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

[Nugat Trailers]

Another year, another presentation with "focus" on gaming. 🙄
One year later: nothing changed, still zero AAA games on macOS

'Lies of P Coming to Mac as Part of the Official Game Launch on September 19'​

'Thank you from the fiery infernal engine we keep in place of our heart. ❤️‍🔥 We couldn't have asked for a better response to Baldur's Gate 3.

Patch 3 is coming September 21 with full support for BG3 on Mac.'

'Resident Evil 4
Available 2023
Compatible OSs macOS 13.0 or later'

'Mac It Happen: Open World Science-Fantasy RPG ELEX II Is Now Available for Mac'​

'The Medium is now available on every Mac with Apple Silicon! Optimized to take full advantage of Apple Silicon and Metal 3 features like MetalFX Upscaling. Check on the App Store or Steam and don't miss a chance for a special launch discount. A dark mystery awaits!'

 

[d686546s]

Given that the Pros come with a minimum of 256GB storage this time, and DP out over USB-C... it's interesting.

Only the Pro Max, the 6.1" Pro continues to start at 128GB storage.

 

[im_to_hyper]

No mention of the AppleTV?

Would love an AppleTV capable of AAA titles that could replace my Xbox.

Same. Hard same.

 

[Ethosik]

'Lies of P Coming to Mac as Part of the Official Game Launch on September 19'​

'Thank you from the fiery infernal engine we keep in place of our heart. ❤️‍🔥 We couldn't have asked for a better response to Baldur's Gate 3.

Patch 3 is coming September 21 with full support for BG3 on Mac.'

'Resident Evil 4
Available 2023
Compatible OSs macOS 13.0 or later'

'Mac It Happen: Open World Science-Fantasy RPG ELEX II Is Now Available for Mac'​

'The Medium is now available on every Mac with Apple Silicon! Optimized to take full advantage of Apple Silicon and Metal 3 features like MetalFX Upscaling. Check on the App Store or Steam and don't miss a chance for a special launch discount. A dark mystery awaits!'

It’s all the same in these posts. Gaming is a bad topic because to most AAA is ONLY COD. Nobody can say ’Mac has no AAA” games because it’s simply not true as you pointed out many examples. And Baldur’s Gate 3 pretty much is 2023 game of the year and Mac has that. Let’s also remember Windows doesn’t even have some AAA games.

 

[Nugat Trailers]

Feels like most of the time, 'AAA gaming' means 'whatever I say that isn't on Mac', rather than anything else.

It doesn't help that many sites, including MacRumors, seem hilariously reluctant to mention any upcoming games.

 

[d686546s]

Feels like most of the time, 'AAA gaming' means 'whatever I say that isn't on Mac', rather than anything else.

It doesn't help that many sites, including MacRumors, seem hilariously reluctant to mention any upcoming games.

You're not wrong, but it's equally fair to acknowledge that there's more games, AAA and otherwise, available on a Steam Deck running Linux than there's on any modern Mac.

 

[Sheepish-Lord]

Referencing the recent event am I the only one that feels showing a 30fps sustainment is not impressive? I get they aren’t trying to compete with the big boys but Apple already does very limited marketing for games, even the latest ones, and the inability to play them on a ATV is also annoying so throwing a “look at me” 30fps just opens yourself up to more criticism.

 

[IlluminatedSage]

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??? 😉

Also Apple has high App Store charges leading to legal conflict with Epic Games. Apple’s walled garden is alienating important gaming industry players.

 

[teh_hunterer]

Referencing the recent event am I the only one that feels showing a 30fps sustainment is not impressive? I get they aren’t trying to compete with the big boys but Apple already does very limited marketing for games, even the latest ones, and the inability to play them on a ATV is also annoying so throwing a “look at me” 30fps just opens yourself up to more criticism.

How exactly are they supposed to achieve more? It's a 6 core CPU and 6 core GPU in a phone - it's about as powerful as the M1 chip. How could they have packed any more performance in? If you think about how powerful an A17 Pro and/or M1 is compared to an M1/2 Pro, or M1/2 Max, or compare that to modern PC gaming hardware, that level of performance for these types of full desktop/console games makes perfect sense.

 

[Sheepish-Lord]

How exactly are they supposed to achieve more? It's a 6 core CPU and 6 core GPU in a phone - it's about as powerful as the M1 chip. How could they have packed any more performance in? If you think about how powerful an A17 Pro and/or M1 is compared to an M1/2 Pro, or M1/2 Max, or compare that to modern PC gaming hardware, that level of performance for these types of full desktop/console games makes perfect sense.

I’m not concerned with what they’re doing, that’s cool, but hyping it is the wrong play IMO. Apple keeps talking about gaming but how long is it going to be all talk and no action? I’m a firm believer that unless you have something ready on launch then it’s all just hopes and dreams. Walking out devs on stage and having 1-2 games old games solely on the AppStore doesn’t isn’t enough.

 

[teh_hunterer]

I’m not concerned with what they’re doing, that’s cool, but hyping it is the wrong play IMO. Apple keeps talking about gaming but how long is it going to be all talk and no action? I’m a firm believer that unless you have something ready on launch then it’s all just hopes and dreams. Walking out devs on stage and having 1-2 games old games solely on the AppStore doesn’t isn’t enough.

That doesn't really have much to do with what I said. I was replying to what you said about it being only 30fps. With that calibre of game, with the physics of a device that small and thermally limited, I don't see how Apple could possibly have delivered higher performance.

 

[d686546s]

Also Apple has high App Store charges leading to legal conflict with Epic Games. Apple’s walled garden is alienating important gaming industry players.

I'm fairly critical about the App Store being the only software distribution channel on iOS and iPadOS, but for present purposes Steam seems to be charging about the same as the App Store, so as a games developer you probably don't gain too much.

For me it's rather that as a user I have absolutely no intention to fracture my library even further if I don't have to. I buy my Xbox and PS games in their respective stores because, well, it is what it is and I buy the rest on Steam because those games run on Windows, Linux via Proton and MacOS if the developer supports it without me having to buy the game again.

Even if there'd be Mac/iPhone cross-play, and I have the slight feeling that they'd want to charge me twice, I don't think I'd want to buy a game that just runs on Apple hardware.

 

[guzhogi]

Too bad Apple can't/won't develop some kind of hybrid/multi-tier GPU architecture so that we could get eGPUs again. I'm sure that the GPUs in Apple's A/M chips are great, but they're not as powerful as Nvidia's or AMD's.

 

[Mackan]

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.

What is natural will never be supported by Apple. They only support greed. They want you to pay for a separate device for every task.

 

[magbarn]

Another year, another presentation with "focus" on gaming. 🙄
One year later: nothing changed, still zero AAA games on macOS

Well they do have BG3…

Likely never going to see Diablo 4, F123, Dead space remake, Starfield, FF7R, RDR2, CP2077 ever coming to Mac or iOS.

 

[spcopsmac21]

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).

You’re right, but about the lowest tier consoles currently being sold.
And I doesn’t matter about the pixels. Those consoles have a much larger power supply. Because they have to push a signal to a much larger screen on a television. I think you’re completely missing that. The iPhones implementation is much like that of the Nintendo switch. With in order to push the resolutions you’re describing to a MUCH larger screen requiring way more power.
In order for the iphone 15 or Pro to push higher resolutions even with FRS or any type of scaling it will need a MUCH BEEFIER power supply. Not the power sipping A17. The newest iPhones will not be able to render or upscale to true 4k for at least two generations. People have already made hands on videos with the newest iPhones confirming what I’m saying.

The pixel count on the phone being close to a 42” or 70” TV has zero to do with how this phone will translate to displaying games on a television. Zero. Thats now how any of this works.
And most current gen console games render base at 2048x1080, and push to 4k. Only the most demanding games render in 1440p and push to 4k.
The PS5 have less than 20% of its library not rendered in true 4k.

The Xbox series S is last gen specs with a few current upscaling systems. It’s not true Next Gen. And developers despise working with that console because of its last Gen limitations.

the a17 gaming look like a PS4 or Xbox one with FSR and ray tracing. Locked at 30FPS. On the phones screen it’s going to look amazing. But don’t expect it to translate well to a big display.

 

[Ethosik]

Well they do have BG3…

Likely never going to see Diablo 4, F123, Dead space remake, Starfield, FF7R, RDR2, CP2077 ever coming to Mac or iOS.

Well we can't really blame Apple on some of that.

"Older" Blizzard games like Starcraft 2 and Diablo 3 exists on Mac back when the GPU was horrible unless you spend $2,000+ because you would just get Intel integrated graphics until that point. People love to joke about it, but we need more people like Whoopi to complain about lack of games on Mac!

Starfield is a Microsoft platform exclusive. I would never expect that on Mac no matter what Apple does outside of buying Microsoft which would never happen.

FF7 Remake took 18 months to get on Windows even. As of right now, FF16 and FF7 Rebirth are not coming out on PC for a long time. So if the almighty Windows doesn't get some games right away, I don't know what some people expect on the Mac side.

Developers are also half-***ing things SO MUCH these days. They rely on crutches like FSR and DLSS so heavily on their games. Micro-stutters are absolutely horrible, essentially made FF7 Remake unplayable until Digital Foundry mentioned the workaround of lowering the Direct X version. This is why I went back to PS5 for most of my games is I am sick of dealing with various issues even on a i9/4090 setup!

 

[magbarn]

Well we can't really blame Apple on some of that.

"Older" Blizzard games like Starcraft 2 and Diablo 3 exists on Mac back when the GPU was horrible unless you spend $2,000+ because you would just get Intel integrated graphics until that point. People love to joke about it, but we need more people like Whoopi to complain about lack of games on Mac!

Starfield is a Microsoft platform exclusive. I would never expect that on Mac no matter what Apple does outside of buying Microsoft which would never happen.

FF7 Remake took 18 months to get on Windows even. As of right now, FF16 and FF7 Rebirth are not coming out on PC for a long time. So if the almighty Windows doesn't get some games right away, I don't know what some people expect on the Mac side.

Developers are also half-***ing things SO MUCH these days. They rely on crutches like FSR and DLSS so heavily on their games. Micro-stutters are absolutely horrible, essentially made FF7 Remake unplayable until Digital Foundry mentioned the workaround of lowering the Direct X version. This is why I went back to PS5 for most of my games is I am sick of dealing with various issues even on a i9/4090 setup!

You do have a point. Starfield runs like crap without scaling crutches on my i9/4090 setup also. The graphics are nice but not earth shattering.

Blizzard became much less Mac friendly ever since being acquired by Activision

 

[Unregistered 4U]

giving bags of cash with major AAA developers to do Mac ports.

Have we seen that? If it’s a significant amount of money, it would show up on their quarterly reports. I don’t think there’s anything other than the support they provide any developer with questions about how to prepare their apps for Apple Silicon.

Mac on the other hand would have the potential to be a disruption in the industry

Not with the unit sales the Mac makes.

 

[Unregistered 4U]

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.

There are billions of lightning connectors out there. No one should be under the impression that lightning connector revenue goes to zero as of Sept 22.

 

[vvapple]

Or put a M3 in an AppleTV and call it a PlayStation killer 😀

 

[OferJ]

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

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: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: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

When I start seeing games with a production quality similar to legend of Zelda or BG3 on my iPhone I’ll start believing that it can be a viable gaming platform. All the best specs in the world are meaningless without good games. The Nintendo switch is crap if you just look at its specs. Yet I get a lot more enjoyment out of the games I play on there than I do out of anything on my iPhone. And yes, there are some games I play on my iPhone. But they’re mindless time killers.

 

[Ethosik]

Not with the unit sales the Mac makes.

People just don't understand this core point. As a game developer myself, I am targeting windows primarily. Why? Because the amount of people that have Windows systems is so much greater than Mac. Windows gives me more potential customers and will give me the most potential money from my sales.

Will I port my game over to Mac? It is on my list, but not in the top 5 of things to focus on so who knows if I ever get to it or not. Only Mac marketshare significant growth can get me to raise that up in priority. With the current Mac numbers, as much as I despise Windows, I will develop my game for Windows.

And it's not Apple's fault here, no matter how much these threads and "Apple" + "Gaming" topics turn into Apple hate wants to make us believe. For my game, I am the one to blame here, because I want to focus on the largest pool of users. Apple CANNOT overtake Windows. It just won't happen. No matter WHAT Apple does, Windows will always.....ALWAYS be the higher marketshare OS. Therefore, it will always get more priority.

 

[kiranmk2]

You’re right, but about the lowest tier consoles currently being sold.
And I doesn’t matter about the pixels. Those consoles have a much larger power supply. Because they have to push a signal to a much larger screen on a television. I think you’re completely missing that. The iPhones implementation is much like that of the Nintendo switch. With in order to push the resolutions you’re describing to a MUCH larger screen requiring way more power.
In order for the iphone 15 or Pro to push higher resolutions even with FRS or any type of scaling it will need a MUCH BEEFIER power supply. Not the power sipping A17. The newest iPhones will not be able to render or upscale to true 4k for at least two generations. People have already made hands on videos with the newest iPhones confirming what I’m saying.

The pixel count on the phone being close to a 42” or 70” TV has zero to do with how this phone will translate to displaying games on a television. Zero. Thats now how any of this works.
And most current gen console games render base at 2048x1080, and push to 4k. Only the most demanding games render in 1440p and push to 4k.
The PS5 have less than 20% of its library not rendered in true 4k.

The Xbox series S is last gen specs with a few current upscaling systems. It’s not true Next Gen. And developers despise working with that console because of its last Gen limitations.

the a17 gaming look like a PS4 or Xbox one with FSR and ray tracing. Locked at 30FPS. On the phones screen it’s going to look amazing. But don’t expect it to translate well to a big display.

Sorry, I'm having a hard time following that. Let me try and address your points one at a time and let's see where we end up.

1. It doesn't matter how big the screen is. Pushing 3.7 million pixels to a 77" screen takes the same amount of compute power as pushing 3.7 million pixels to a 6.7" screen. The only difference is that the screen takes more power to run shich is, of course, handled via the electrical power supply of the display (and nothing to do with the device outputting to it).
2. Current gen consoles (Xbox Series S/X and PS5) render very, very few games at their full resolution (1440p for Series S and 4k for Series X/PS5). There are two primary techniques that I am aware of. The first is to render at a lower resolution (e.g. 1080p) and then use an AI upscaling alorithm to generate additional pixels to achieve a 1440p (Series S) or 4k (Series X/PS5) output. As both MS/Sony consoles are based on AMD SoCs they utilise the AMD AI upscaling solution FSR 2. This tends to work fairly well, but has drawbacks in that motion can create artifacts and the parts of the image can be prone to shimmering. The second method is dynamic resolution which changes the rendering resolution on the fly to maintain a frame-rate. Thus you get games that render at 4k in screnes with low complexity and then drop to a lower rendering resolution when there is more going on. Finally, the there is checkerboard rendering which was first used in the PS4 Pro.
3. Xbox Series S is absolutely current generation - it's CPU is the same Zen 2 architecture as the Series X/PS5 and the GPU is the same RDNA 2 architecture as the X/PS5. All three consoles support the same features (FSR2, raytracing etc) with the Series S having a lower CPU frequency, less memory, less memory bandwidth, lower GPU frequency and less GPU cores. You can see the details here. The Series S hardware is absolutely capable of ray tracing and all the tricks its big brother can do, it just doesn't have the bandwidth and cores to do them at the same resolutions and frame rates. Think of it in the same way as Apple Silicon. A17, M3 and M3 Max are all likely based on the same archiecture - they will mostly differ by the number of CPU/GPU cores and memory bandwidth. So (as a completely hypothetical example) the following may be achievable (of course, until we get the devices benchmarked we won't know the details for sure)

A17 - internal render: 720p, MetalFX upscaled resolution: 1440p@60fps without ray tracing, 1440@30fps with ray tracing
M3 - internal render: 1080p, MetalFX upscaled resolution: 1440@60fps with ray tracing or 4k@60 fps without ray tracing
M3 Max - internal render: 1440p, Metal upscaled resolution: 4k@60fps with ray tracing or 5k@60 fps without ray tracing

If you want to know more about the upscaling technologies, have a look at the Digial Foundry content. They did a really good deep dive into Apple MetalFX upscaling using Resident Evil Village.

Of course, this all relies on developers building the games for Apple Silicon...

 

[star-affinity]

People just don't understand this core point. As a game developer myself, I am targeting windows primarily. Why? Because the amount of people that have Windows systems is so much greater than Mac. Windows gives me more potential customers and will give me the most potential money from my sales.

Will I port my game over to Mac? It is on my list, but not in the top 5 of things to focus on so who knows if I ever get to it or not. Only Mac marketshare significant growth can get me to raise that up in priority. With the current Mac numbers, as much as I despise Windows, I will develop my game for Windows.

And it's not Apple's fault here, no matter how much these threads and "Apple" + "Gaming" topics turn into Apple hate wants to make us believe. For my game, I am the one to blame here, because I want to focus on the largest pool of users. Apple CANNOT overtake Windows. It just won't happen. No matter WHAT Apple does, Windows will always.....ALWAYS be the higher marketshare OS. Therefore, it will always get more priority.

I guess the point here is that your game can also run on iPhone, iPad and Apple TV so if you count them on top of the amount of Mac users maybe the user base become more relevant?

But it depends on the game I guess – if it's suitable to run on all those platforms.