Does the Mac Mini M4 kill the idea of a gaming-focussed Apple TV for now?

[kiranmk2]

Plenty of speculation (and wishful thinking) over the last few years that Apple would launch a gaming-focussed version of the Apple TV with an M-based chip. Looking at all the reviews and benchmarking of the M4 Macs it looks like the base M4 chip is the first Apple Silicon base chip capable of playing all the AAA games released so far at 1080p with a steady 30 fps. Yes, an M1 plays the RE4 remake, but it can chug at various points, dopping frames and dipping into the 20s in frame rate which isn't great. The default 16 GB of M4 also helps to avoid running out of RAM which is an instant frame rate killer. At the moment if you want either higher than 1080p, high/ultra settings or higher frame rates, it is looking like the M4 Pro is the chipset of choice.

The M4 Mac Mini represents something that could resemble a "gaming Apple TV" but it costs £599/$599 - a great deal for a MacOS machine, but not such a great deal for a gaming device. This has 256 GB storage (Death Stranding takes 70 GB and infamously required upto 150 GB free space to install on Apple devices) and, of course, no controller. This suggests that any M4-based gaming Apple TV with a still-poor 512 GB SSD and a controller would likely cost on the order of £699/$699 which could get you a PS5 Pro which will play games at higher resolutions and higher frame rates with a much larger selection of games.

Does this mean that the idea of a gaming Apple TV is dead for at least a few years until either the M4 drops down to become the budget model (2026?) or a future M chip offers M4 Pro-level GPU performance so that £699/$699 price gets you PS5 Pro-level performance (2027?)?

 

[G5isAlive]

I think it means the idea of Apple ever making a gaming console has always been more wishful thinking than reality.

But ... Apple might be closer to making a computer that does a lot of things, and plays games.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

The gap between this fantasy of loaded AppleTV (hardware)- AKA AppleTV PRO or AppleTV MAX- is significantly cut with the new Mac Mini (and even Mac Studio) IF Apple was actually interested/serious about gaming. Roll out Front Row 2 app to put the AppleTV interface on Macs again and there it is (at the pricing that the hypothetical AppleTV Deluxe PRO Super would probably cost if Apple made one).

Personally, I doubt Apple is actually interested in spite of a bit of recurring lip service and a chunk of fans wanting Apple to go for it. The "rest" is what's missing- that's is, Apple putting up an AppleTV+ like budget and dedicated talent to actually demonstrate they are serious about gaming. Then, it could happen. Else, the developers will keep pursuing much greener pastures.

BUT, Mac Mini (& Studio) could easily be the hardware side of the dream. Add a USB Infrared reader like Flirc USB to make traditional remotes work with them. Publish the AppleTV UI software interface as Front Row 2 and one could probably soon have a M4/5 ULTRA "AppleTV" if they wanted the Silicon maximum for games.

OR, all such dreamers can put a Mac Mini-like budget towards an equivalent gaming PC (just one of many examples) or a console and have access to the great depth of AAA games available in that world as soon as tonight/tomorrow. And this is the option that would certainly work... and work now... with no hoping "...and they will come" required.

 

[kiranmk2]

The gap between this fantasy of loaded AppleTV (hardware)- AKA AppleTV PRO or AppleTV MAX- is significantly cut with the new Mac Mini (and even Mac Studio) IF Apple was actually interested/serious about gaming. Roll out Front Row 2 app to put the AppleTV interface on Macs again and there it is (at the pricing that the hypothetical AppleTV Deluxe PRO Super would probably cost if Apple made one).

Personally, I doubt Apple is actually interested in spite of a bit of recurring lip service and a chunk of fans wanting Apple to go for it. The "rest" is what's missing- that's is, Apple putting up an AppleTV+ like budget and dedicated talent to actually demonstrate they are serious about gaming. Then, it could happen. Else, the developers will keep pursuing much greener pastures.

BUT, Mac Mini (& Studio) could easily be the hardware side of the dream. Add a USB Infrared reader like Flirc USB to make traditional remotes work with them. Publish the AppleTV UI software interface as Front Row 2 and one could probably soon have a M4/5 ULTRA "AppleTV" if they wanted the Silicon maximum for games.

OR, all such dreamers can put a Mac Mini-like budget towards an equivalent gaming PC (just one of many examples) or a console and have access to the great depth of AAA games available in that world as soon as tonight/tomorrow. And this is the option that would certainly work... and work now... with no hoping "...and they will come" required.

I agree with a lot of this. I think there is so much Apple could add to its products by offering dual modes - an iPad could run iPadOS and MacOS (perhaps with mandated keyboard / mouse / trackpad input), a Mac could run MacOS and TVOS offering a Front Row type interface. If a gaming Apple TV launched at $500-600 (and as I outlined above, I think $600 is the minimum price for an M4 and 256 GB storage) I cannot see it selling as people would just buy either an M4 Mini or a dedicated console.

As ever, Apple needs to invest substantially in studios if it wants to succeed, especially with the current cost of developing AAA games. I suspect Apple has thrown some money at certain developers to get some big games ported (Resident Evil series, Death Stranding, CyberPunk 2077 etc). Perhaps other developers are interested, but there needs to be a large market to justify the costs of porting. Perhaps considering all the devices with A17Pro/M1 or later is starting to get interesting, but given a lot of these ported games seem to need an M4 to hit decent consistant quality / performance that reshrinks the target market back down again.

Until Apple devices become a constant platform for games to be released on, in the way the PC now routinely gets what would have been PlayStation and XBox-exclusive games, noone will buy an Apple device for "serious" gaming.

I think the ongoing commercial failure of AppleTV+ has likely soured Apple from investing in content creation. I also noticed that when Game Porting Toolkit was launched last year, it was floated as a way for developers to quickly get their games running on MacOS and help with the porting process. By the time Game Porting Toolkit 2 launched, it was described as not only a way to help developers evaluate and port their games to MacOS, but also for users to play Windows games. This seems like a very un-Apple thing to publically say as it is quite a messy process to set up and letting users play Windows games on MacOS through GPT2 deprives Apple of any App Store comission they would get if games were ported. To me, this subtley signalled that GPT has largely failed in it's original aim to get more studios to port their games to MacOS (Arm/Metal).