Everything. Many games for PCs are ported to consoles, and many games for consoles are rewritten for PCs. They are not entirely separate categories – especially now, when even the cheapest consoles have the firepower to double as consoles if only Nintendo, Sony or Microsoft would allow them to.
As many console gamers would tell you, MOST games on the iPhone are quick cash grabs and pay-to-win. It's either that, or they are cheaper in quality than their console / PC counterparts, with less features.
Just compare Mario Kart Tour with Mario Kart 8.
There's no comparison. Mario Kart Tour is riddled with microtransactions.
But the most aggravating point is that once the game is removed from the App Store in the iPhone, you can't install it on your phone anymore, whereas you absolutely CAN do that on your PC – even games on the Steam store can be backed up and played without Steam, if you ever fear a game will get removed from your library.
That alone is not only cost-saving for users, but helps preserve history. Apple's choice only preserve Apple's wallet.
I know all about that but that still didn’t answer my question. Porting PC games to consoles or vice versa doesn’t impact Mac gaming or the number of native AS games in any way. In your explanation you neither mention Mac nor show a connection. Your question was about the number of native AS games which you totally underestimated, not how that compares to other numbers, because there is always a bigger fish to compare with. I’m sure even if there were 5000 native AS games, more than Switch, people still would say it pales to the PC titles, or PC and console titles combined, or Macs get old games and are expensive. As usual people always find a reason to crack down on Mac, just like yourself.
It’s absurd that people complain about the size of the selection of Mac games and expect it to be as large as PC games or else it ”sucks” when they know Mac only has 2.48% of Steam user base. Despite that small user base 26% of Steam games are Mac compatible. Linux user base on Steam and the number of native 64-bit games for it are about half the size of Mac’s or less. One could even say Linux numbers ”pales” in comparison to Mac. No, I’m not counting Proton/Wine, just as you don’t count Rosetta/Wine and similar working games on Mac.
The rest about cash grabbing games on iPhone and disappearing games is still not relevant to the discussion, just another way of shifting focus. As if many games on PC and Android aren’t cash grabbing junks? We weren’t discussing iPhone gaming either. I only mentioned iPhone/iPad games to show there is always a bigger fish to compare with because you chose to compare console titles with Mac.
So you’re saying because of App Store’s terms Mac gaming is bad? We weren’t discussing App Store’s terms and conditions, but the number of native AS games. You do realize Mac gamers are not only limited to MAS? We can buy games on Steam, GOG, Epic and Macgamestore too. In fact I have purchased all my Mac games anywhere but on MAS. As for new MAS exclusive titles like RE Village you can compare it to exclusive games on Epic Game Store and at the moment it’s a price we have to pay for getting new titles since Apple has to earn back some of their investments in new games.
You seem to only focus on the problems and not the solutions. While it’s individual people who want to play old retro games are in minority, especially PC gamers who always brag about the number of games in their library or all the new or upcoming games. Who has the time to replay old games with all the new goodies flooding the market all the time? I see constantly gamers on Steam, GOG, Epic and elsewhere joking or complaining about their huge backlog with hundreds of games, especially with all the free games that are given away every day or week but this is forgotten in discussions like this. On one hand PC gamers mock Macs for not having many or new games. On the other hand they complain about not being able to play old games on Mac. It’s called double binding.
Those who want to hold on to old games can still make a backup and play without launching MAS just like Steam. Every purchased game on MAS or Apple Arcade downloads to your local storage and you can play them as long as you want in the future without a store launcher even if they’re removed from the store. Some games like the new RE Village require network connection and you can’t reinstall a removed game but that’s a discussion about different stores, not about Mac Gaming or native titles. And if you want to preserve history you can always keep your old device with your old apps on it. Even on PC there is no guarantee your old saved games would work with future OS and HW without problem. Another solution is to have an external drive like me for installing and saving all your games. Then you don’t even have to download and install them again on a new device. Just connect the drive and you’re ready to go.
You put the blame on Apple but many times devs are the ones to blame too. If they decide to remove their apps completely Apple has to follow their decision. One recent example is Embracer who pulled the plug on popular mobile games like Deus Ex GO and Hitman Sniper: The Shadows. As of Jan 4th customers not only aren’t able to buy and download already purchased games but can’t even access them anymore. Steam’s terms and conditions don’t allow that but Apple let the devs decide. Yet many decade old 32-bit games can still be downloaded and it’s not as if Apple suddenly removes the games. Often they give people and devs a chance to find a solution. They announced they were dropping support for 32-bit in 2016 and started removing apps two years later, but you can still download many old payed 32-bit apps.
Except you conveniently ignore that WINE under Apple Silicon requires Rosetta to run (and Crossover, by extension).
The moment Rosetta breaks, WINE / Crossover WILL break.
That doesn't happen under x86 / x64.
WINE COULD use Box86 / Box64 as a replacement when Rosetta is finally removed, but it's nowhere as good as Rosetta is. Even if we are talking 6 years from now, chances are it'll be better, but still not as great, because WINE as a whole moves very slowly (I've been following it for 20+ years).
But I think you are ignoring the most important point of all: why should I bother with translation layers to have performance inferior to x86 AT A HIGHER PRICE when I can just purchase a x86 machine and obtain it natively?
There are gaming laptops (and even handheld PCs at this point – just look at GPD Win 4), with very nice performance and screens.
You seem to try really hard to prove that Macs are bad not only for gaming but for everything, with all the goalposts moving and despite denying it. I mean first you say Mac gaming is really bad because there are only 12 native AS games. Then when corrected you say 250 is still really bad. Then you say thousands of fully playable 64-bit games on AS is still really bad because Rosetta games don’t count. Then you say Wine games count neither despite counting them on the Linux side. Then you say all these games pale to the number of Switch games, then they pale to the number of Console games. Then you throw in complaints about the App Store as if it’s he only option and finally the old age complaint about Macs being expensive.
If the state of Mac gaming is really bad this type of focus shifting is worse but I guess it fits perfectly this thread’s title, devious marketing. You could have just said ”Macs are bad” from the beginning and be done with it instead of this long agenda, because once you finally threw in the price argument as ”the most important point of all” it became clear you think Macs are bad in every way. If Macs are expensive for gaming they’re expensive for everything because there is always a better cheaper PC option according to you.
Why would you bother buying an inferior Mac at a higher price? I don’t know. Nobody buys a Mac at higher price to only play games. People use Crossover for $74 a year to not having to buy another computer or gaming device for $1000 like that GDP Win 4. I don’t see anybody here trying to force or convince you to buy a Mac. So why complain about something you don’t even care about enough to buy or use unless you get some personal satisfaction from telling people their choice of computer is inferior? You’re the one coming to a Mac forum trying to convince us Macs are really bad in every way. Buy whatever you want and do whatever you want with it instead of trying to preach about our ”Mac sins”.
I don’t want to be picky but first you got the number of native AS games grossly wrong, then you got the percentage calculation wrong (trying to correct me) and now you say Wine/Crossover on Mac will break because Rosetta will? And you have followed it for 20+ years? And it will take at least 6 years from now to update it for ARM/AS? It appears more and more that you’re not a Mac owner/user and don’t follow related news despite all your opinions. Following something is not the same as working with it. Codeweavers themselves tell a different story about Crossover/Wine. In 2021 they
wrote:
”We ARE building out support for ARM based devices. We demonstrated our first working solution of CrossOver running on ARM over five years ago. While the technology is currently still in its infancy AND the performance is currently unacceptable, we believe that at our current rate of development that the technology will continue to improve to a point where it will be usable directly on ARM based devices. That point is difficult to predict; but we believe that we’re at least 12 – 18 months away. AND AGAIN, it is on our technology roadmap. When this solution is viable, we will include it in a future release of CrossOver.
If and when Apple does decide to remove or eliminate Rosetta2, we will likely be prepared. Technology changes, and CodeWeavers has managed these changes for the past 25 years (past 15 years on macOS). We were able to transform our technology to support macOS (then known as OS X) in 2006; able to manage the deprecation of OpenGL in OS X in favor of Apple’s METAL in 2018; able to manage the elimination of 32-bit application support in 2019; and managed the introduction of the Apple Silicon processors in 2020 while in the midst of a worldwide pandemic. We’re fortunate to employ really smart and really clever people that are dedicated to supporting our customers and our technology. And if at some point Intel Macs go away for good, we will again transform ourselves accordingly.”
You sound as if everybody is sitting and rolling their thumbs until Rosetta disappears or as if Codeweavers are just starting to work on the project when they already started about 7 years ago. Since that update in 2021 they’ve been working on it for another 20 months and they have another 3 years to polish it, if and when Rosetta disappears. Meanwhile as I said before developers like Aspyr are also updating their old catalog to Apple Silicon.
Rosetta’s job is to emulate Intel processors by translating the instructions. Since Wine already has
ARM support it can run directly on Apple Silicon when Rosetta is gone and Wine has developed further. There are also projects like
Hangover to run x86_64/x86_32 Windows applications on aarch64/ppc64le/x86_64 Wine and project
MGL to run OpenGL 4.6 on Metal. Also Metal 3 introduced features that are available in
Vulkan bringing the two much closer to each other with the help of MoltenVK. Let’s not forget about Windows on ARM either. It can be the next Bootcamp in the near future after Rosetta.
Wine moves very slowly? True in the past when it took years for each new version to come out (1993, 2008, 2010, 2012, 2013) but now they release a new version every year. 7 was released last year and they just released
Wine 8 with support for x86 applications on ARM which will probably be used in Crossover. So the future is brighter than you’re describing.
