Apple CAN’T do AAA gaming [Merged Megathread]

[puelocesar]

Have you ever considered that maybe they just don't want it? It just doesn't make a lot of sense. Console gamers will play on consoles, and PC gamers will always prefer to build their own system, and that's something that doesn't go with Apple's philosophy of complete vertical integration.

Don't expect Apple to invest the massive amounts of money required to enter the AAA game because it's just something they will not do, and you will always be disappointed. They know they cannot win this game, so they just don't play it.

 

[diamond.g]

Maybe. But that apple logo on a console should scare the daylights out of the current console leaders.

I view it similar to Nintendo vs sega with Sony looming in the shadows. It’s just a matter of apple putting the pieces it has together if they desire at all to do so.

I think Apple would be more like MS than like Sony. Sony was already going to make a console with Nintendo when Nintendo pulled out, so they had the hardware more or less ready already.

 

[laptech]

Umm. That’s just BS. Explain iOS. What makes the bulk of App Store revenue? And in some ways it’s much worse addictive gaming aimed at kids. In app pop ups. Ads. Pushing these addicted folks to constantly buy another sack of gems for 99 dollars.

Are you really trying to say apple looks down their nose on gaming when they’re heavily supporting and reliant on borderline scam ad infested games on their primary platform?

The main reasons we don’t see gaming on macs is market share. Poor hardware. And probably apple not seeing it worthwhile. Besides there’s iOS to focus on.

iOS is not a gaming platform. The devices that run iOS are not gaming platforms. The fact that devs make games to run on iOS devices does not define the device or iOS as 'game specific'. It is a sad reflection on society that there are electronic devices and computers that are capable of doing so so much more but yet all society seems to want is devices and computers that allow them to play games. As my computer lecturer once said 'If you want to play games, buy a device that is specificly designed and built to play games, not a computer'.

Gaming is very profitable hence why many software programmers look to find ways to get electronic devices to play games. A electronic device manufacturer will build a device that is designed to serve a specific function either within the manufacturing industry or education industry and a long comes hackers and modifiers trying to hack/modify the devices firmware/software so it can run games.

But going back to iOS, specifically mobile phones. The mobile phone networks wants it's customers to use the phone as much as possible because it means customers are using up their contracted daily/monthly allowance. The longer a customer uses their phone, the more money the network gets and thus the network provider needs apps that will keep customers tied to their phones and what kind of apps are best at keep customers tied to their phones? yes you guessed it, games.

The network providers need to keep their customers using up their daily/monthly allowance because in doing so it means money keeps on rolling it but to do this, the network provides needs a mobile phone that is capable of doing the things the network provider wants. Apple is more than happy to obidge because it's in the business of making electronic devices. Apple provides an electronic device with certain hardware specifics. What network providers and customers do with that device is not Apple's concern. It is the same principle that is applied by gun manufacturers. They build the gun but what the customer choses to do with that gun is not the concern of the gun manufacturer.

 

[diamond.g]

iOS is not a gaming platform. The devices that run iOS are not gaming platforms. The fact that devs make games to run on iOS devices does not define the device or iOS as 'game specific'. It is a sad reflection on society that there are electronic devices and computers that are capable of doing so so much more but yet all society seems to want is devices and computers that allow them to play games. As my computer lecturer once said 'If you want to play games, buy a device that is specificly designed and built to play games, not a computer'.

Gaming is very profitable hence why many software programmers look to find ways to get electronic devices to play games. A electronic device manufacturer will build a device that is designed to serve a specific function either within the manufacturing industry or education industry and a long comes hackers and modifiers trying to hack/modify the devices firmware/software so it can run games.

But going back to iOS, specifically mobile phones. The mobile phone networks wants it's customers to use the phone as much as possible because it means customers are using up their contracted daily/monthly allowance. The longer a customer uses their phone, the more money the network gets and thus the network provider needs apps that will keep customers tied to their phones and what kind of apps are best at keep customers tied to their phones? yes you guessed it, games.

The network providers need to keep their customers using up their daily/monthly allowance because in doing so it means money keeps on rolling it but to do this, the network provides needs a mobile phone that is capable of doing the things the network provider wants. Apple is more than happy to obidge because it's in the business of making electronic devices. Apple provides an electronic device with certain hardware specifics. What network providers and customers do with that device is not Apple's concern. It is the same principle that is applied by gun manufacturers. They build the gun but what the customer choses to do with that gun is not the concern of the gun manufacturer.

Uh mobile gaming is totally a platform.

 

[Serban55]

Uh mobile gaming is totally a platform.

is not just a platform but one of the MOST profitable gaming platform for couple years now
people just talk even without read or inform themselves before

 

[diamond.g]

is not just a platform but the MOST profitable gaming platform for couple years now
people just talk even without read or inform themselves before

Yeah there is a reason loot boxes have become a thing on all the other platforms.

 

[laptech]

The ONLY way gaming will ever take off on the mac is if one of the top gaming publishers tests the water and releases a couple of AAA game written specifically for the mac. These releases will then test to see if mac owners are truely interested in playing games on their mac. Only demand will drive gaming on the mac, regardless if Apple likes it or not. If Apple hardware is capable of supporting AAA games then all that is required is for one of the top game publishers to release a couple of their games for the mac to see what happens. Sales of the games will then determine if gaming on macs is viable or not.

 

[diamond.g]

The ONLY way gaming will ever take off on the mac is if one of the top gaming publishers tests the water and releases a couple of AAA game written specifically for the mac. These releases will then test to see if mac owners are truely interested in playing games on their mac. Only demand will drive gaming on the mac, regardless if Apple likes it or not. If Apple hardware is capable of supporting AAA games then all that is required is for one of the top game publishers to release a couple of their games for the mac to see what happens. Sales of the games will then determine if gaming on macs is viable or not.

I vote Marvels Avengers and GotG as tribute!

 

[laptech]

is not just a platform but one of the MOST profitable gaming platform for couple years now
people just talk even without read or inform themselves before

Gaming is a feature of mobile devices but the mobile devices themselves are not 'gaming devices', there is a big big difference which needs to be expressed each and every time mobile gaming is mentioned or discussed because many confuse/cloud the issue. The PS Vita is a gaming device, the Nintendo Switch is a gaming device, mobile phones are not, ipads and similar tablet types are not. Just because Apple builds a mobile device that has the hardware capable of having games written for it does not mean that Apple is a supporter of gaming on it's devices.

 

[FrightWait]

To be honest, I have serious doubts that gaming on Mac will ever take off. At the end of the day, the game developers have to make a choice on whether to program their games on x86 Windows vs Apple Silicon Mac OS, and the choice is very obvious. Yes, eventually Mac support will come, but as we have seen previously, port quality will always be variable.

For me, this is just a reality that we have to accept? There are things that Mac does that PC cannot do - Apple ecosystem really boosts productivity and video/media production on Mac is superior to that of PC.

I think the future of computing will always be to own both PC and Mac. And why not? Mac offers stability and ecosystem - perfect for work and productivity. PC offers upgradability and compatibility with a wider library of games at a fraction of price of a Mac.

To use an analogy, Mac is like a Tesla - quiet, sleek, powerful and useful for 99% of daily work and will get you to work. Expecting it to go long distances off-roading would be unreasonable - for those instances you would be better off having a second Landcruiser instead.

 

[diamond.g]

To be honest, I have serious doubts that gaming on Mac will ever take off. At the end of the day, the game developers have to make a choice on whether to program their games on x86 Windows vs Apple Silicon Mac OS, and the choice is very obvious. Yes, eventually Mac support will come, but as we have seen previously, port quality will always be variable.

For me, this is just a reality that we have to accept? There are things that Mac does that PC cannot do - Apple ecosystem really boosts productivity and video/media production on Mac is superior to that of PC.

I think the future of computing will always be to own both PC and Mac. And why not? Mac offers stability and ecosystem - perfect for work and productivity. PC offers upgradability and compatibility with a wider library of games at a fraction of price of a Mac.

To use an analogy, Mac is like a Tesla - quiet, sleek, powerful and useful for 99% of daily work and will get you to work. Expecting it to go long distances off-roading would be unreasonable - for those instances you would be better off having a second Landcruiser instead.

By Landcruiser you mean Rivian right?

 

[FrightWait]

By Landcruiser you mean Rivian right?

Haha Rivian could have been a better analogy but I really meant Toyota Landcruiser ...

 

[Serban55]

Gaming is a feature of mobile devices but the mobile devices themselves are not 'gaming devices', there is a big big difference which needs to be expressed each and every time mobile gaming is mentioned or discussed because many confuse/cloud the issue. The PS Vita is a gaming device, the Nintendo Switch is a gaming device, mobile phones are not, ipads and similar tablet types are not. Just because Apple builds a mobile device that has the hardware capable of having games written for it does not mean that Apple is a supporter of gaming on it's devices.

yea, like the iphone wanst an mp3 player that , in time, made the ipod(an mp3 player) dead
Jesus...an smartphone nowadays it is a brain and you have the controller support
PS vita...what is that?? that old fart device with an SoC from 10 years ago?
Its clear you dont have business knowledge...stop playing games non-stop

 

[Serban55]

A mac just needs more AAA that comes to the iOS mobile platform thats all...the rest is easy
Diablo Immortal/CS and MMO are build for ios and played on the mac now too
Even the console industry will be dead in 10 years...the smartphone will be the "next console" to witch you connect your keyb and mouse

 

[T'hain Esh Kelch]

The only thing Apple really needs to make an entryway into gaming, is a cheaper Mac with a beefy GPU.

They daddled a little bit with some of the Performa models, and a few of the iMacs, but in general, the entry price for a proper gaming Mac has always been to high, as you'd either have to get a high-end iMac, or a Mac Pro the last ten years, which for many is out of the question.

Before that happens, gaming will always be an afterthought for them, since the vast majority of users either have low end GPUs, or buy their high end machines for anything but gaming. Metal (And other needed gaming related technologies on macOS) is good enough now for almost any AAA game out there now, but the user base is just way too small for developers to jump in.

The solution right now would be to offer a Mac Mini with proper support for eGPUs, or release a cheap midi/mini tower (The famous xMac!) which is currently being rumored, and position it MUCH closer in price to the Mac mini than the Mac Pro. Or release an Mac mini with a M1 Max x2/4 at much less the price of what the MBP is going for. Unfortunately, margins margins margins, so I don't think it will ever happen.

 

[FrightWait]

A mac just needs more AAA that comes to the iOS mobile platform thats all...the rest is easy
Diablo Immortal/CS and MMO are build for ios and played on the mac now too
Even the console industry will be dead in 10 years...the smartphone will be the "next console" to witch you connect your keyb and mouse

I think I would like to politely partially disagree with the part where the smartphone becomes the "next console". Absolutely I can see them replacing portable gaming devices such as Nintendo DS, PS Vita, but I don't think they will be able to replace the gaming consoles such as Xbox X, PS 5, due to practicality of supporting AAA capable hardware.

The trouble with iOS and any mobile gaming platform, is that:

1) It is geared toward weaker devices - as there are limit to the power of chips that can be put into to small handheld devices.

2) Controls and the "culture" of mobile gaming is different to AAA gaming - think shorter bursts of time, more acceptance of microtransactions and pay-to-win models

If we split mobile and AAA gaming into 2 separate categories, I think the future of serious gaming is already solidly in PC/Windows territory and it is going to be impossible to break this trend. Hence, one could even argue that Mac OS gaming hegemony has already been lost and Apple has recognised this and targeted their market to a different (and arguably more lucrative) group.

 

[laptech]

It could also be argued that for what ever reason, game publishers could be taking their cue from Microsoft in not wanting to publish their games for the mac because they see it as if Microsoft who already have an ARM OS is not prepared to write it's windows OS for Apple Silicon then why should they (the publishers) spend time and money on converting their PC games to Mac OS.

 

[Warped9]

If Apple were interested they would have done it. The fact they haven’t means they simply aren’t interested. And given how successful with what they do they underlines they don’t need to be bothered with it.

Now I’m not a gamer so I couldn’t care less anyway one way or the other.

The OP was a pointless rant because Apple has never been interesting in gaming and isn’t likely to be in the foreseeable future.

 

[vir]

Show your iOS downloads.

 

[Andropov]

THEY are the ones who can manage relationships and talk with devs, publishers and most importantly Mac gamers…..because Apple can‘t do AAA gaming

Last time I remember Apple making an effort to push AAA gaming on Mac OS was Steve Jobs making a demo of the next big game coming to the Mac as an exclusive in MacWorld '99. That game was Halo: Combat Evolved. Microsoft bought the producer (Bungie) within a year, making it a Xbox-exclusive instead until four years later, essentially killing the revival of gaming on Mac OS.

And now most of the AAA gaming industry is tied to one of the two big players, Sony or Microsoft. Becoming a contender in this fight would cost an exorbitant amount of money for Apple. They could do it, but they would need so much money that it's not likely that it could ever become profitable. The only hope is, now that new Macs (with Apple Silicon) come with quite powerful GPUs even for lower-end machines, that some game developers might start paying more attention to the Mac naturally, and become a foundation for bigger game studios in the following years. But it's impossible to go from zero game dev interest in the platform to getting AAA games running natively on macOS in a short timespan.

 

[MauiPa]

Why? Plenty of "cheaper and better" Windows machines out there (LOL). I never gamed and never will. I have better things to spend my time on. No judgement, Game on

 

[Adarna]

Facts & figures to consider considering the barrier to entry for triple A gaming on Macs

• Mac with Apple Silicon Developer Transition Kit was shipped in Jun 2020
• PlayStation 5 Developer Kit shipped as early as late 2019
• First Macs with Apple Silicon came out in Nov 2020
• Average selling price of PCs worldwide is $630 with keyboard/mouse/display
• Mac mini starts at $699 without keyboard/mouse/display
• You need to spend $999 on a base Macbook Air with I/O like keyboard/trackpad/display
• M1 Macs makes up about 80% of all Macs sold since Nov 2020
• To get a M1 Pro/Max you'd need to spend at least $1999 & $3,499 respectively
• MBP 14" & 16" M1 Pro/Max make up about 13% of all Macs sold
• 2020's worldwide shipping units of Macs was 22.5 million of more than 275 million PCs.
• PlayStation 5 disc is $499 & digital is $399 was released within the same week as Macs with M1 has shipped more than 13.4 million units
• Takes about 3-5 years to develop a native & optimized PC game so when a 3rd party dev wants to port a triple A title to macOS then it would ship as late as Jul 2023. By comparison mobile games takes a few months
• If 13% of all Macs are a Pro/Max then that is a conservative 2.925 million of 22.5 million Mac. If 20% of that play triple A games then that's a conservative 0.585 million Pro/Max gamers within 12 months of release.
• If I was a 3rd party dev... I wonder if I'll get a good return from developing a native game optimized for a Pro/Max when the customer base is ~600k by Oct 2022.
• If 20% of all Macs with Apple Silicon played games then that is a conservative 4.5 million of 22.5 million Mac. Then I can see triple A titles coming out in year 3 or even 5 of Macs with Apple Silicon

I am comparing PlayStation 5 & Macs with Apple Silicon as both were released days from each other in Nov 2020.

Forums like MacRumors makes it appear we are many but in truth... game devs may question the wisdom of aggressively spending for macOS.

Steam Hardware & Software survey would help game devs determine if its worth their time, money and resources on it.

Apple Silicon's a screamer but at the end of the day triple A titles are a business.

Many point to iPhones that shipped worldwide more than 207 million units & iPads that shipped worldwide more than 53 million units in a shrinking tablet market as reasons to develop for the Mac.

I would not be surprised if only 27 million Macs will ship in 2021 even with the worldwide chip/parts shortage

 

[brucewayne]

CAN'T is the wrong word. They could easily create optimizations in the M1 similar to how they treat pro res, but the question would be where would that fit in the market?

The primary reason to go PC over console is upgradability and being a part of the modding community's quest for more fps. An affordable upgradable Mac has never existed and is all but a fantasy now that they have gone SOC. Essentially they would be competing with much cheaper subsidized Sony and Microsoft consoles.

Not to mention their ongoing disputes with AAA developers over the iOS store - they are not going to drag that drama to the Mac that they tout as the ultimate computer for professionals.

I think they are happy to compete with Nintendo for the casual/portable/family market which the current A series hardware runs just fine.

 

[4743913]

Apple should just buy Rockstar and TakeTwo.

Begun, the AAA Gaming Wars have.

 

[leman]

Facts & figures to consider considering the barrier to entry for gaming on Macs

• Developer Transition Kit was shipped in Jun 2020
• First Macs with Apple Silicon came out in Nov 2020
• Average selling price of PCs worldwide is $630 with keyboard/mouse/display
• Mac mini starts at $699 without keyboard/mouse/display
• You need to spend $999 on a base Macbook Air with I/O like keyboard/trackpad/display
• M1 Macs makes up about 80% of all Macs sold since Nov 2020
• To get a M1 Pro/Max you'd need to spend at least $1999 & $3,499 respectively
• MBP 14" & 16" M1 Pro/Max make up about 13% of all Macs sold
• 2020's worldwide shipping units of Macs was 22.5 million
• PlayStation 5 disc is $499 & digital is $399 was released within the same week as Macs with M1 has shipped more than 13.4 million units
• Takes about 3-5 years to develop a native & optimized PC game so when a 3rd party dev wants to port a triple A title to macOS then it would ship as late as Jul 2023. By comparison mobile games takes a few months
• If 13% of all Macs are a Pro/Max then that is a conservative 2.925 million of 22.5 million Mac. If 20% of that play triple A games then that's a conservative 0.585 million Pro/Max gamers within 12 months of release.
• If I was a 3rd party dev... I wonder if I'll get a good return from developing a native game optimized for a Pro/Max when the customer base is ~600k by Oct 2022.

Forums like MacRumors makes it appear we are many but in truth... game devs may question the wisdom of aggressively spending for macOS.

Steam Hardware & Software survey would help game devs determine if its worth their time, money and resources on it.

Apple Silicon's a screamer but at the end of the day triple A titles are a business.

Many point to iPhones that shipped worldwide more than 207 million units & iPads that shipped worldwide more than 53 million units in a shrinking tablet market as reasons to develop for the Mac.

I would not be surprised if only 27 million Macs will ship in 2021 even with the worldwide chip/parts shortage

The issue with your logic is that you assume that you need M1 Pro/max to play demanding games. You do not. The base M1 is more than capable of playing any latest PC game. It won't be on maximal settings or super high resolutions, but it has more than enough performance to play, say, something like Cyberpunk at Full HD medium @30fps or so, which is sufficient for an adequate single-payer experience.

The majority of "gaming PCs" out there still are around GTX 1050/1050 Ti/1650 level, which is very close to base M1 (especially with optimizations). The M2 early next year will be around 20-30% faster. The M3 in 2023 will be faster yet.

Apple is shipping over 20 millions Macs per year. This is more than enough to build up a solid user base of gaming capable devices. Again, the necessary conditions have already been created. The question now boils down strictly to cultural change.