting Toolkit, and signing deals and giving bags of cash with major AAA developers to do Mac ports. Games NO ONE thought would ever come to Mac have come.
Well hey, I hope they keep up this energy. We desperately need competition in the PC gaming space to reduce the dependency on Windows. Valve's efforts with Linux gaming is great but it's not enough. Mac on the other hand would have the potential to be a disruption in the industry
I was excited last year when I saw no man’s sky was coming for iPad, so I bought a new m2 iPad Pro.
so I’m playing DOS2, alien isolation and all the other serious ports, having a good time.
but I still can’t play no man’s sky… I own it on Xbox damn it, but I can’t start a new game until I can run it native on my own iPad. Still, it’s nice to have something to look forward to despite feeling like I have been lied to since then
so I’m playing DOS2, alien isolation and all the other serious ports, having a good time.
but I still can’t play no man’s sky… I own it on Xbox damn it, but I can’t start a new game until I can run it native on my own iPad. Still, it’s nice to have something to look forward to despite feeling like I have been lied to since then
Revenue-wise gaming is very important to Apple's bottom line. That makes their shareholders happy.
It is so important that Epic Games brought Apple to Court and lost.
Ray Tracing has its use on any device's GUI.
Same sort of criticism was lobbed as early as 2001 with Mac OS X's Aqua GUI as it "needlessly" leveraged early 3D graphic cards and today's GPUs to render a beautiful User Interface. Years later Windows got a 3D accelerated GUI as well. In 2001 Windows XP was released and 2007 Windows Vista had the hefty 3D hardware requirement for their new GUI.
The complaints of iOS & iPadOS having "nothing new" in GUIs largely stems from hardware limitations.
Within 5 years we will see UI improvements leveraged by ray tracing.
To further demonstrate the importance of ray tracing to phones, last year Android chip makers Qualcomm, MediaTek & Samsung have ray tracing hardware built-in.
Apple was supposed to have ray tracing on last year's A16 Bionic but failed to execute it to their satisfaction.
No matter others feels about it its a quality of life improvement.
Apple could have addressed your battery life complaint very easily by maintaining the weight of any iPhone 14 by adding more battery. They chose instead to make it lighter at a similar volume.
What I'd want to see in future is macOS on iPhone given that it has a USB-C 10Gbps port built-in. Have a large USB-C display with Thunderbolt 5, Ethernet, USB-A and 3.5mm headphone jack and you're set to go with physical full sized keyboard and mouse/trackpad.
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For that Apple will need to do a lot more than providing the hardware.
The iPhone is too “general purpose” for that. It doesn’t come with physical buttons, offers an App Store that treats gaming as merely another category, lacks a subscription service that is truly designer for gamers and above all lacks first-party content with strong IP.
Instead this will just be another phone with better hardware.
No doubt it’ll be great as a secondary device that shares your gaming progress, but primarily they’ll have to come up with a sub-$500 Apple TV like device equipped with an M3 Pro that positions itself as a gaming & home hub. They’ll have to be comfortable selling it at cost or at loss and make their money back through content sales/subscriptions to play a meaningful role in the gaming space.
Almost everyone has a dumb & smartphone. A fraction of the world has a Switch, PS5 or Xbox Series X.
It does not really need to sell another hardware at cost.. Apple as 3 of 5 Americans have an iPhone. They just need more 3rd parties porting their games to Apple OSes. Having ray tracing helps. Within 3 years or longer from today ~80% of those Americans would have an iPhone with ray tracing.
Apple allows for any major 3rd party controller for the past years. Launching their own controller would be added revenue for Apple.
See how iPhone & Android killed off the digital camera and PDA market? They just folded in the features of those other devices into their smartphones. People saw smartphones as a better value as it "saved" them money from buying yet another device.
How Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft does their businesses is largely based on how they expand their hardware-base. People need to "pull" hardware towards them rather than carriers "push" it to them.
Cashflow-wise anyone can amortize most smartphones with a carrier over 1/2/3/4 years. That cannot be done as easily with any video consoles.
They just need some tweaking on the App Store and more 3rd parties.
Apple losing Lightning connector revenue will easily be compensated by how the iPhone and other Apple devices will further erode Nintendos, Sony and Microsoft's market.
The value proposition is there.
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Another year, another presentation with "focus" on gaming.
One year later: nothing changed, still zero AAA games on macOS
One year later: nothing changed, still zero AAA games on macOS
It didn't "focus" or focus on gaming. It was a relatively small segment in the presentation.Another year, another presentation with "focus" on gaming.
One year later: nothing changed, still zero AAA games on macOS
The main focus of this year's presentation was carbon neutrality and recycling.
In theory this is really cool and the prospect of being able to continue gaming on the iPhone on the go alone makes me consider upgrading to a Pro model this time around.
However, I'm still sceptical about the practicalities of this all. First, I would not want to plug my iPhone into the TV in the same way I would the Switch because I want to keep using my phone while gaming. Maybe someone calls, maybe I want to look up how to get past a section I'm stuck on, maybe I want to keep messaging with my friends etc etc etc. So iPhone gaming, for me at least, is something mobile and on the TV only by exception. Additionally, living room gaming is quite often shared by multiple people and I would not want to surrender my phone for hours while my wife is playing (or vice versa). They could of course introduce a more powerful Apple TV, we will see. For the time being the Mac is the obvious companion device.
Apple's storage prices equally mean that the iPhone is unlikely to be your primary gaming device and the cost difference between a 128GB to a 1TB iPhone 15 Pro basically pays for a PS5. And storage is not just a blocker on the phone, the Mac is equally limited here.
Second, what would really be a game changer is if Apple made it easier to integrate the phone into your existing gaming infrastructure. If I could install Steam on my phone and play Mac games here I'd be instantly sold, even more so if there would be a way to play Windows games on MacOS in the same way I can play them on Linux on my Steam Deck, but technical limitations aside I very much suspect Apple aspires to become the bank again and expects me to buy the games on the App Store, which not just limits me then to their devices, but also cuts me off from my existing catalogue. I think there's a reason both Microsoft and Sony have put more emphasis on backward compatibility in recent years.
Overall interesting development I'll watch closely and am reasonably excited about, but not holding my breath yet.
However, I'm still sceptical about the practicalities of this all. First, I would not want to plug my iPhone into the TV in the same way I would the Switch because I want to keep using my phone while gaming. Maybe someone calls, maybe I want to look up how to get past a section I'm stuck on, maybe I want to keep messaging with my friends etc etc etc. So iPhone gaming, for me at least, is something mobile and on the TV only by exception. Additionally, living room gaming is quite often shared by multiple people and I would not want to surrender my phone for hours while my wife is playing (or vice versa). They could of course introduce a more powerful Apple TV, we will see. For the time being the Mac is the obvious companion device.
Apple's storage prices equally mean that the iPhone is unlikely to be your primary gaming device and the cost difference between a 128GB to a 1TB iPhone 15 Pro basically pays for a PS5. And storage is not just a blocker on the phone, the Mac is equally limited here.
Second, what would really be a game changer is if Apple made it easier to integrate the phone into your existing gaming infrastructure. If I could install Steam on my phone and play Mac games here I'd be instantly sold, even more so if there would be a way to play Windows games on MacOS in the same way I can play them on Linux on my Steam Deck, but technical limitations aside I very much suspect Apple aspires to become the bank again and expects me to buy the games on the App Store, which not just limits me then to their devices, but also cuts me off from my existing catalogue. I think there's a reason both Microsoft and Sony have put more emphasis on backward compatibility in recent years.
Overall interesting development I'll watch closely and am reasonably excited about, but not holding my breath yet.