FUN FACT: Halo was originally going to be a Mac OS X-only game. Microsoft, sensing what could happen and needing a breakaway hit for the XBox, bought Bungie...and now we have the Halo we know today.
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Exclusive AAA games during first mac announcement event?
- Thread starter themichiel
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FUN FACT: Halo was originally going to be a Mac OS X-only game. Microsoft, sensing what could happen and needing a breakaway hit for the XBox, bought Bungie...and now we have the Halo we know today.
There is no hope for a AAA game exclusive to Apple Silicon. There are ten times as many Windows PCs as Macs. When the Apple Silicon machines first debut, they will likely be the entry-level models: MacBook Air, Mac mini, maybe the smallest iMac. Even a month after they start shipping, they will comprise probably less than 0.05% of all PCs deployed worldwide.
There is no game developer who is going to spend millions of dollars in game development to see tens of thousands of people be able to play its masterwork.
There is no game developer who is going to spend millions of dollars in game development to see tens of thousands of people be able to play its masterwork.
That is why you have to also throw iOS into the mix..... But i agree, no exclusives, possibly existing AAA games aimed at iOS that happen to work with AS Macs.
That's a vastly different scenario than OP's inquiry.
I could envision the possibility an iOS+ASi AAA game at launch because the developer would have the incentive of the mobile userbase. The Mac gaming community is so small as to be pretty insignificant for most game developers.
I could envision the possibility an iOS+ASi AAA game at launch because the developer would have the incentive of the mobile userbase. The Mac gaming community is so small as to be pretty insignificant for most game developers.
Most modern AAA games target 4k resolutions on consoles with 5400rpm hard drives and extremely poor CPU performance. That leads to less compressed game files (to reduce CPU load) and duplicates of objects to increase performance on hard drives. AAA games aimed at iOS will likely be very similar to Nintendo Switch ports (lower res textures as well as other optimizations to reduce size). Take Doom 2016 for example, around 15-20gb space on the switch while the Xbox One variant is close to 70gb. 15-20gb is still a large amount of space but it is double on most devices that would have the power to run it.
I guess I should have been less categoric, but no, 256 GB is not enough. If your game requires the most expensive iPad Pros, then you're in trouble.
I know about object duplication in games ressources, but does it really make a big difference in size?
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Not 100% true.
DOOM for Nintendo Switch - Nintendo Official Site
Buy DOOM and shop other great Nintendo products online at the official My Nintendo Store.
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I really dont think we gonna see AAA games in AS. Because Mac itself is extremly un-popular platform for gaming but iOS is. If they can allow AAA PC and console games to play on not only Mac but also iPhone and iPad with an unified platform, then it might make sense.
Here's a more direct comparison.
Fortnite takes up 5.6GB on my five-year-old iPad mini 4th generation (128GB capacity).
Fortnite on my custom built Windows PC takes up 95.6GB.
Both devices play the game at roughly the same resolution:
- iPad mini 4: 2048 x 1536 pixels (QXGA resolution)
- Dell 32" monitor (Windows PC): 2560 x 1440 pixels (QHD resolution)
That's right: the Windows version takes up 17x more storage. I never installed Fortnite on my Mac mini but I'm guessing its storage requirements would have been closer to the Windows version than the iOS/iPadOS version.
Fortnite is not on my 512GB iPhone XS.
Storage doesn't appear to be a limiting factor for gaming on iOS devices.
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Not as much as removing 4 or 8k textures for sure but it does still make a difference... Especially for these battle royal large map games.
^Good point with fortnite.... Honestly forgot that it is pretty much an identical game on both platforms.
The fact of the matter is, AAA games don't have to take up as much space as they do currently.... They certainly don't have to take up that much space on a mobile device.
Why would any AAA game developer choose to target such a small, niche market? Apple would have to pay ridiculous amounts of money to get that to happen and I still doubt AAA developers would bother. The only way this would happen is if Apple started buying gaming studios and that's not there business.
Macs just aren't for AAA games. Never have been. Never will.
With consoles finally coming with SSD standard we should see the need for object duplication reduced. That still leaves high resolution textures and models to take up storage space. Maybe games will fall back to using procedurally generated geometry to curb some of it.
I think I asked if Apple has something like direct storage to get rid of or reduce loading screens.
Apple could do an "Epic", pay a studio for an AAA game for a period of months or a year to be Mac exclusive. Then the game can be released for other platforms later.
right on the money.
Also, Jobs was so upset after this that you could say was when he lost interest in gaming and hence Macs started to be less atractive to developers, specially with the barrage of weak and non upgradable gpus that came after.
How much of this difference is due to the use of low-resolution textures? I suppose a lot.
I still think 256 GB is not enough to enjoy AAA games. Managing storage would be a hassle if you also take photos and videos on your device.
An most iDevices come with 128GB or less. This is difficult for those porting games to these devices. I got this directly from a Feral developper: storage size is a big issue.
As for the Halo episode, I don't think it made a big difference. Even the intel transition didn't. Macs have never been attractive to game studios, and will never be, unless the user base dramatically increases.
As noted many times in this thread, the only way to get more games on the Mac is via iOS games.
Bungie developed Marathon, a Mac only first person shooter, way back when. Halo was a developement of Marathon, or more accurately, a follow on, and was supposed to be Mac only, until Microsoft bought them (and eventually, ran them into the ground).
Ah, sweet memories. And whereas in Doom you could only shoot level and still would hit someone standing up high, with Marathon you had to aim properly also up and down ... to a certain degree. And no crosshairs. One had just to learn where the weapon would hit. I loved the Marathon series.
Apple definitely has the cash, being a company valued at over two trillion $imoleons...
And I am pretty sure there would be plenty of folks who did not want to wait SIX MONTHS to play GTA:VI & would pony up for at least a Mac mini for the opportunity...!
I'd give this a less than zero chance. I'm not sure how else to say this.
Being Mac exclusive would mean that whatever studio would make the game is deliberately skipping out on 90% of the desktop market. For a AAA game, that's just not financially feasible.
Let's be realistic, if Apple shows off gaming at all, it will likely be a demanding title that's been ported to ASi, sans benchmarks. Or it will be playing iOS games on the Mac at full res or something.