If Apple was actually serious about gaming and wanted to create it's own version of a Steam Machine how should they do it?

[teh_hunterer]

Creating a separate gaming device wouldn't really do anything and isn't something they would ever do. Macs and iPads are already fantastic gaming devices from a hardware standpoint.

They're the devices you already have because they're already the devices you wanted, they fit into your life already, you're already in the ecosystem, they're sleek and powerful and quiet and you already have the accessories for them. All you need is the game compatibility.

The only gaming thing I could potentially see being worth them making, or at least partnering in, is a controller that could automatically switch between your devices based on which one you're playing on at the time, just like AirPods do.

Being able to take out my MacBook or iPad and just chuck my AirPods in pick up the controller with no messing around with syncing and start playing immediately would be incredible.

 

[Moka Akashiya]

It isn't Apple that isn't serious about gaming. Development studios, that have to budget time, money and other resources into adding a platform target for their game, aren't serious about the Mac as a platform.

M-series chips could play games just fine. The users of M-series chips are not gamers. Not enough of them to warrant supporting the Mac as a platform.

It is because of Apple mostly. They deprecated and killed all old games on their platform. They don't support popular/open graphics APIs like Vulkan. They don't think that old games are art that should be preserved. They don't want to make an emulator for old 32-bit macOS games and Windows games, like Valve. Apple pretends that they have gaming on Macs with subsidized new releases and some indie releases, but it's not a solution to an attitude problem. How many games can you play on macOS in percentage compared to SteamOS or Windows?

There is no point in investing much time to build games on macOS. At this point, this platform will probably not grow its gamer user percentage.

 

[turbineseaplane]

They don't want to make an emulator for old 32-bit macOS games and Windows games, like Valve.

This is basically the difference.
Valve is willing to put in the work and commitment.

Apple just wants money, without any of that part.

As John said on ATP -- Valve is running Windows PC games on Linux, all through their own work to make it happen

Apple could do that also.
That's the only realistic path to "AAA gaming on Macs" becoming a real thing.

 

[lapstags]

It is because of Apple mostly. They deprecated and killed all old games on their platform. They don't support popular/open graphics APIs like Vulkan. They don't think that old games are art that should be preserved. They don't want to make an emulator for old 32-bit macOS games and Windows games, like Valve. Apple pretends that they have gaming on Macs with subsidized new releases and some indie releases, but it's not a solution to an attitude problem. How many games can you play on macOS in percentage compared to SteamOS or Windows?

There is no point in investing much time to build games on macOS. At this point, this platform will probably not grow its gamer user percentage.

metal 4 is more similar to Vulkan from wha tI understand so it looks like they are moving into the correct direction from a tooling standpoint. I you are hinting at it seems like Tim Cook and the execs at the very top are not bought in the same way they are for films and Apple studios. I do think that has changed as a result of external pressure from Chinese tablet makers and streaming gpu such as GeForce Now.

 

[teh_hunterer]

They built APIs and software and the hardware is good but no one came because value and customisability are two important things. Apple does not represent value and you can't customise anything. This is what I crudely alluded to earlier.

The hardware is expensive, you can't customise it and you can't upgrade it.

Why would customisation and upgrading be important to gamers? I've been a gamer my whole life, in my thirties now, and that's never been important to me.

Game availability and game performance and general gaming experience are what is important.

If you already own both a Mac and a separate gaming device, the Mac becomes extremely good value if it can replace that separate gaming device you had to buy. It's just game availability we're missing now.

 

[cjsuk]

Lots of folks want more for what they think will be less cost, like "1TB should be base storage now." But that IMO is wrong-headed thinking. If Apple can sell product for a significant number of dollars less by not having "1TB should be base storage" and there are many potential buyers who suffice fine with 512 GB storage, then Apple should make 512 base storage.

I disagree. The chips in volume pricing are around $11 for 256G, $19 for 512G and $34 for 1TB.

What we’re getting is shafted.

 

[turbineseaplane]

I disagree. The chips in volume pricing are around $11 for 256G, $19 for 512G and $34 for 1TB.

What we’re getting is shafted.

I wish they'd just make it slotted across the board (as it used to be and currently is on the Mac Mini) so those of us who prefer to not get shafted have some options.

 

[cjsuk]

I wish they'd just make it slotted across the board (as it used to be and currently is on the Mac Mini) so those of us who prefer to not get shafted have some options.

Agreed. There’s technically no reason it can’t be a standard M.2 NVMe still. They can just shovel some more PCIe lanes out of the CPU for it. The encryption stuff can run at the block level instead of wire level like it used to. There’s no security penalty for doing this.

 

[turbineseaplane]

Agreed. There’s technically no reason it can’t be a standard M.2 NVMe still. They can just shovel some more PCIe lanes out of the CPU for it. The encryption stuff can run at the block level instead of wire level like it used to. There’s no security penalty for doing this.

Apple have their rea$on$
😂

 

[Populus]

I agree with some of the comments saying Apple already has the iOS devices for casual gaming and computers such as the M4 Mac mini for a few AAA titles.

However, I think OP wants us to make a theoretical exercise of imagining the internals of an Apple console.

First, the software running on this Apple Gaming machine would be oriented towards gaming. It wouldn’t run macOS but rather a simplified and optimized version of iOS… maybe tvOS? I don’t know.

As for the hardware, I don’t think it should have more than a base M_ chip, if we consider how powerful the M4 and M5 chips are. And with proper optimization, I think an M5 SoC with 16GB of RAM would be enough to make it powerful, efficient, and at a reasonable price. Maybe, to make it even cheaper, they could use binned M5 chips… and as for storage, I think 512GB should be the minimum, as many games today have big ISOs.

All in all, what I end up with, is the upcoming M5 Mac mini.

 

[artifex]

metal 4 is more similar to Vulkan from wha tI understand so it looks like they are moving into the correct direction from a tooling standpoint. I you are hinting at it seems like Tim Cook and the execs at the very top are not bought in the same way they are for films and Apple studios. I do think that has changed as a result of external pressure from Chinese tablet makers and streaming gpu such as GeForce Now.

Vulkan is cross-platform, and Metal isn't. Modern PCs and game consoles and now even the new Steam machine (which is based on ARM, not x64) all have support for Vulkan. Developers can either spend their time writing code for an API that's used across multiple platforms, or they can spend that time writing for the API used by only one hardware vendor.

 

[Moka Akashiya]

This is basically the difference.
Valve is willing to put in the work and commitment.

Apple just wants money, without any of that part.

As John said on ATP -- Valve is running Windows PC games on Linux, all through their own work to make it happen

Apple could do that also.
That's the only realistic path to "AAA gaming on Macs" becoming a real thing.

Yeah, realistically speaking, Apple should just accept that they cannot push their platform if they want to make Mac gaming broad. They need to think about games kind of like video formats - there are non-Apple video formats that people use, but macOS still supports them to allow people watch most videos without problems. It's much harder than just sponsoring AAA ports, but there's already Proton/Wine foundation with ARM support. Even recent androids can run GTAV downloaded from Steam servers through separate connection apps and play it.

"Linux gaming" cannot survive just because of Vulkan support, in fact, the Vulkan support percentage is also shrinking i think. Linux gaming exists because they accept emulation, and in some cases, this emulation works even better than native games on Windows.

 

[teh_hunterer]

However, I think OP wants us to make a theoretical exercise of imagining the internals of an Apple console.

For sure - what would be far more interesting to me would be for the iPad to finally be compatible with a store like Steam.

Which of course means that the iPad would have to be able to run Mac applications wholesale.

It just feels ridiculous to have this M5 powered iPad Pro that SHOULD be a complete Steam Deck destroyer beast, tied to a pathetic selection of native iPad store games.

If they did this, being able to play the same games on Mac or iPad, depending on what I had with me at the time, would be incredible.

 

[zehoo]

It would require changes in various positions of management for traditional gaming (not casual phone gaming) to start being taken seriously at Apple again.

 

[modlife]

I understand that, but your missing the fact that studios are not producing AAA games for the Mac, and if apple pushes for an apple-tv like gaming console it will not mean that we'll see those same games on macos. There's already tons of games on ios that are not on macos. With all due respect, you're assumption is flawed in that regards

I am not assuming anything. Those can run on macOS with a flip of a switch, app developers have to actually opt-out of that.

Manage availability of iPhone and iPad apps on Macs with Apple silicon - Manage your app's availability - App Store Connect - Help - Apple Developer

developer.apple.com

The point is that the possibility is there, Apple just needs to do the convincing part.

 

[timber]

Just for LOLZ, I’d suggest Apple buys Valve. Problem solved.

But Valve would be incredibly stupid to sell to anyone. They’re the one company in the industry that has done almost everything right (bar some delay along the way, but delta are better than absolute mistakes).

Valve is controlled and mostly owned (>50%) by Gabe Newell.
It really is an one man show and I doubt (and hope) he would let go his pet project.

 

[sublunar]

I agree with some of the comments saying Apple already has the iOS devices for casual gaming and computers such as the M4 Mac mini for a few AAA titles.

However, I think OP wants us to make a theoretical exercise of imagining the internals of an Apple console.

First, the software running on this Apple Gaming machine would be oriented towards gaming. It wouldn’t run macOS but rather a simplified and optimized version of iOS… maybe tvOS? I don’t know.

As for the hardware, I don’t think it should have more than a base M_ chip, if we consider how powerful the M4 and M5 chips are. And with proper optimization, I think an M5 SoC with 16GB of RAM would be enough to make it powerful, efficient, and at a reasonable price. Maybe, to make it even cheaper, they could use binned M5 chips… and as for storage, I think 512GB should be the minimum, as many games today have big ISOs.

All in all, what I end up with, is the upcoming M5 Mac mini.

In effect that’s what I would say, like the much missed Front Row media centre.

Just let a Mac boot into tvOS mode for games and developers can target those devices while coding for phones, iPads and Apple TV.

The Mac mini is probably the right target if people wanted a standalone spec for a ‘pro’ gaming experience.

At this stage the M5 and equivalent A19pro cpu has better single core performance than ps5 and Xbox series X but lags behind in raw graphics power and architecture overheads.

Gimmicks like ray tracing and frame up scaling may help but the best thing that Apple could do is give developers a road map and a promise that they won’t abruptly abandon or discontinue a technology or a device. They don’t have a great track record of that.

That being said if they do ever introduce an A series Mac I think it’s more likely that they’d go with that for a ‘pro’ series gaming device. Just give it the ram and storage of something a couple generations down the line 16/512 plus a decent cooling solution (to allow overclocking) and they’d have something technically comparable to Nintendo Switch 2.

 

[Abazigal]

I also don't think there is any reason for Apple to invest so heavily in gaming.

Value is doing so because they have their own Steam games store which they can use to sell more games customers and take 30%. But at the end of the day, they don't really care what you run your steam games on so long as you continue to buy your games via their platform.

Second, the problem with apple silicon is that it's optimised for power efficiency, not raw performance, which is the opposite of what you want for a gaming PC. There is no reason to make a gaming version of the Mac Studio and market it as a console when it could easily double as a powerful desktop machine.

An Apple TV with a pro chip inside (think A17 pro or better) could work, but again, the problem is that aside from Apple Arcade, nobody is releasing games for the apple tv platform, because the users aren't there. You are better off just connecting your phone to your TV via an adaptor and playing the game directly with a game controller. I did that for games like Grimvalor during the pandemic and it worked marvellously.

What it boils down to is that the ROI just isn't there.

 

[Abazigal]

Valve is controlled and mostly owned (>50%) by Gabe Newell.
It really is an one man show and I doubt (and hope) he would let go his pet project.

It's interesting that for all the flak Apple gets over their iOS App Store policies, people are happy to have Steam command such a dominant share of the gaming market, and have them charge developers 30% of game revenue, and basically refuse to purchase their games anywhere else.

 

[throAU]

I know Apple would never do this but let's just do a theoretical exercise. The Steam machine is said to be stronger than the steam deck which puts it around 9 tflops. If Apple actually wanted to create an Appletv Pro or gaming console hybrid would they need to stick a M2 Max or M3 pro or something similar into this machine? How would the pricing be?

M5 pro Mac mini.

Done.

 

[sublunar]

I also don't think there is any reason for Apple to invest so heavily in gaming.

Value is doing so because they have their own Steam games store which they can use to sell more games customers and take 30%. But at the end of the day, they don't really care what you run your steam games on so long as you continue to buy your games via their platform.

Second, the problem with apple silicon is that it's optimised for power efficiency, not raw performance, which is the opposite of what you want for a gaming PC. There is no reason to make a gaming version of the Mac Studio and market it as a console when it could easily double as a powerful desktop machine.

An Apple TV with a pro chip inside (think A17 pro or better) could work, but again, the problem is that aside from Apple Arcade, nobody is releasing games for the apple tv platform, because the users aren't there. You are better off just connecting your phone to your TV via an adaptor and playing the game directly with a game controller. I did that for games like Grimvalor during the pandemic and it worked marvellously.

What it boils down to is that the ROI just isn't there.

As I said, developers worried that Apple could cancel the Apple TV - they won’t do that to iPhones and they get updates annually so perhaps that’s the platform and processor to aim at.

Nobody is going to spend $$$ on a high spec Mac and then use it for games.

If they wanted to make games for Apple TV they’d be better off giving it the best cpu possible between updates as that doesn’t get annual updates. The rumoured A17 pro refresh surely is only to allow local processing of Apple Intelligence rather than a pointed effort to improve gaming.

Maybe developers would pay attention if Apple instead put A19 pro into the next Apple TV instead but at the moment that device has no cooling fan as of the 3rd gen 4k. It’s present in the 2nd gen.

Basically we would need that fan back in if gaming was to be a serious thing.

 

[sublunar]

M5 pro Mac mini.

Done.

I’d be more interested in a cut price entry level A19 pro powered Mac mini if they are doing a MacBook based on it.

 

[timber]

It's interesting that for all the flak Apple gets over their iOS App Store policies, people are happy to have Steam command such a dominant share of the gaming market, and have them charge developers 30% of game revenue, and basically refuse to purchase their games anywhere else.

Well just shows how working in an environment where anybody can set shop and work however they want doesn't hinder you in any way if you are good at your job.

 

[maflynn]

I’d be more interested in a cut price entry level A19 pro powered Mac mini

How much cheaper can apple go? The M4 Mini retails for 600 at apple.com, but frequently discounted to below 500 by others (apple too?).

 

[maflynn]

The point is that the possibility is there, Apple just needs to do the convincing part.

Its not about convincing, its about money, pure and simple.

Don't assume that studios haven't done their due diligence and, or are purposely leaving money on the table just because of some outdated and archaic feelings of mac vs. pc.

Just look at Microsoft and them moving their exclusives over to the playstation, or vice versa, Sony bringing their exclusives to the PC. They see dollar signs and they want to maximize their profits.