Apple Discusses Push Towards High-End Mac Gaming in New Interview

[Unregistered 4U]

Mobile "Gaming" Revenue might be in the billions, but the majority of that is microtransaction whales buying virtual currency, it's not people buying games.

PC/Console gaming is a 95+ billion dollar a year industry

And for anyone that wonders what chunk of that is Apple, estimated 14.8 percent. Second place to Tencent.

Apple grows gaming market share as App Store dominates mobile space

Even though it does not produce any of its own gaming hardware or software, the App Store has turned Apple into one of the biggest earners in the industry.

www.spglobal.com

 

[Spaceboi Scaphandre]

No it’s not. Even if NVIDIA had great support, Proton is still a layer and causes degradation.

Native build here performs better than Proton. The highest gap is about 30fps.

This video is from May 3rd 2021, a year before the Steam Deck released as well as the modern builds of Proton.

I'm afraid your benchmark is horribly outdated. Proton's degradation nowadays is practically nonexistent, to the point Feral Interactive announced they would no longer be making or maintaining native Linux ports since there was no need to since Proton was now so good there was no reason to put the work in anymore for a port.

Hell there are now cases where games are performing BETTER on Linux through Proton than natively on Windows. Hogwarts Legacy being one such example

 

[Egk]

Apple has had its up the rear end regarding games on laptops and desktops for ages now, and they seem to have been blind the whole time.

Being unable to upgrade components while also pricing upgrades to outrageous levels is one hurdle. Software wise it's a PITA due to the toolchain needed if Xcode is being utilized in any way. Then you have upgrades and lack of backwards compatability (though should be mostly OK these days) to throw in there also.

High end gaming requires good hardware, and good hardware is quite costly on a Mac although the baseline performance is often quite good. One could also throw in the mix gaming monitors and how macOS looks terrible on non-retina displays, though not the biggest issue for gaming in that sense.

Apple have never understood this segment and rather boxed things in too much, especially after the Intel era. It annoyed me so much that they couldn't at least produce a mid-tower for power users instead of having Mac Pros, though I understand the segmentation. They had plenty of chances of being a bit more nice to users overall, making it easy and interesting for tinkerers to go over to the Mac, but they squandered it every time.

People aren't buying Macs to play games, that is just incidental, and until they really make enourmous strides with certain issues, especially cost of upgrades and even being able to upgrade yourself even, they won't make a dent at all. The "gamer" enthusiast has always wanted to change components themselves, I have been one of them for a long time, and Mac is laughable and antithetical to what end users want regarding gaming. If they don't mess around with hardware, they buy a console.

 

[Ethosik]

This video is from May 3rd 2021, a year before the Steam Deck released as well as the modern builds of Proton.

I'm afraid your benchmark is horribly outdated. Proton's degradation nowadays is practically nonexistent, to the point Feral Interactive announced they would no longer be making or maintaining native Linux ports since there was no need to since Proton was now so good there was no reason to put the work in anymore for a port.

Hell there are now cases where games are performing BETTER on Linux through Proton than natively on Windows. Hogwarts Legacy being one such example

There is no possibility on earth if you do a proper native port it WONT be better than something going through translation or emulation. This is a fact. Not sure why you are arguing so much on this.

I have ran some PC games through game porting toolkit that also has a Mac version. Even if the Mac version runs on Rosetta it still performs better.

 

[Unregistered 4U]

I always find it humorous when folks say mobile apps are “designed to make you spend as much on IAP as possible” as if that’s some distinction, when that’s literally how the majority of the gaming industry operates. Shark Cards don’t exist as some quaint side project, they exist to make folks spend as much as possible on them. Same with skins, consumables, and cosmetics of all shapes and types.

 

[Paradoxally]

There is no possibility on earth if you do a proper native port it WONT be better than something going through translation or emulation. This is a fact.

No, it's not a fact. It depends on optimization first and foremost.

The other poster even gave you an example of when Proton outperforms the Windows version of a game. You can definitely have a native port be unoptimized because the devs didn't care enough, and it will run badly.

 

[Spaceboi Scaphandre]

There is no possibility on earth if you do a proper native port it WONT be better than something going through translation or emulation. This is a fact. Not sure why you are arguing so much on this.

I mean...we already have an example with x86 software running better on Apple Silicon through Rosetta 2 than natively on an Intel Mac

I have countless examples of other games running better through Proton than natively on Windows, and that's because of the work Valve and the Linux community did to get it to where it is now, thanks to DXVK and other hacks built into Proton.

C'mon you're an alleged game developer you should know this.

 

[ankitgu]

Nintendo Switch still manages to have great games with technology that was behind the iPad back in 2017.

Focusing on games is not about the technology. It’s about the games.

Just came to second this. Some gamers just don't need high end graphics.

There are some segments, like myself, that wouldn't mind gaming, but don't care enough to have a dedicated device because I just want a few hours per month of playtime. Currently, I'll be fine without it, but there's no desire to drop $2k on a dedicated rig. I would not mind buying a VR headset if my M2 (or future revision) could make it easier to try out a racing sim. The need to spend thousands for something I don't even know if I'll enjoy after a few weeks is too much of a gamble.

I'm hopeful, but doubt, Apple will make gaming happen by getting the games ported over to Mac. I'm not sure what it takes, whether by subsidizing developer costs or otherwise, but being able to play games on my Mac would make it easier to dip my toes in the water.

 

[Paradoxally]

Just came to second this. Some gamers just don't need high end graphics.

It's not about high end graphics. It's about the experience. You cannot sit there and tell me that 30 FPS in 2023 with dips into the 20s is an enjoyable experience when you have both subpar framerate and graphics. Zelda TOTK is an example of this.

I don't mind having graphics on low if the framerate is high. Multiplayer competitive games are an example of this: graphics are not the focus, you want consistently high framerate and the lowest input lag you can get.

The advantage for Nintendo is that:

a) they have too many fanboys that will excuse the company being behind the competition because of their first-party titles.

and

b) a significant part of their customers don't know better

It's mostly b) but a) is extremely vocal online, so Nintendo gets away with a lot of stuff.

 

[Unregistered 4U]

If we want to believe phone games can be the AAA game equivalent of PS5 and PC, then there's merit and market size to that logic... but still not subsidy and developer taking all risk.

Resident Evil was just released for iPhone, iPad, and Mac. If it sells well enough to defray the cost of development, then they’re likely to do the same with future games. Which is really the only way a healthy “MacOS gaming” (meaning games developed for the Mac, not running through a compatibility layer) market happens. Subsidies mean the profit motive is “I’m breaking even, even if my game doesn’t sell well.”

 

[Unregistered 4U]

Just came to second this. Some gamers just don't need high end graphics.

I’d amend that to say MOST. 65% of people still play at 1080p.

 

[Paradoxally]

I’d amend that to say MOST. 65% of people still play at 1080p.

The resolution is irrelevant for quality.

1080p Ultra settings will look amazing on a great 1080p monitor. Bonus points if the framerate is high.

The people targeting 4K Ultra are a niche, we're talking those who can afford 4080/4090 cards and 4K monitors.

 

[HVDynamo]

Are they blind. Gaming has not improved. The ability has but gaming itself is worse. Hey Apple there are no games!!! Flappy bird does not count as a game. Literally considering a gaming pc at this point even though it makes me nauseous.

Why does the idea of a gaming PC make you nauseous? Seems like a bit of an extreme reaction to be honest. But I live in the Windows Gaming PC/Mac Laptop/Linux Server lifestyle, so I have something running all main platforms. I like the Apple Silicon Macs, but I really miss bootcamp something awful. Being able to run full on x86 Windows applications in Windows on a Mac when needed was amazing and truly made the mac the best laptop platform. But now that it's more limited because of the unique architecture I am finding my new laptop less overall usable for more than just basic tasks.

 

[jozero]

I know its early days for the Apple gaming initiative (yet again), but I took a real dive into seeing what would actually play and wouldn't with the current state of gaming on M3 Mac. It was going to be a splurge upgrade for me

Lot of triple A games are 100 GB plus, so beside having to upgrade Apple's cheapo RAM allotment, I'd also have to pay their insane prices for SSD upgrade. Never mind the complete hassle trying to figure out what games run and what don't, what requires Wine / Whiskey / Crossover tricks etc

You can tell Apple isnt serious about gaming because they don't even bother to make a controller. If you can't even muster the energy to make your own input device to play games, from the company that made the mouse and pencil, and focuses so heavily on the complete user experience, how serious are they are really about games? Resident Evil, other AAA games, *suck* with just touch controls


Instead I just kept my good enough Mac and bought a Steam Deck - which not only is fully and easily user upgradeable (remember those days?) they have an incredible game library and decades of actually supporting games. Got the Steam Deck Oled, absolutely fantastic game machine purpose built from the ground up for gaming

 

[Quackington]

Nintendo Switch still manages to have great games with technology that was behind the iPad back in 2017.

Focusing on games is not about the technology. It’s about the games.

Nintendo is a gaming specialist though, and has been in the business for years.

 

[Unregistered 4U]

It's mostly b) but a) is extremely vocal online, so Nintendo gets away with a lot of stuff.

Having folks being vocal online doesn’t yield sales… though. The advantage for Nintendo is literally that they make things at a level of quality that enough people find the value worth the cost to acquire it. TOTK is no different from an exclusive on any other system. If someone wants to play it, they’ll buy the hardware to play it.

 

[Ethosik]

No, it's not a fact. It depends on optimization first and foremost.

The other poster even gave you an example of when Proton outperforms the Windows version of a game. You can definitely have a native port be unoptimized because the devs didn't care enough, and it will run badly.

That’s why I said “proper” native port.

As I said. I ran some PC games through GPT because “lol it’s the best” and some of the Mac ports (even if it still runs through Rosetta) still performed better.

My point is it’s not a be all end all. BEST SOLUTION OF ALL TIME. Proper…..I’ll say it again PROPER native ports will perform better than something running under GPT

 

[SunMac]

I’d amend that to say MOST. 65% of people still play at 1080p.

I still game at 1080p, I got a Nvidia 4070 and an ultra short throw projector. I rather run games at 120fps with 120hz refresh rate that run at 4K 60hz. I can't tell the difference between 4K and 1080p.. it looks the same to me. Even on my Mac I run Lies of P at one of the lowest resolutions and it looks great to me and impresses others as well due to the high frame rates.

 

[Spaceboi Scaphandre]

That’s why I said “proper” native port.

As I said. I ran some PC games through GPT because “lol it’s the best” and some of the Mac ports (even if it still runs through Rosetta) still performed better.

Because GPTK was not made to be Proton. D3DMetal being used as a compatibility layer was complete accident and Apple even admitted they had no idea that people would use it like that, but aren't against the idea of people using it in that capacity and have been slowly changing the license of D3DMetal so it can be used in other stuff like CrossOver. Plus D3DMetal has not had the time and work put in that Proton has had. Proton took years, and lots of blood and sweat from Valve and the Linux community at large to get to where it is now that Linux ports have become obsolete and developers can easily support their games on Linux with little to no effort. D3DMetal currently is not made to be like that, but with changes to the license and time and effort it could.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

Resident Evil was just released for iPhone, iPad, and Mac. If it sells well enough to defray the cost of development, then they’re likely to do the same with future games. Which is really the only way a healthy “MacOS gaming” (meaning games developed for the Mac, not running through a compatibility layer) market happens. Subsidies mean the profit motive is “I’m breaking even, even if my game doesn’t sell well.”

Best I remember, there is always 1 or 2 big games released for the Mac every few years. The implication is always the same: if it makes enough profit, more big games will follow. Rinse & repeat. I've been a Mac owning guy for over 20 years now, Mac user for perhaps a decade+ longer than that. I've seen this same thing play out over and over and over again. Hype up that games are coming to Mac with words, take notice of 1 or 2 that actually do show up and fuel the hope that this is the beginning of some major rollout of many AAA games, and then... it all fades away again... only to rise up again in another 3-4 years.

Big money (subsidy) will bring big games. Buying major studios and keeping them going but developing for Mac will bring big games. Stop pounding a major game player with legal muscle will encourage developers to consider developing for Mac.

Else, same story, dusted off for about the 5th time that I've been a Mac owner. I want to be more optimistic but fool me once... shame on Apple... fool me twice- or up to 5 times- and that's entirely me. My gaming on Mac excitement will rise when Apple starts doing what the big gaming dogs are doing now... which are those things. I have zero faith in "build it (superior tech- which is actually arguable if superior is about gaming tech) and they will come."

 

[djphat2000]

If Apple is serious about high end Mac gaming, then the Game Porting Toolkit is not enough. App notarization needs to go, D3DMetal needs to be made open source and allowed to be put in commercial products, and maybe even a system wide compatibility layer needs to be implemented similarly to Steam Proton, because for many developers it's too little too late as most would rather just support Windows and Linux since it's miles easier and their APIs already work.

I was curious so I clicked on his direct youtube page to see whatelse he does/did. He worked for Blizzard for 7 years. Which is cool. And if I remember correctly, they make Mac ports of some of their games. So clearly it's possible, even back then in the before times to port games to Mac hardware. I don't think $800 for a Mac mini and $100 a year for developer membership hurt them much. And .02% of total sales was most likely a million or so bucks a year for them.

Looking up 2022 numbers for blizzard annual sales (Google search). $7,528,000,000 (billion). It's about $1.5 million on the mac side. If his numbers are right, and that accounted for all mac games sold (assuming it's not just one game). Should cover the cost of his salary and whatever mini's they needed to purchase. Plus 1 year of developer membership. Even if they paid him and 9 other guys $100k a year. They still make half a million. I assume they paid him less and maybe only had him and like 3 other people working this if his statement on work treatment are correct (no reason to doubt him).

It's pocket change for Blizzard I get that. But, it's not that bad.

If Mac Gaming was a thing, we all win.

100%. It's a risk vs reward business. Its has to be successful otherwise it was a wasted effort and people don't make money. So risking anything for a platform with the least amount of paying customers and hardware (generally) that simply can't run the game properly. IS a waste of time (and money). No one should or want to do that. However. it's not like it hasn't been done before on the mac. And if anything we have learned from the past attempts to bring more games to the mac have shown. Is that we want more games on the platform.

Mac users aren't PC users. We didn't buy a Mac "for" gaming. We want to be able to play games though. And something we want most of all is native games that run well. Which is unfortunately hard to do. I personally think Apple is making its best effort here with the GPTK and hardware that supports the features of modern AAA games on the SoC. It is now all a common hardware and software platform that will keep it simple (or simpler) for any developer to bring a game over. Not just to the mac or just to the iPhone but to both. They have the ability to get customers across Apple's ecosystem. That solves the .02% of sales problem. I'm sure EPIC made money on the iPhone port of Fortnite. Otherwise they wouldn't have complained so much about the 30% cut to Apple for IAP. Make a good game, and people will purchase it.

Making a game run on Apple hardware isn't the obstacle the video makes it out to be. It's doable, and others have proven it. I'm not saying that person was treated great at Blizzard or that he's a fraud or anything like that. I'm sure he's 100% honest in his assessment. But, if we went off that one comment of buy this spend that use Xcode, and start over when it fails. As the end all be all. We wouldn't have any games on the platform. I agree he should be paid what he is worth. That goes for anyone anywhere. I'm happy for him that Amazon is paying him well.

 

[smetvid]

Still a niche platform. Yep a better one but sells 10x the number of cards per year as Mac’s and they run circles around the chips. Apple is either going to have to pay to port or support egpus if they’re serious about it.

very few eGPUs can outperform the higher end Apple Silicon GPUs now. Those that can would be very expensive and likely not save much over just getting a higher end Mac.

I used eGPUs and still have an enclosure I now use for a video capture card and Thunderbolt is a bottleneck that will never run those graphics cards at their full potential. Plus the driver support was very complicated and not worth the hassle at all.

The hardware is no longer lacking at all and on par with almost any PC option. Yes the standard M3 is not super fast but that's also true of budget graphics cards for the PC. The M3 Max is extremely impressive at what it can do when the software is written to utilize it well. Especially since it can do that on battery power. PC laptop GPUs run at much slower speeds than their desktop versions and on battery power run at even lower performance.

In many ways Mac laptops ar way beyond PC laptops for gaming hardware now. At least when talking about actually playing on battery power and being portable.

The only thing and I really mean the only thing holding back the Mac now for gaming is gaming companies supporting the hardware. The ball is 100% in their court now. Metal is amazing as is Apple Silicon. There are no more excuses except game companies pretending the sales are to there enough to justify hiring talent to port games to Mac.

 

[Heat_Fan89]

Nintendo Switch still manages to have great games with technology that was behind the iPad back in 2017.

Focusing on games is not about the technology. It’s about the games.

That's been Nintendo's mantra since the GameCube days. They don't care about specs, it is all about their games library. I remember being floored by Metroid Prime, Viewtiful Joe, Pikman, Eternal Darkness. The funny thing about Nintendo's hardware is that they can pull off incredible stuff on aging hardware. Supposedly the GameCube was an overclocked N64.

 

[Ethosik]

Because GPTK was not made to be Proton. D3DMetal being used as a compatibility layer was complete accident and Apple even admitted they had no idea that people would use it like that, but aren't against the idea of people using it in that capacity and have been slowly changing the license of D3DMetal so it can be used in other stuff like CrossOver. Plus D3DMetal has not had the time and work put in that Proton has had. Proton took years, and lots of blood and sweat from Valve and the Linux community at large to get to where it is now that Linux ports have become obsolete. D3DMetal currently is not made to be like that, but with changes to the license and time and effort it could.

It’s still not possible. As a developer your code running as low level as possible gives you the best performance. So a proper native port will always perform better due to having less layers to deal with.

The majority of the time devs are too lazy to optimize so you are correct in that regard that there might be some benefit there. But there is not a chance that something being translated/emulated/or any other layer involved will perform better than something WITHOUT those things. Again…..properly done meaning well optimized here. If you are a coder you would understand this.

Heck as a gamer you might understand with the DRM involved in the code on some games. Just taking that out improves the game drastically. Why? Anything that prevents the game from running as low level and as fast as possible causes performance issues.

 

[Paradoxally]

Having folks being vocal online doesn’t yield sales… though. The advantage for Nintendo is literally that they make things at a level of quality that enough people find the value worth the cost to acquire it. TOTK is no different from an exclusive on any other system. If someone wants to play it, they’ll buy the hardware to play it.

TOTK is absolutely different from an exclusive on another system.

Let's take Starfield as an example:

- It's on GamePass and Steam
- I don't need to buy the game, just subscribe to Game Pass
- I can play it on Series consoles and PC
- Saves are cross-platform

Any Nintendo first-party title:

- Has no Game Pass system
- I need to buy the game - which almost never drops in price
- I can't play it outside the Switch without an emulator

When I was a kid, I used to love Nintendo. They dominated the portable gaming space, with even the successful PSP not coming close to the DS in sales. The Wii was a revolution.

Nintendo is no longer an innovator, they lag behind the competition: they haven't released a new console in over 6 years and are clinging on to the first-party titles as their saving grace. They have terrible online services. They charge for everything (virtual console games). This is a not a company I will give my money to.