In 3 years, 50% of all computers capable of playing AAA games will be Macs

[maflynn]

Here's the link in case anyone was curious
Steam Hardware Survey

What I don't understand is the mac ownership chart looks like its going down but OSX numbers are going up. I don't know why this specific chart isn't clickable like the others

 

[Nugat Trailers]

Here's the link in case anyone was curious
Steam Hardware Survey

View attachment 2534050

What I don't understand is the mac ownership chart looks like its going down but OSX numbers are going up. I don't know why this specific chart isn't clickable like the others
View attachment 2534051

That's because the chart's bugged.

It's supposed to count the total amount of Mac models, which, before the Mac Studio, had things like MacMini6,1, MacBookAir10,1, etc.

With the Mac Studio it changed to Mac13,7 and Mac15,4, which aren't added up properly.

It's been broken for about... 3 years, I believe.

 

[Homy]

That's because the chart's bugged.

It's supposed to count the total amount of Mac models, which, before the Mac Studio, had things like MacMini6,1, MacBookAir10,1, etc.

With the Mac Studio it changed to Mac13,7 and Mac15,4, which aren't added up properly.

It's been broken for about... 3 years, I believe.

Yeah, that chart only shows 47,71% of the Macs. The rest can be found among the stats. Lots of models are missing like MBA M2 with 8.88%.This just shows again how unreliable and flawed the Steam survey is.

 

[bigglow]

The idea that Macs could make up half of all AAA-capable computers within 3 years of Apple Silicon sounds ambitious yet the market realities point in another direction. Apple’s dominance in gaming is firmly rooted in mobile where iPhone & iPad together account for >1.5 billion active devices globally. Mobile gaming is driven by frictionless payments through the App Store which take a 30% cut on billions of microtransactions each year & by development costs that are far lower than AAA titles. The average iOS game can be built & maintained for a fraction of the budget required for Windows/Xbox/PlayStation/Nintendo releases yet generate recurring revenue through in-app purchases & subscriptions. This is why mobile gaming brings in an estimated $80–100 billion annually across the industry with Apple taking a large share without having to compete on razor-thin hardware margins.

Mac & Apple TV gaming face structural headwinds that mobile never had to overcome. The install base is much smaller with ~200 million active Macs & <100 million Apple TVs compared to the multi-billion scale of iOS. AAA game prices range from $20-70 which means a far smaller revenue opportunity per user versus free-to-play mobile titles that monetize continuously. Development for AAA Mac games also requires additional optimization for Metal & macOS which lacks the decades-old ecosystem & modding culture of Windows gaming. Historically Mac gaming has been a niche since the early PowerPC days due to smaller market share & weaker GPU performance relative to price. Apple Silicon has closed the performance gap yet the majority of the AAA audience remains on Windows & consoles where upgrade cycles & community support favor long-term engagement.

Even if Apple achieved high GPU performance per watt & invested heavily in developer relations the economics would still lag behind iPhone & iPad gaming. In an optimistic projection Macs & Apple TVs could capture $2–4 billion annually in combined hardware & software sales from gaming. That is still less than 10% of what mobile gaming already delivers for Apple. Resources invested here are resources not invested in higher-margin opportunities like Apple Intelligence & AI integration across devices, AR & VR platforms like Vision Pro, health & wearables where Apple already leads & emerging categories such as automotive systems. Gaming could play a secondary role as a showcase for Apple Silicon GPU advancements yet as a primary growth engine it would be unlikely to rival the scale or profitability of mobile. For Apple the smarter strategy is to treat AAA gaming as an optional benefit of the Mac & Apple TV ecosystem rather than a core business goal.

 

[maflynn]

Emphasis added for discussion

For Apple the smarter strategy is to treat AAA gaming as an optional benefit of the Mac & Apple TV ecosystem rather than a core business goal.

Why are you combining Apple TV games with Mac games, they're two different platforms?

The apple tv uses the a A15 Bionic chip, that's not a desktop or laptop quality chip. That's what you find in phones and non-pro iPads. Its not capable of running games found on steam, never mind AAA.

The Apple TV's processor - A15 bionic has 2 performance cores, 4 efficiency cores, and 5 gpu cores. It operates at 6 watts. Its a processor designed to be in a phone, not running desktop top quality apps or games.

 

[Huntn]

The idea that Macs could make up half of all AAA-capable computers within 3 years of Apple Silicon sounds ambitious yet the market realities point in another direction. Apple’s dominance in gaming is firmly rooted in mobile where iPhone & iPad together account for >1.5 billion active devices globally. Mobile gaming is driven by frictionless payments through the App Store which take a 30% cut on billions of microtransactions each year & by development costs that are far lower than AAA titles. The average iOS game can be built & maintained for a fraction of the budget required for Windows/Xbox/PlayStation/Nintendo releases yet generate recurring revenue through in-app purchases & subscriptions. This is why mobile gaming brings in an estimated $80–100 billion annually across the industry with Apple taking a large share without having to compete on razor-thin hardware margins.

Mac & Apple TV gaming face structural headwinds that mobile never had to overcome. The install base is much smaller with ~200 million active Macs & <100 million Apple TVs compared to the multi-billion scale of iOS. AAA game prices range from $20-70 which means a far smaller revenue opportunity per user versus free-to-play mobile titles that monetize continuously. Development for AAA Mac games also requires additional optimization for Metal & macOS which lacks the decades-old ecosystem & modding culture of Windows gaming. Historically Mac gaming has been a niche since the early PowerPC days due to smaller market share & weaker GPU performance relative to price. Apple Silicon has closed the performance gap yet the majority of the AAA audience remains on Windows & consoles where upgrade cycles & community support favor long-term engagement.

Even if Apple achieved high GPU performance per watt & invested heavily in developer relations the economics would still lag behind iPhone & iPad gaming. In an optimistic projection Macs & Apple TVs could capture $2–4 billion annually in combined hardware & software sales from gaming. That is still less than 10% of what mobile gaming already delivers for Apple. Resources invested here are resources not invested in higher-margin opportunities like Apple Intelligence & AI integration across devices, AR & VR platforms like Vision Pro, health & wearables where Apple already leads & emerging categories such as automotive systems. Gaming could play a secondary role as a showcase for Apple Silicon GPU advancements yet as a primary growth engine it would be unlikely to rival the scale or profitability of mobile. For Apple the smarter strategy is to treat AAA gaming as an optional benefit of the Mac & Apple TV ecosystem rather than a core business goal.

But mobile gaming sucks... 😝😇

 

[maflynn]

But mobile gaming sucks... 😝😇

The ads are what breaks it for me. I just want something mindless to pass the time, but instead I get ads

 

[diamond.g]

The ads are what breaks it for me. I just want something mindless to pass the time, but instead I get ads

Free to play, pay to win (or watch ads....)

 

[maflynn]

Free to play, pay to win (or watch ads....)

I understand the business model, but the ads have gotten so bad, longer, more intrusive, that what was once a mild annoyance has driven me away.

I don't mind paying for a decent game, but finding just some casual game that helps pass time on the toilet or waiting in line is mind boggling. Even some paid games, are set up, so that you cannot progress unless you watch ads or buy something.

 

[bigglow]

Emphasis added for discussion

Why are you combining Apple TV games with Mac games, they're two different platforms?

The apple tv uses the a A15 Bionic chip, that's not a desktop or laptop quality chip. That's what you find in phones and non-pro iPads. Its not capable of running games found on steam, never mind AAA.

The Apple TV's processor - A15 bionic has 2 performance cores, 4 efficiency cores, and 5 gpu cores. It operates at 6 watts. Its a processor designed to be in a phone, not running desktop top quality apps or games.

Apple TV and Mac aren’t identical platforms but they both illustrate the same strategic question: should Apple commit serious resources to making its devices primary AAA gaming machines? Apple TV is based on the iPhone chips rather than a Mac chips. That means the A15 Bionic inside Apple TV 4K operates at roughly 6W with 2 performance cores, 4 efficiency cores and 5 GPU cores. This performance is closer to iPhone 13 or base iPad than to an M2 MBA or M4 iMac. So yes it is nowhere near competitive with PC GPUs on Steam benchmarks.


The reason I grouped Apple TV with Mac is not because they share identical hardware capability but because Apple has historically framed both as “living room + desktop” pillars of the same ecosystem. When Apple showcases Apple Arcade it bundles Mac, iPad, iPhone and Apple TV under 1 subscription. If Apple were to treat AAA gaming as a core business line it would have to explain why some platforms in its own bundle underperform so dramatically in this use case. That undermines the pitch of ecosystem consistency.


Targeting AAA on Mac requires persuading major studios to port games natively to Metal or to optimize for Apple Silicon. That is already a high barrier given the relatively small market share of macOS in the global gaming PC install base. This under 3% according to Steam Hardware Survey as of 2025. For Apple TV the barrier is even higher because developers would need to scale games down to mobile silicon and a user base that is orders of magnitude smaller than iPhone or iPad gaming. Both categories therefore face similar opportunity cost questions. Apple has far higher ROI focusing on mobile and services where the App Store already generates tens of billions in annual revenue and where devices ship in hundreds of millions of units.


So while you’re right about the A15’s limits the bigger picture is that AAA gaming is a distraction relative to where Apple has proven leverage. Mac and Apple TV can both enjoy AAA gaming as a bonus feature. But making it a business goal is unrealistic given history hardware economics and developer incentives.

 

[maflynn]

The reason I grouped Apple TV with Mac is not because they share identical hardware capability

No they are not identical. That's my point. While Apple TV uses Apple Silicon, its processor/GPU is not identical to the M series. The power draw of A series, the core counts, are such that apple TVs are not computationally and graphically capable of running today's AAA games.

 

[dmccloud]

Apple TV and Mac aren’t identical platforms but they both illustrate the same strategic question: should Apple commit serious resources to making its devices primary AAA gaming machines? Apple TV is based on the iPhone chips rather than a Mac chips. That means the A15 Bionic inside Apple TV 4K operates at roughly 6W with 2 performance cores, 4 efficiency cores and 5 GPU cores. This performance is closer to iPhone 13 or base iPad than to an M2 MBA or M4 iMac. So yes it is nowhere near competitive with PC GPUs on Steam benchmarks.

That's not even a serious option for Apple - a "primary" gaming machine would be a PS5, Xbox Series X, Switch, Steam Deck, etc. - devices built specifically for gaming as the primary focus. Could Apple unveil some sort of gaming device in the future? Possibly, but they tried it once before and it went nowhere (Pippin). There are also rumors of an updated Apple TV coming within the next few months, which might render your comparison irrelevant anyways.

The reason I grouped Apple TV with Mac is not because they share identical hardware capability but because Apple has historically framed both as “living room + desktop” pillars of the same ecosystem. When Apple showcases Apple Arcade it bundles Mac, iPad, iPhone and Apple TV under 1 subscription. If Apple were to treat AAA gaming as a core business line it would have to explain why some platforms in its own bundle underperform so dramatically in this use case. That undermines the pitch of ecosystem consistency.

Apple will never make AAA gaming a core business line, so none of this analysis is relevant.

Targeting AAA on Mac requires persuading major studios to port games natively to Metal or to optimize for Apple Silicon. That is already a high barrier given the relatively small market share of macOS in the global gaming PC install base. This under 3% according to Steam Hardware Survey as of 2025. For Apple TV the barrier is even higher because developers would need to scale games down to mobile silicon and a user base that is orders of magnitude smaller than iPhone or iPad gaming. Both categories therefore face similar opportunity cost questions. Apple has far higher ROI focusing on mobile and services where the App Store already generates tens of billions in annual revenue and where devices ship in hundreds of millions of units.

We all know the Steam hardware survey underreports the Mac platform because they never updated their own systems to account for newer Mac devices, so their hardware surveys should always have giant asterisks next to them. There is another issue with the Steam hardware survey where certain Linux distros such as Bazzite and CachyOS are miscounted as Windows clients due to how they implement Wine. Your "scale games down" argument for Apple TV also makes no sense because developers have been building games for A-series iPads for years, and developers don't need separate versions for iPad and Apple TV.

 

[bigglow]

@maflynn & @dmccloud I will combine my reply to you both to avoid repeating roughly the same points

You are right that the iPhone and Mac chips are very different in power budget and core design. That is exactly why Apple TV can’t be framed as a AAA machine on its own. But the point is less about the hardware spec sheet and more about Apple’s ecosystem messaging. Apple presents Apple Arcade as a single subscription across Mac, iPad, iPhone and Apple TV. If Apple were to seriously pursue AAA gaming as a business goal it would face the problem that some of its own devices can’t deliver on that promise. That is where the Apple TV comparison matters.

On the Steam Hardware Survey I agree it underreports Macs due to driver identification issues especially with Wine and certain distros. Even if the number is off by a factor of two or three though, macOS would still be below 10% of the global gaming PC market. That is a tough hill to climb when studios already concentrate resources on Windows and consoles where they can reach most of the audience. And unlike Linux which has Proton as a compatibility layer Apple pushes Metal as a full rewrite target. That makes the economics of porting even harder.

As for iPad versus Apple TV: yes developers can technically target both with the same build since they share iPhone chips architectures. The problem is scale of audience and expectations. iPad gaming is massive because of the installed base and because most titles are designed around touch & not console-style controllers. Apple TV has a much smaller footprint in households and controller-centric games have to compete directly with PlayStation, Xbox, Switch and now handheld PCs like the Steam Deck. That changes the value proposition for developers.

So the argument stands: Apple could spend heavily to make Macs or Apple TV more gaming-capable but the ROI (for devs) looks weak compared to mobile. The numbers for iPhone and iPad gaming dwarf anything the Mac or Apple TV could realistically achieve.

On a personal note I also thought that Apple Silicon will allow for a brighter Mac gaming future but my perssonal physical longevity concerns has shifted my focus on sedentary lifestyle to improving my blood chemistry labs, blood pressure, resting heart rate, body fat %, viseral fat %, muscle mass, VO2 max, strength to weight ratio, BMI, body weight and other biometrics.

 

[bluecoast]

...Or you could just use GEForce Now that will transform your Mac into an incredible gaming machine.

It's great that Cyberpunk 2077 has come to the Mac and from what I've read it seems like a thoughtful port.

However, I've played it on my MBA M4 16GB with RTX on and HDR enabled via GeForce Now with nary a stutter.

My MBA runs cool to the touch with battery life nearly equivalent to using it to watch Netflix (i.e. 8-10 hours gaming sessions from a full charge).

It is simply incredible and I often can't believe that I'm not playing it locally.

I know that a lot of people don't like cloud gaming - but honestly, give it a try.

Gone are the days when I bemoaned that my machine wouldn't play a game like the devs intended it to be seen & I wanted to experience it as.

It almost doesn't matter what spec your Mac is.

As long as it's relatively recent - i.e. Mx - and you have decent full fibre, congrats, you're playing on the equivalent of a $5k+ gaming PC (assuming that you were lucky enough to be able to get one of the high end Nvidia cards in the first place).

I don't work for Nvidia or anything - yes, I know that this post makes it seem like I do - but it's an astonishingly good service.

 

[OptimusGrime]

...Or you could just use GEForce Now that will transform your Mac into an incredible gaming machine.

It's great that Cyberpunk 2077 has come to the Mac and from what I've read it seems like a thoughtful port.

However, I've played it on my MBA M4 16GB with RTX on and HDR enabled via GeForce Now with nary a stutter.

My MBA runs cool to the touch with battery life nearly equivalent to using it to watch Netflix (i.e. 8-10 hours gaming sessions from a full charge).

It is simply incredible and I often can't believe that I'm not playing it locally.

I know that a lot of people don't like cloud gaming - but honestly, give it a try.

Gone are the days when I bemoaned that my machine wouldn't play a game like the devs intended it to be seen & I wanted to experience it as.

It almost doesn't matter what spec your Mac is.

As long as it's relatively recent - i.e. Mx - and you have decent full fibre, congrats, you're playing on the equivalent of a $5k+ gaming PC (assuming that you were lucky enough to be able to get one of the high end Nvidia cards in the first place).

I don't work for Nvidia or anything - yes, I know that this post makes it seem like I do - but it's an astonishingly good service.

I”m sorry no. I’ll stick with native gaming which doesn’t depend on very fast internet connections that can still suffer from latency problems. My experience was not “incredible”. It’s not “astonishingly good”. I vastly prefer native gaming.

 

[maflynn]

Or you could just use GEForce Now that will transform your Mac into an incredible gaming machine.

I've been testing that out, and my results have been decent at best, though my bandwidth of late has been impacting overall performance. I paid for a single month of access. That month is coming to an end, and I'll not be renewing.

Crossover has actually been a better option, and I do recommend that. It opens the doors many games that would normally not be playable on the Mac.

 

[maflynn]

So the argument stands: Apple could spend heavily to make Macs or Apple TV more gaming-capable but the ROI (for devs) looks weak compared to mobile. The numbers for iPhone and iPad gaming dwarf anything the Mac or Apple TV could realistically achieve.

Apple has been wildly successful with gaming on the mobile gaming category. If anything Apple TV gaming should be grouped with iPad/iphone gaming then Mac gaming. This being a Mac/PC gaming forum, it doesn't make sense to include apple tv in the discussions, particularly given they're completely different demographics, hardware, and software, i.e., apple tv has nothing in-common with Mac gaming.

With that said, gaming on the apple tv has largely sputtered because of the apple tv customer base imo. They buy the apple tv to watch tv. Its a device to consume content, not an interactive, game playing platform, especially since the apple tv buying public has to buy a controller. The path of least resistance for most people would be to just pull up a game on their phone or ipad while the tv is going on.

On a personal note I also thought that Apple Silicon will allow for a brighter Mac gaming future

This thread was started 5 years ago with a mistaken presupposition. That is, by 2023, Macs will be so powerful and fast that it makes financial sense for AAA publishers to produce games on the Mac Platform.

Its 5 years later, Macs have fallen behind in GPU performance at least compared to nvidia. Only the higher end Macs (Max and Ultra) are capable of providing good performance which is comparable to the RTX 4070.

Mac fans have been eager to get Cyberpunk 2077 ported over to the Mac, this is a 5 year old title, there's been little else in terms of seeing AAA games landing on macos. The requirements of cyberpunk are such that you need a M3 Pro to achieve 60FPS at 1080P with the detail turned down, or a M4 Max or M3 Ultra to get 60FPS at high fidelity.

My point is, that only the upper echelon of Mac configurations are capable running this 5 year old AAA game in high detail at 1080p (or the ultra running at 1440p). Its not making a lot of financial sense for AAA publishers to spend money on porting, and supporting games on the mac platform which is only 10% of computer users, and of that 10% only the top tier macs will provide good performance, i.e., a niche of a niche.

As someone who's using a M4 Max Studio, I really want the landscape to change, but I don't see AAA developers moving closer to macos.

 

[kiranmk2]

It seems fairly clear that Apple isn't going to go all in on AAA gaming anytime soon. They've tinkered around the the edges by releasing several versions of GPT and presumably paid Capcom, Kojima, CDPR etc to port over some big games, but it doesn't seem to be having the desired effect, and Apple appear to have publically acknowledge this (GPT was touted solely as a tool to help developers with the porting process, but GPT2 was also touted as a way for gamers to play games on Mac, during the EEDC announcement).

Even though Apple has a large install base of Macs, there is no reliable indication for developers how many people would buy games (compared to consoles, which have a lower installbase, but it can obviously be assumed that the vast majority want to buy games).

A couple of ways Apple could move forward that may be non-obvious
1) Licence GPT out to devs so they can release Windows games in a WINE/GPT wrapper for Mac (in a similar way that GOG released classic PC games in a DOSbox wrapper). From what I've seen, native Apple ports of Control & Cyberpunk are only 5-15% faster than the GPT version, which means plenty of games will run on relatively recent Macs. This would offer a very simple (=cheap) way for devs to get access to the Mac market
2) Expand Apple Arcade with an additional tier that includes more AAA games in the vein of GamePass and spread it across iOS, TvOS and MacOS. In this way, devs get paid a SaaS income every month rather than having to rely of having a few Mac gamers buying games and Apple owners don't get the sticker shock of paying $70 per AAA game.

 

[bluecoast]

I've been testing that out, and my results have been decent at best, though my bandwidth of late has been impacting overall performance. I paid for a single month of access. That month is coming to an end, and I'll not be renewing.

Crossover has actually been a better option, and I do recommend that. It opens the doors many games that would normally not be playable on the Mac.

Fair enough. Which tier did you get?

The performance tier is good, but very much meant for the casual gamer.

Ultimate is where it really opens up and is a huge jump in quality.

Crossover. Ok, but you still need to have great hardware.

I don’t want to buy a $2k+ upwards machine just to run triple a games with ray tracing.

As I mentioned I have an mba m3 16gb which is great for everything I want to use it for - except for gaming.

To get ray tracing on a Mac with cyberpunk 2077, I’ll need a m3 pro max with 32gb of ram at least.

I’m simply not buying a rig like they just to game on as it’s vastly overpowered for anything else I need to use it for.

But I guess for some people game, means playing a game locally. I get it.

For me what I experience with GeForce now is incredible.

However, for someone used to playing games on top of the range hardware and is prepared to pay for the very best, sure you’ll scoff at it.

I’m happy with GeForce now providing 90% of the performance of running a game on a top tier rig - which I could never justify buying.

I've been testing that out, and my results have been decent at best, though my bandwidth of late has been impacting overall performance. I paid for a single month of access. That month is coming to an end, and I'll not be renewing.

Crossover has actually been a better option, and I do recommend that. It opens the doors many games that would normally not be playable on the Mac.

Fair enough. Which tier did you get?

The performance tier is good, but very much meant for the casual gamer.

Ultimate is where it really opens up and is a huge jump in quality.

Crossover. Ok, but you still need to have great hardware.

I don’t want to buy a $2k+ upwards machine just to run triple a games with ray tracing.

As I mentioned I have an mba m3 16gb which is great for everything I want to use it for - except for gaming.

To get ray tracing on a Mac with cyberpunk 2077, I’ll need a m3 pro max with 32gb of ram at least.

I’m simply not buying a rig like they just to game on as it’s vastly overpowered for anything else I need to use it for.

But I guess for some people game, means playing a game locally. I get it.

For me what I experience with GeForce now is incredible.

However, for someone used to playing games on top of the range hardware and is prepared to pay for the very best, sure you’ll scoff at it.

I’m happy with GeForce now providing 90% of the performance of running a game on a top tier rig - which I could never justify buying.

 

[maflynn]

The performance tier is good, but very much meant for the casual gamer.

This is what I got - performance tier for a single month. I'm going to run Ethernet cable from my wifi to my home office, and I'll retest.

Crossover. Ok, but you still need to have great hardware.

Yeah, I got a M4 Max Studio specifically for the GPU cores the extra CPU cores, and extra thermal headroom of the studio is a plus.

 

[bigglow]

@bluecoast Cloud gaming has definitely come a long way. Your GeForce Now experience illustrates what’s possible when you’ve got strong internet infrastructure. For some people that’s effectively “good enough” and I don’t doubt it feels incredible compared to trying to run Cyberpunk locally on an Air. But it’s worth remembering the caveats for serious gamers. Latency, ISP stability and bandwidth caps still make cloud gaming a non-starter for a lot of people especially outside major cities. Which is why others here prefer native performance even if it means dropping settings or sticking to Crossover/GPT.

@maflynn I agree that Apple TV buyers aren’t primarily in the market for games. My earlier grouping of Apple TV and Mac wasn’t about pretending their hardware is equivalent. It was about how Apple presents its ecosystem. When Apple promotes Arcade or cross-platform titles they bundle Mac, iPhone, iPad and Apple TV in one pitch. If AAA gaming were ever to become a true business priority for Apple they’d face an awkward inconsistency: one part of their ecosystem would simply never meet those expectations. That’s why I still see the platforms as strategically linked even if they serve different demographics.

Mac GPU performance is better than it was pre-Apple Silicon but still lags at Nvidia’s pace. The point you make about Cyberpunk on M3 Pro vs M4 Max proves the issue: even in 2025 (nearly 5 years after this thread was started) only the highest-end Macs can play a 5yo AAA title at high settings and respectable frame rates. That’s a “niche of a niche” for developers to target especially when macOS share on Steam hovers below 3–5% even with survey undercounts.

@kiranmk2 You’re spot on about GPT. The fact that native ports only beat GPT by ~15% means Apple already has a viable “good enough” wrapper solution but adoption depends on whether Apple licenses or subsidizes it widely. That plus a Game Pass–style Arcade tier might be the only way to make the economics work since otherwise devs are expected to spend resources for a small market with uncertain uptake.

So to tie this back to the thread premise: Apple could make Macs and Apple TV more gaming-capable but the ROI just doesn’t compare to mobile. iPhone and iPad gaming already generate tens of billions annually and reach hundreds of millions of players. By contrast Mac gaming—even with Mac chops improvements, GPT or cloud services remains niche relative to consoles and Windows. Apple’s smarter strategy is to treat AAA support as an optional benefit of Apple Silicon rather than a core business objective.

 

[maflynn]

Apple could make Macs and Apple TV more gaming-capable but the ROI just doesn’t compare to mobile.

Oh no question, that's largely my argument, whether we're talking apple or game developers, there has to be an incentive to earn a profit. There's other segments of the gaming world that have a higher profit opportunity, such as the switch 2, steamdeck, or even windows handheld gaming units. Not to mention streaming, though truth be told, I thought streaming would have grown further then it already has.

Nvidia's Geforce Now is pretty good, but not great, Xbox streaming seems less robust, and its a console streaming. If yo have Pc (or mac) games, then its not really a viable option.

 

[Plutonius]

But mobile gaming sucks... 😝😇

True but it's very profitable for Apple.

 

[dmccloud]

My gaming PC runs an AMD Ryzen 9 5900x, 32GB DDR4, and a Radeon RX 6700XT videocard. Despite its relatively modest specs, the performance of that machine eclipses GeForce Now performance on my M4 Pro Mac, and that's without the latency hit incurred due to my location. Since I have Steam installed on both my gaming PC and Mac, I just use Steam Play to run a lot of Windows-only games on my Mac. Since that uses the host machine's hardware to run the games on a local network, I see far less latency than with GeForce Now, and I don't have to pay for a subscription to take advantage of it.

 

[bigglow]

@maflynn Exactly! incentives drive everything. For Apple or devs to take Mac AAA seriously, the return has to compete with Switch, Steam Deck, Windows handhelds or even cloud subscriptions. Right now those categories have far larger gaming-focused audiences. I agree cloud hasn’t grown as fast as expected either partly because the experience is still uneven depending on ISP and geography.


@Plutonius True that Apple is profitable in gaming but it’s almost entirely via iPhone/iPad and the App Store ecosystem. That’s the heart of the business & not Macs or Apple TV. For Apple to lean into AAA they’d be shifting attention away from where they already print money.


@dmccloud Your setup illustrates the practical reality well. Local network streaming (Steam Play / Remote Play) sidesteps the latency issues that GeForce Now can’t always solve and it leverages hardware you already own instead of adding another subscription. It also underscores the core limitation: Apple Silicon Macs are powerful in many ways but without Nvidia-class GPUs and without a huge gaming user base they’ll always trail dedicated PCs when it comes to native or even local-streamed AAA performance.


So whether it’s cloud, wrappers or ports the theme stays the same: Apple can support gaming but it won’t ever be their primary focus because the opportunity cost vs mobile/services is just too high.