So did Apple give up on gaming?

[Adarna]

It's such a bummer since most iOS games aren't available and optimize for AS Mac so far.

Apple's just laughing themselves to the bank.

It would be very bad form for Apple to compete with the gaming companies that use their App Store.

Apple fanbois will be complaining why their M1 Max Mac cannot play games when the hardware rivals those from AMD & Nvidia.

Apple could care less as that market demands frictionless parts replacements for upgrades.

 

[Joe Dohn]

Apple's just laughing themselves to the bank.

It would be very bad form for Apple to compete with the gaming companies that use their App Store.

Apple fanbois will be complaining why their M1 Max Mac cannot play games when the hardware rivals those from AMD & Nvidia.

Apple could care less as that market demands frictionless parts replacements for upgrades.

If Apple keeps on this path, they will eventually pay for their arrogance. True enough, they achieved groundbreaking performance with Apple Silicon. But Intel won't stay behind forever. And if they somehow do, AMD will catch up.

We already have gaming devices that fit the palm of your hand, and are good enough to play AAA games – the GPD series comes to mind. If you find their performance lacking, well, you can simply use an eGPU – oh, and you can actually replace the motherboard too.

The only way Apple somehow proves they are right is if their Apple silicon chips keep exponentially increasing in power to the point you can run emulated / virtualized solutions that are on par with Windows on bare metal. So far, M1 Pro / M1 Pro Max results proved disappointing on gaming with Rosetta. I'm waiting for results on Parallels to see if Windows ARM + translation layers give better results.

 

[JouniS]

This doesn't make sense. If I really want to lock in people in my new platform, then a very effective strategy is to make customers need the other platform less and less while using my platform for everything. The way it is, Apple is forcing you to pick a Windows machine if you want high-performance gaming. It would be ideal for them if their platform could do everything a Windows PC can do, while still having features only they offer. Why would I buy a Windows PC and an Apple PC / device if I can just keep an Apple-centric workflow?

The Apple business model is about profits, not market share. They like to keep their focus narrow. They want to reinvent the wheel once in a while, which is only possible if they can drop support for legacy wheels quickly without having to think about niche use cases.

PC gaming is not only about playing the latest AAA games but also about playing old favorites from 10-20 years ago. If Apple wanted to compete against Windows PCs on gaming, they would have to continue supporting 32-bit Intel binaries for the foreseeable future. In reality, Apple already dropped the support, and they are already planning to drop support for all Intel binaries in a few years.

 

[Slartibart]

I get that it would be great to have the en vogue gaming titles on actually every platform.
Apple owns big gaming platforms. Apparently with a lot of incentive to develop for it. But it seems IMHO silly to blame Apple when a Publisher decides not to support it (for quite a variety of reasons). Even sillier to say “that doesn’t count/mobile isn’t real gaming”.
Apple and a lot of their MacOS-users are okay with the current state, I wager. For all the rest I just rediscovered the “ignore”-function here at MR. ?

 

[Joe Dohn]

The Apple business model is about profits, not market share. They like to keep their focus narrow.

I don't buy that completely. It's clear that Apple does want a share from the gaming market, and are expecting developers to eventually and spontaneously migrate to their powerful chip. But it's not going to happen without Apple being less hostile to cross compatibility. Even supporting EGPUs again would be a big step in the right direction, because it could at least allow for GPU passthrough.

PC gaming is not only about playing the latest AAA games but also about playing old favorites from 10-20 years ago. If Apple wanted to compete against Windows PCs on gaming, they would have to continue supporting 32-bit Intel binaries for the foreseeable future.

True enough. Which is why I insist on embracing virtualization. It would be a way to allow for legacy solutions without supporting them directly. Apple's devices are already powerful enough for that. But Apple insists on breaking compatibility with cross-compatible solutions based on the delusion that developers will magically port games to their wonderful hardware.

 

[Joe Dohn]

Apple owns big gaming platforms. Apparently with a lot of incentive to develop for it. But it seems IMHO silly to blame Apple when a Publisher decides not to support it (for quite a variety of reasons). Even sillier to say “that doesn’t count/mobile isn’t real gaming”.

Fair enough. It may be the fault of the developers, but we must face how the market is, not how it should be. If Apple really wants to embrace gaming, they will need to lure gamers / developers somehow.

Because suppose I need a job, and I am indeed the most able person in my area, but no one gives me a chance. Should I just stop looking for work because people are being unfair to me, or try something else?

My example is analogous to Apple's situation. Sure, they have awesome hardware, but people aren't giving it a chance. Which means Apple will have to try something else and adapt to the market if they really want to increase their share.

 

[Adarna]

If Apple keeps on this path, they will eventually pay for their arrogance. True enough, they achieved groundbreaking performance with Apple Silicon. But Intel won't stay behind forever. And if they somehow do, AMD will catch up.

We already have gaming devices that fit the palm of your hand, and are good enough to play AAA games – the GPD series comes to mind. If you find their performance lacking, well, you can simply use an eGPU – oh, and you can actually replace the motherboard too.

The only way Apple somehow proves they are right is if their Apple silicon chips keep exponentially increasing in power to the point you can run emulated / virtualized solutions that are on par with Windows on bare metal. So far, M1 Pro / M1 Pro Max results proved disappointing on gaming with Rosetta. I'm waiting for results on Parallels to see if Windows ARM + translation layers give better results.

You're basing your statements on a very narrow and limited use case r/PCMasterRace & not how over a billion iPhone users use them.

Apple did not become a nearly $3 trillion company by catering to frictionless parts replacement market that dominates PC gamers.

Triple A titles have comparably small revenues than the App Store. It only matters to you because their marketing is very effective on you.

Apple has shipped more iPhones & iPads than the whole Intel/AMD PC industry combined. Apple is not wanting for revenue.

They let others cater to that frictionless parts replacement PC market as it is too expensive & bothersome to cater in the same way that Apple decided to let others cater to the sub-$999 desktop/laptop market, sub-$399 smartphone market and the sub-$329 tablet market.

As pointed out by sunny5 gaming revenue favors smartphones/tablets & and not Windows anymore.

Apple can easily ignore your gaming interests because the net plus to them is not worth their time. Let small time companies like Intel/AMD/Nvidia cater to it. Hell, they should be thankful Apple aint interested or they'd lose their shirts.

 

[Adarna]

The Apple business model is about profits, not market share. They like to keep their focus narrow. They want to reinvent the wheel once in a while, which is only possible if they can drop support for legacy wheels quickly without having to think about niche use cases.

PC gaming is not only about playing the latest AAA games but also about playing old favorites from 10-20 years ago. If Apple wanted to compete against Windows PCs on gaming, they would have to continue supporting 32-bit Intel binaries for the foreseeable future. In reality, Apple already dropped the support, and they are already planning to drop support for all Intel binaries in a few years.

To expound Apple business model is to dominate the top 20% of any market get at least the top 80% of the market's profit/revenue.

r/PCMasterRace is a market they'd rater not serve as they cannot leverage their business model effectively. Too much compromises that allows for unhindered competition.

When Windows on ARM stops being a joke x86 will end up only being relevant to legacy support. AMD & Intel may shrink to 20% of their current size.

I say this as ARM SoC makers like Qualcomm ship worldwide more than 1 billion Android smartphones annually. Intel/AMD does not make more CPUs than Apple sells SoCs.

 

[Adarna]

I don't buy that completely. It's clear that Apple does want a share from the gaming market, and are expecting developers to eventually and spontaneously migrate to their powerful chip. But it's not going to happen without Apple being less hostile to cross compatibility. Even supporting EGPUs again would be a big step in the right direction, because it could at least allow for GPU passthrough.



True enough. Which is why I insist on embracing virtualization. It would be a way to allow for legacy solutions without supporting them directly. Apple's devices are already powerful enough for that. But Apple insists on breaking compatibility with cross-compatible solutions based on the delusion that developers will magically port games to their wonderful hardware.

Expand your horizons outside of PC gaming. You'll be surprised that PC gaming's a drop in the bucket compared to Apple's other more lucrative ventures.

Apple would like more game devs on Apple Silicon but they're not willing to compromise their business model for a shrinking & comparably unprofitable market that takes more effort to earn that little.

 

[Slartibart]

Microsoft gets most of this right. For example, they are actively developing a good WSL (Windows subsystem for Linux). This means that not only you can run Linux within Windows, but do it with very good performance, killing any need for dual boot.

I pretty sure that you can do that at least since Mac OS X 10.3. Actually no additional subsystem needed. Apple’s X11 for Mac OS X or Xquartz. Nowadays Homebrew&Co. make this easypeasy. ?

 

[Joe Dohn]

You're basing your statements on a very narrow and limited use case r/PCMasterRace & not how over a billion iPhone users use them.

I was talking about the desktops, not phones. It's clear that phones have a very different user case. They are portable devices used for communication which have to be reliable, first and foremost. And the iPhone is good at it while being easy to use.

Apple did not become a nearly $3 trillion company by catering to frictionless parts replacement market that dominates PC gamers.

My reasoning was just, "here is what I think Apple has to do if they want to take the gaming market more seriously".

I think this sort of argument that "Apple doesn't need you" is not only a strawman designed to make the other person look stupid, but it doesn't benefit anyone. It doesn't benefit Apple, which can't penetrate on the gaming market more seriously, and it doesn't benefit users, which have less choices.

The way it is now, Apple desktops are dangerously positioned as niche computers for content creation. If you need heavy content creation, sure, go for the very expensive pro computers. But seriously, why would you need the desktops when you can edit content on the iPhone and the iPad? Because you're aware that most of this 3 trillion income comes from their mobile devices, right? So, what happens to Apple if somehow they lose their upper hand on mobile? After all, their profit is dangerously concentrated there.

 

[Joe Dohn]

I pretty sure that you can do that at least since Mac OS X 10.3. Actually no additional subsystem needed. Apple’s X11 for Mac OS X or Xquartz. Nowadays Homebrew&Co. make this easypeasy. ?

While OS X is ultimately a Unix system, you can't run Linux systems on it like you can on Windows. Specifically, Windows has Linux kernel integration, it runs much faster and seamlessly. It's not just e.g, an RDP solution.

 

[Joe Dohn]

Expand your horizons outside of PC gaming. You'll be surprised that PC gaming's a drop in the bucket compared to Apple's other more lucrative ventures.

Apple would like more game devs on Apple Silicon but they're not willing to compromise their business model for a shrinking & comparably unprofitable market that takes more effort to earn that little.

Well, I guess I'll end the discussion, because you're not open to the possibility of Apple changing to accomodate for a gaming ecosystem. And frankly, I'm not being paid to keep here arguing.

If you think Apple is doing well the way they are, go for it. But honestly, I think agreeing with everything Apple does is toxic for Apple itself.

 

[Slartibart]

I don't buy that completely. It's clear that Apple does want a share from the gaming market, and are expecting developers to eventually and spontaneously migrate to their powerful chip. But it's not going to happen without Apple being less hostile to cross compatibility. Even supporting EGPUs again would be a big step in the right direction, because it could at least allow for GPU passthrough.

but Apple supported eGPUs for years. Used the same Intel chips. Even tried to incentivise developers like Aspyr and others to port games to the Mac. And?

*crickets*

 

[tpfang56]

I want to know how many people in college purchased a Windows machine specifically because they want to play games during their downtime, I reckon it's a large portion of people. I know a lot of people (including my brother sitting in his dorm right now lol) that don't want to buy a Mac because they want gaming compatibility. I know cost must play a factor.

My friend is one. She’s no longer in college, but she needs a versatile laptop that is good for both art and gaming.

If you both prefer MacOS and want to do PC gaming, you have to choice but to buy two machines. I’m still in school and can’t afford an actual gaming rig yet, so I’m sticking with my PS4 for now. My M1 MBA is great for pretty much everything else except gaming… unless all I want to play is Stardew Valley lol.

 

[Adarna]

I was talking about the desktops, not phones. It's clear that phones have a very different user case. They are portable devices used for communication which have to be reliable, first and foremost. And the iPhone is good at it while being easy to use.



My reasoning was just, "here is what I think Apple has to do if they want to take the gaming market more seriously".

I think this sort of argument that "Apple doesn't need you" is not only a strawman designed to make the other person look stupid, but it doesn't benefit anyone. It doesn't benefit Apple, which can't penetrate on the gaming market more seriously, and it doesn't benefit users, which have less choices.

The way it is now, Apple desktops are dangerously positioned as niche computers for content creation. If you need heavy content creation, sure, go for the very expensive pro computers. But seriously, why would you need the desktops when you can edit content on the iPhone and the iPad? Because you're aware that most of this 3 trillion income comes from their mobile devices, right? So, what happens to Apple if somehow they lose their upper hand on mobile? After all, their profit is dangerously concentrated there.

I mention smartphone gaming because its far more lucrative than PC gaming. Thus desktop gaming is not a priority for Apple. Their resources are better spent on iPhone/iPad because more people game on their smartphone than PCs.

Look at the data provided in this thread. PC gaming aint worth Apple's time.

You present the PC gaming industry as ridiculously lucrative and a mistake for Apple to ignore.

On the contrary it isn't worth Apple's their resources and they're better off creating the next iPhone by pioneering new industries rather than trying to enter a declining one. The margins are better and more people would buy.

I would not be surprised the AirPods or Apple Watch generates a better margin than Intel/AMD/Nvidia enjoys.

Apple doesn't care if you have less competition in PC gaming. They'd be more rewarded by their efforts to introduce an Apple Car than waste money in PC gaming.

The PC industry has been in decline since the iPhone was introduced back in 2007. Replacement cycle has lengthened from 2-3 years to 5-6 years. The reason it rebounded is because COVID-19 when the world over had people working from home on really PCs introduced earlier than 2014.

When Windows on ARM gets a final solution then AMD/Intel/Nvidia's PC gaming days would be numbered.

 

[Joe Dohn]

I'll just leave some food for thought. If I am not a content creator that has a heavy video editing workflow, why would I want to buy an expensive pro device when a cheaper Chromebook / handheld Windows device / my cellphone will do? Besides content creation, what else can Apple pro devices do that is exclusive to them?

I can number a few things on the iPad or the iPhone, but not Apple's pro devices.

 

[Adarna]

Well, I guess I'll end the discussion, because you're not open to the possibility of Apple changing to accomodate for a gaming ecosystem. And frankly, I'm not being paid to keep here arguing.

If you think Apple is doing well the way they are, go for it. But honestly, I think agreeing with everything Apple does is toxic for Apple itself.

I notice that your field of view on things is very limited. You have a lot of blind spots that you refuse to draw new knowledge from.

If I was stuck in the mindset of just PC gaming and not consumer behavior in various industries I'd act the same way too.

If you want to finally understand what I and others are talking about a bit of research on the worldwide annual shipping figures and $ sales figures of PC, smartphone, tablets, watches, wearables, apps and market positioning may help you.

Again, PC gaming of AAA titles is very small relative to the electronic gaming as a whole and as such it does not make any sense for Apple to even bother with.

When Warren Buffet says he wished he bought Apple stocks decades ago then it means Steve Jobs & now Tim Cook made better business decisions that you insist they did not make.

Once you make your first $100,000 through PC gaming get back to us because by then Apple market cap would probably be $4 trillion.

 

[JouniS]

but Apple supported eGPUs for years. Used the same Intel chips. Even tried to incentivise developers like Aspyr and others to port games to the Mac. And?

I've never understood the idea that an eGPU would be a good solution outside some niche applications.

In a typical gaming PC, the slow PCIe bus between the computer and the GPU is a major bottleneck. That "slow" bus is 16 lanes of PCIe 4.0 these days. A Thunderbolt 3/4 connection only supports 4 lanes of PCIe 3.0, which makes it 8x slower than the bottleneck in gaming PCs. The eGPU enclosure itself is quite expensive, because it needs a good power supply and a large case, so you don't even save that much money over just buying a gaming PC.

 

[Adarna]

I'll just leave some food for thought. If I am not a content creator that has a heavy video editing workflow, why would I want to buy an expensive pro device when a cheaper Chromebook / handheld Windows device / my cellphone will do? Besides content creation, what else can Apple pro devices do that is exclusive to them?

I can number a few things on the iPad or the iPhone, but not Apple's pro devices.

It may come to a surprise to you that ~80% of all Macs are based on the M1. The rest are the Intel Macs that are being phased out. These will be replaced by M1 Pro & M1 Max Macs

These may be used by content creator, video editing workflows, etc but they're also being used for general computing.

Based on your all your statements on this thread paints a picture of your view in life as being very limited and you do not know anyone that does not do what you do on a daily basis. Reading a few market research on Apple's other businesses may open your eyes that PC gaming aint the end all be all for the rest of humanity.

 

[Adarna]

I've never understood the idea that an eGPU would be a good solution outside some niche applications.

In a typical gaming PC, the slow PCIe bus between the computer and the GPU is a major bottleneck. That "slow" bus is 16 lanes of PCIe 4.0 these days. A Thunderbolt 3/4 connection only supports 4 lanes of PCIe 3.0, which makes it 8x slower than the bottleneck in gaming PCs. The eGPU enclosure itself is quite expensive, because it needs a good power supply and a large case, so you don't even save that much money over just buying a gaming PC.

Let us be thankful that Apple made this tech obsolete.

 

[Joe Dohn]

It may come to a surprise to you that ~80% of all Macs are based on the M1. The rest are the Intel Macs that are being phased out. These will be replaced by M1 Pro & M1 Max Macs

These may be used by content creator, video editing workflows, etc but they're also being used for general computing.

Based on your all your statements on this thread paints a picture of your view in life as being very limited and you do not know anyone that does not do what you do on a daily basis. Reading a few market research on Apple's other businesses may open your eyes that PC gaming aint the end all be all for the rest of humanity.

So enlighten my limited head, because you clearly are more knowledgeable about the potential those Pro machines have, right? You're clearly seeing something I'm not.

Answer us: besides content creation, what else is much better to do on the Mac Pro that PCs cannot do? Scientific research? Why can't I just use a PC cluster for much cheaper, with better flexibility?

Basic computing tasks are out of question. If I'm buying a Macbook Pro, I don't want to use it just for browsing the web, or just designing a A3 poster. An iPad can definitely do that.

Once you make your first $100,000 through PC gaming get back to us because by then Apple market cap would probably be $4 trillion.

Since you're calling out on me, then you must have made your first 100,000 on PC gaming. Have you done something big to claim that you're way more qualified than me to call me out?

 

[Adarna]

So enlighten my limited head, because you clearly are more knowledgeable about the potential those Pro machines have, right? You're clearly seeing something I'm not.

Answer us: besides content creation, what else is much better to do on the Mac Pro that PCs cannot do? Scientific research? Why can't I just use a PC cluster for much cheaper, with better flexibility?

Basic computing tasks are out of question. If I'm buying a Macbook Pro, I don't want to use it just for browsing the web, or just designing a A3 poster. An iPad can definitely do that.



Since you're calling out on me, then you must have made your first 100,000 on PC gaming. Have you done something big to claim that you're way more qualified than me to call me out?

People buy what they want to buy because they can afford it.

Is that a foreign concept that you do not get exposed to?

I'm pointing out that your obsession with PC gaming is exposing your blind spots in how the rest of humanity spends their time and mone.y How Apple is able to ID growth industries to provide goods & services other than PC gaming to hundreds of millions of people.

You remind me of this young boy who was obsessed with WWF wrestling.

When you broach a topic other than wrestling he cannot phantom that there is life beyond wrestling.

My sincerest apologies for distracting you from PC gaming. I'm sure it brings you more wealth than Apple could ever imagine.

 

[Melbourne Park]

There are posts on the internet showing Grand Theft Auto V (or is it 5?) running pretty badly on M1 chip macs on Parallels, but pretty well using Wine / Crossover, and that was many months ago.

Apple have provided Rosetta 2, and I presume there is a market for emulation programs. One would think that emulation software companies can make money from exploiting the 2nd and 3rd generation M processors running on Mac OS.

I guess the question really is, does it make sense for Apple to remove something like Rosetta 2? It seems to me that it would not.

 

[Unregistered 4U]

Those are MOBILE games, not PC/Console games.

Genshin Impact is on PC and Console, so it IS a PC/Console game.

Not available on Mac.

The Mac is not PC and it’s not Console, so yes, this is correct.