It's never gonna happen, Apple.
You don't support DirectX 12.
You don't even support Vulkan. No, Metal is not the answer.
Why would game devs compile for the Mac? They are better off just compiling for Windows and Linux, which isn't
a pain to do.
That's not true. I'm not sure if you really understand what graphics APIs are.
Firstly, Apple is never going to make DirectX 12 their primary graphics API. DirectX is a Microsoft-controlled proprietary interface - it is not an open standard, nobody except Microsoft can contribute to it, and any quirks or bugs present in Microsoft's implementation would have to be replicated exactly for compatibility. It is designed to work with Windows, its driver model, and the way PCs interact with hardware, and is not necessarily optimal for Apple's devices, which are definitely NOT IBM-compatible PCs. Microsoft does not (and never will) care about Apple devices when it designs DirectX.
It's important to remember that Apple isn't the same company they were in the 1990s - Apple today is a multi-trillion dollar company - one of the largest on Earth - and Apple platforms today include billions of devices. Just in 2022, Apple sold >319 million Metal-capable devices - 232 million iPhones, 61 million iPads, and 26 million Macs. And all of those are running custom Apple Silicon, which works nothing like a PC, and includes an Apple-designed GPU.
It is one of the biggest consumer computing platforms on Earth. The idea that they shouldn't design an optimal graphics API which suits their hardware and software, and should instead copy whatever Microsoft designs for their entirely different kinds of hardware and software, is frankly ludicrous.
Vulkan is an open standard and so there is more of an argument there. Apple is a member of the Khronos Group and can contribute to the design of Vulkan, ensuring that it can be implemented efficiently on their devices.
But even then, there is no reason to abandon Metal. Because Apple designs their hardware to run Metal well, and Metal is designed for Apple Silicon, it always offers the best performance. But, as projects such as MoltenVK demonstrate, that is sufficient to support the Vulkan interface. The Game Porting Toolkit takes that further, by demonstrating that it is sufficient to run almost all DX12 and Vulkan games.
This is not a unique situation.
No Playstation has ever supported any version of DirectX (for the same reasons that Apple don't). If you want the best performance on a Playstation, you'll have to use Sony's own graphics APIs, GNM and GNMX, which are their equivalent of Metal. Developers can write their own Vulkan compatibility layers (like an equivalent of MoltenVK), but AAA games will want to use GNM, just like they'll want to use Metal on an Apple device.
It's a very similar situation on the Nintendo Switch. It includes support for Vulkan, but it also supports NVidia's proprietary NVAPI graphics API. Because the Switch is already so starved for power, basically nobody uses Vulkan - if you want the best performance (and AAA games on Switch definitely do), you need the proprietary API designed for that platform.
So the idea that Apple - which sells faaaaaar more devices than Sony and Nintendo combined - also has its own graphics API, is not surprising in the least.
Also, the video you linked to is full of crap:
1. Yeah, you need a Mac to build a game for the Mac. No surprise there. If a AAA game developer has problems financing an $800 Mac mini, they have bigger problems.
2. Firstly, you don't need to pay for an Apple developer program membership to build for the Mac. But even if you did, it's $99 - again, not a big deal for a AAA game studio. If they're struggling with that, how can they afford to pay their employees?
Again, this is not a unique situation, and is much easier than developing on most consoles. To make a Playstation game, you need to submit an application which is subject to thorough review, typically you also need a major publisher to sponsor your application - assuming you get approved, you need to sign strict NDAs, and obtaining test hardware will cost many thousands more. The test hardware also needs to constantly phone home to Sony and will expire in order to prevent resale.
But sure - it's that one-off process of buying a Mac that's
really difficult.
3. You don't need to use Xcode to build, although it is the preferred way. Again, this is similar to Windows, where Visual Studio is preferred but it is possible to use a command-line interface.
4. Then we get to the final point -- the real reason they're not supporting the Mac -- that is was only 0.02% of their sales, so wasn't worth it. That's
the only reasonable point in the video. And yeah - I can understand that if it only brings in a tiny amount of money, it won't be worth investing developer time porting the game to the Metal API, or learning how to set up a build and test workflow, or doing QA and providing customer support. Platform support isn't free; but that's a business case, not a technical case. The hoops they need to jump through are nothing close to what Sony or Nintendo demand, but the sales figures mean there's a business justification so developers have to accept it.
