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

[maflynn]

I think he's saying that Valve managed to get almost everything playable on SteamOS, so you'd think Apple could do something similar given their resources.

Of course translating from Windows to Linux and DirectX to Vulkan on identical hardawre isn't the exact same thing as Windows to macOS, DirectX to Metal and a completely different GPU, and x86 to ARM...

Oh I see, that makes sense.

With that said, we on the mac platform already have that - Crossover (Wine).but you do have a point there's probably less emulation overhead and complexity when dealing with similar hardware, unlike apple silicon. So there's more of an uplift in performance playing on linux vs. macos.

Using Crossover however does not move the needle of mac gamers one iota. If you're using crossover you're buying the game on the windows platform. The publisher is getting the sale, why bother producing a native macos version when they're already selling the game to mac gamers?

Edit: No knock on Crossover, I use it and its been great. It basically allowed me to retire my PC and be on my Studio 100% of the time

 

[teh_hunterer]

With that said, we on the mac platform already have that - Crossover (Wine)

I wouldn't say that they are really equivalent. On SteamOS you just install and play the game and for the most part it works. Crossover is nowhere near the same experience.

 

[maflynn]

I wouldn't say that they are really equivalent. On SteamOS you just install and play the game and for the most part it works. Crossover is nowhere near the same experience.

My experience in using Crossover is the same. Install a game via steam and hitting play.

First off both Proton and crossover use Wine, so the emulation foundation is generally the same. As you mentioned the hardware is wildly different and so there is added complexity in Crossover but CodeWeavers have improved the product immensely and most games that I'm interested in are compatible and play well.

So for the games I've played, I can just install and play no fuss no muss, but some will require a minor tweak. For instance, Surviving Mars:Relaunched needed D3DMetal, not DVXK. I can either setup a specific bottle for that, but I don't. I just change the setting and relaunch - easy-peasy lemon squeezey

 

[teh_hunterer]

My experience in using Crossover is the same. Install a game via steam and hitting play.

If it was truly the same for the majority, nobody would care about the state of Mac gaming because you could just buy a Mac and play any game you like exactly like you can a Steam Deck. That is so far away from being the actual experience of Mac gaming.

First off both Proton and crossover use Wine, so the emulation foundation is generally the same.

What does Wine stand for again? 😅

As you mentioned the hardware is wildly different and so there is added complexity in Crossover but CodeWeavers have improved the product immensely and most games that I'm interested in are compatible and play well.

So for the games I've played, I can just install and play no fuss no muss, but some will require a minor tweak. For instance, Surviving Mars:Relaunched needed D3DMetal, not DVXK. I can either setup a specific bottle for that, but I don't. I just change the setting and relaunch - easy-peasy lemon squeezey

If you truly believe it's the same, why then do you think people are so happy with their Steam Decks where there is such a rich catalogue of games to play, yet lament how few games there are on Mac and how screwy it can be trying to get non-native games running through translation layers?

The general experience of Crossover for most is definitely not you just install and play and it works. It's endless tweaking, chasing up obscure forums and discords, trying to find out how to get the damn thing running. And if you do amange, it gets broken in an update later. Lucky you that the games you want work for the most part, but you really can't compare it to SteamOS.

You couldn't in good conscience sell a Mac + Crossover experience to the general gamer, yet people are very happy with SteamOS.

 

[lapstags]

They need to update the airplay to work with 4k 60 fps as well at the least. Really 4k 120

 

[lapstags]

This really says it all. There are heaps of games on the Switch and they all just work without a whole bunch of weirdness.

The iPad really should be Apple's Switch and Steam Deck competitor, because it is by far the nicer and more powerful device from a hardware standpoint. I like gaming on my MacBook but it just isn't the same as something smaller. Switch and Steam Deck are great because you can steal some gaming time in the in between moments, in small space. You can't really do that on a Mac.

I have a newborn at the moment and the opportunity cost of going and getting my Mac to game means I pretty much won't get to play anything. If the iPad actually had a comparable selection of real, actually good games like Switch and SD did, it would be amazing.

Need to update to metal 4. That should boost the performance of all games by like 40% in some cases maybe more.

 

[Happy_John]

I think he's saying that Valve managed to get almost everything playable on SteamOS, so you'd think Apple could do something similar given their resources.

Of course translating from Windows to Linux and DirectX to Vulkan on identical hardawre isn't the exact same thing as Windows to macOS, DirectX to Metal and a completely different GPU, and x86 to ARM...

Interesting though, Valve are very much bigging up their involvement with FEX, as a translation layer from x86 to ARM - their new headset runs on ARM, and will be both a (wirelessly) tethered headset but also a stand-alone gaming device.

 

[thejadedmonkey]

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.

I'm a casual gamer (as in I play non-casual AAA games, but casually). I own an m4 mac. I won't ever spend a penny on macOS exclusive gaming. I have a PC that I keep around specifically for computer gaming. Apple is actively hostile towards gaming, and while I've seen a softening of this in the past few years, I still have decades worth of game purchases that run just fine on a PC, and not at all on a mac. Maybe, depending on how they address gaming on macOS after they kill rosetta 2 and transition to whatever comes after the M-series CPUs, I'll reconsider. But not before.

Edit: AFAIK, the only game I own that's Apple Silicon native is World of Warcraft. Everything else I own is compiled for x86-64 or PPC, or some variant that runs on Windows 64 bit.

 

[maflynn]

The general experience of Crossover for most is definitely not you just install and play and it works.

My experience has been positive

You couldn't in good conscience sell a Mac + Crossover experience to the general gamer, yet people are very happy with SteamOS.

I don't have a steam deck, and I don't follow the steam deck discussions that closely.

 

[diamond.g]

This thread is exactly what I thought it would be.

The exercise does come across as beating a dead horse.

 

[Ctrlos]

Good topic! I’ll start by saying that people answering ‘If Apple theoretically made X what would it be like?’ with ‘They’ll never make X’ might want to re-read the OP 😅😅

If Apple were to compete with the SteamCube they would want to create another agnostic box that was also backwardly compatible with existing software. It would have to be based around the Mac Mini architecture with a fork of MacOS running in the background, customised for TV displays and locked down to tweaking.

Your M4 ‘Apple TV Pro’ could be pre-configured to run Mac games in televisual configs. Running iOS games would massively expand its library but would require some tweaking by developers for that screen format. I’d expect it to remain controller agnostic so players can use an Xbox or PS controller with it.

They could offer two price points: A 12/256 model for $300 and a 16/512 model for $400. In looks it would be a plastic black Mac Mini with one USBC at the front, one at the back (for peripherals) HDMI and Ethernet on the $400 model.

The device would be locked down like iOS devices with games available from the App Store and perhaps select 3rd parties (eg Steam)

In terms of performance, the lack of a complex OS in the background should open things up a little. You can play Cyberpunk on medium settings on the base Mac Mini at around 40fps consistently with Ray Tracing turned off. That little box is $600 but is also preoccupied running a desktop operating system in the background which uses 3-5gb. You strip out all the parts you don’t need and you gain some overheads.

 

[HouseLannister]

Apple doesn't care about developers, so why would they get serious about game developers?

However, if Apple were to get serious, they would buy gaming hardware companies and development studios and run them into the ground just like other companies that are serious about gaming.

 

[maflynn]

they would buy gaming hardware companies

Like who?

 

[WilliApple]

What game publisher/developer will increase their overhead, complexity for 2% of gamers playing on the mac?

Here's the issue as I see it, if a publisher produces a game on windows, that means that its available on linux/steam deck, and mac users can play it via crossover and/or Geforce Now. What motivation is there for studios, to add a platform that will not increase their sales.

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Macs are not known for gaming, and given their marketshare, I don't see that changing

I dont use Steam because its very buggy and glitchy on macOS. This is not accurate tbh.

 

[diamond.g]

Like who?

ASUS or Razer....

Obviously...

 

[Unregistered 4U]

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.

The OP believes that “Apple being serious about games” = “their version of a Steam Machine”. Apple’s version of a Steam Machine, as you highlight, exists today and does not represent any more seriousness about games. And, even if Apple spent the effort to make it run Windows apps, like Proton is a way for Linux to run Windows apps, then it does nothing for macOS gaming other than “providing a system with an Apple logo on it to run Windows apps”. A gaming machine that offers nothing of benefit other than an Apple logo is not a system that would sell well, especially considering there are ACTUAL Windows systems that would sell for significantly less.

The internals of an Apple console are easy, the internals of an Apple system that would have a reason for existing trends towards nothingness.

 

[HouseLannister]

Like who?

Any company they would like to write off in a couple years.

Might as well also get serious about TV and buy Warner Bros Discovery while we are at it. I think Apple is the only company who hasn't taken a turn at owning WB yet, right?

 

[Unregistered 4U]

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.

Mac gaming is such a “zero value” to Apple, they will help developers develop release and support Mac games that are Steam only. Mac gaming means more to Steam than to Apple, now that I think about it.

 

[Unregistered 4U]

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.

Many are, some aren’t. And, there are posts out there about Steam’s practices that folks don’t care about because they’re getting their games cheap.

 

[Unregistered 4U]

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.

Yup, companies like Capcom aren’t continuing to release games for the Mac out of the goodness of their hearts. They see $$ in it and are continuing to go after the money. Companies that don’t release games for the Mac don’t want the money OR don’t feel their content would sell well enough to offset the development and support effort.

 

[Unregistered 4U]

valve only has about 350 employees, I'm sure apple could match that if they were serious about gaming, instead they 're working on emojis.

Funnily enough, some 12 year old having fun playing with new emoji’s is going to do more to drive sales of future Apple products than GTA6 running on it. Mainly because there will ALWAYS be cheaper ways to play GTA6.

 

[lapstags]

Apple needs to get games running optimized using metal 4 which will give. Major upgrades to the command pipelines. And when you add metalfx new machine learning features you could get huge gains.They need to also do like I said and make screen casting my high performant

 

[lapstags]

Yup, companies like Capcom aren’t continuing to release games for the Mac out of the goodness of their hearts. They see $$ in it and are continuing to go after the money. Companies that don’t release games for the Mac don’t want the money OR don’t feel their content would sell well enough to offset the development and support effort.

The iPad is key. Now that iPads are high powered we will see more AAA games on there and that will help
Mac gaming. Control, assassins creed shadow, and cyberpunk are all coming to iPad next year. The m5 iPad should be able to perform as well as sometime like the Xbox one x if Apple optimized the games. The m4 is like a Xbox series s

 

[MallardDuck]

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?

They'd support NVidia GPUs.

 

[diamond.g]

The iPad is key. Now that iPads are high powered we will see more AAA games on there and that will help
Mac gaming. Control, assassins creed shadow, and cyberpunk are all coming to iPad next year. The m5 iPad should be able to perform as well as sometime like the Xbox one x if Apple optimized the games. The m4 is like a Xbox series s

From my understanding Apple doesn't embed engineers at dev houses like Sony and MS do for support. If they were Baldurs Gate 3 probably still wouldn't be running Metal 2.3.