So did Apple give up on gaming?

[Sophisticatednut]

At the same time what’s apple’s incentive for going after any slice of AAA games on mac? Mac store isn’t locked down.

their incentive is to grow their service revenue instead and mac consumers. there are millions if people who would happily use the mac if they could use their windows games. its kind of wasted opportunity to attract new customers.

Still I’d look at costs of doing this as marketing. If you want to sell more macs you need to appeal to users and show whats there to play or have fun with.

exactly. i would buy the new stationari Mac(Mac mini?) if i could play my games. i love OSX, but not at the cost of no more games.

You just released a notebook with specs that match or best the best gaming laptops. These kind of laptops sound like airplanes and weigh 6lb with basically nonexistent battery life. The new MacBooks promise to stay quiet, low temp, and have unheard of battery life for a laptop with these specs.

Obviously these need to be seen and reviewed. But I can already play wow on a MacBook Air and quiet as a mouse. On Alienware laptop it’s seeking clearance to take off. If I unplug my Alienware I got an hour to find an outlet.

i would be more intrested in a stationary computer to play my games. but i would likely rather have teh macbook air instead of the ipad pro when i travel as workign is so cumbersom on it.

This is ... really strange. Why are you setting Steam and the App Store against each other?
Publishers can sell their products however they want under MacOS.

Unfortunately this is not true. Mac store developer Term of service limits what kind of game you can make compared to Steam. if i make a game that breaks Apple TOS i can still sell it on steam. if i want to sell on the mac store i would need to ether change the base game( cheaper to support), have two different game versions(insanely expensive) or just have it on steam with non of the drawbacks.

 

[Sophisticatednut]

It should be noted that this adapter works just fine to deliver 4K@120Hz with full YCbCr 4:4:4 10-bit color with a Windows PC. Hell, it even works using an Intel MacBook Pro running Windows. Sadly Apple has decided to cripple external monitor support in MacOS

thats likely more about GPU limitations. any TB3/4 port or usb 4 port suports this workaround. not every USB c port cando it.

 

[Sophisticatednut]

Jack of all trades ...

Bit I wholeheartedly agree that apple makes the option of unifying all your needs into one device excruciatingly expensive.

unfortunatly not everyoen are made of money. i can't justify building my 2-3k Gaming rig with two monitors and a 3080 in my 1U enclosure and a Macbook air/ mac mini /macbook pro for an aditional 1600-2.000 more dollars
and that is only having the 1TB stirage option and 16gb ram

Jack of all trades is the norm.

 

[JahBoolean]

unfortunatly not everyoen are made of money. i can't justify building my 2-3k Gaming rig with two monitors and a 3080 in my 1U enclosure and a Macbook air/ mac mini /macbook pro for an aditional 1600-2.000 more dollars
and that is only having the 1TB stirage option and 16gb ram

Jack of all trades is the norm.

Thank you for the sobering thoughts, one tends to get sidetracked when passionate and remunerated for that passion. It does help that all those purchases are tax write-offs.

Gz getting a 3080 in that seller's market.

 

[Sophisticatednut]

Thank you for the sobering thoughts, one tends to get sidetracked when passionate and remunerated for that passion. It does help that all those purchases are tax write-offs.

Gz getting a 3080 in that seller's market.

well it's okey if you have the patients to ether buy a prebuilt and sell it for parts just for the GPU or have luck in buying one.
But yea im just waiting for the mining crash so used cards can flood the market

 

[DearthnVader]

I mean real gaming. Games like Cyberpunk, borderlands, fall cry 6, final fantasy XIV, world of Warcraft, minecraft… Not these arcade “games”.

It’s great their chips are faster and reduced power usage but compatibility matters. No nvidia discrete graphics card option is a mistake. A lot of software is only compatible with Intel/AMD chips. Software used in businesses where upgrading or finding alternative options that work with M1 isn’t an option.

It looks like Apple is more centered around the Hollywood/movie/music industry and not the business+gaming market which is a huge mistake to be a niche product. It’s also becoming harder and harder for enterprise businesses to manage their Mac fleet.

Is this experience shared or is my assertion mistaken? What has your experience been with these M1 chips in the business sector? Are there real games that work with M1 chips? Maybe I’m ignorant on the topic.

This isn’t my first post but it is. Had to make a new account for some reason.

Not sure what you want Apple to do, they moved to x86, they had offerings from ATI/Intel/nVidia and gaming didn't really take off under the macOS as it's been a mainstay on Windows.

Apple is the #1 seller of laptops, but not gaming laptops, why?, the lack of titles compared to Windows PC's and game consoles. Gamers will go where the titles are, but Apple still sells more laptops than anyone, and laptops are by far the biggest part of the market outside phones.

Here is the rub, Apple sells a high end product to the first world, where the people can afford to buy gaming PC's, Apple computers, gaming consoles, and phones. Just because you buy an Apple computer doesn't limit you to using it for gaming when you can just go buy other products for that.

Sure, it would be nice if the macOS was leading the way in gaming, but we can't force people to write software, no matter how much better the platform is.

 

[Sophisticatednut]

Not sure what you want Apple to do, they moved to x86, they had offerings from ATI/Intel/nVidia and gaming didn't really take off under the macOS as it's been a mainstay on Windows.

Apple is the #1 seller of laptops, but not gaming laptops, why?, the lack of titles compared to Windows PC's and game consoles. Gamers will go where the titles are, but Apple still sells more laptops than anyone, and laptops are by far the biggest part of the market outside phones.

Here is the rub, Apple sells a high end product to the first world, where the people can afford to buy gaming PC's, Apple computers, gaming consoles, and phones. Just because you buy an Apple computer doesn't limit you to using it for gaming when you can just go buy other products for that.

Sure, it would be nice if the macOS was leading the way in gaming, but we can't force people to write software, no matter how much better the platform is.

Apple could have done the bare minimum of supporting the latest opengl drivers instead of being year behind.
allowed Nvidia,intel and AMD to make their own GPU drivers.

apple is the one who crippled it by their enormous incompetence.

or tried to contribute to the drivers to be more competetive with DirectX

 

[ADGrant]

It’s not just the OS though. It’s the chip itself. You can have the most amazing fastest chip possible but if the enterprise apps can’t be ported over because of apps design then the chip is irrelevant. Developers won’t develop for a chip that’s brand new and no port tools available from apple.

The chip isn't brand new and there are plenty of tools available from Apple and third parties (like Epic). Apple's first ARM64 SoC was released eight years ago in 2013.

However most Enterprise apps are written in Java or .NET often with Web front ends. The Java apps should just run on M1 Macs with minimal or no modifications (that is was the big selling point of Java, write once run anywhere). For .NET the situation is more complicated. For Web apps, the front end may already run on MacOS (unless it was build for IE 6). You can develop and deploy modern .NET web apis on Windows, Linux or Mac. The really old stuff still needs Windows as do .NET desktop apps.

 

[altaic]

Apple aren't interested in some nerd who buys Diablo 2 for 30 Euros and then plays it for years, they want you to rent Angry Birds on Apple Arcade, or to rent mobile games from the App Store and profit from every piece of DLC you buy.

That's not how Apple Arcade works. You pay $5/mo and get access to the whole library which has zero in-app purchases. You don't rent titles and there is no possibility of paying anything extra. It's actually designed to fix the problems you mentioned about the mobile gaming industry.

Edit: While writing this, I looked up Apple Arcade. The wiki article specifically says it’s an attempt to focus on quality and exclude free-to-play trash. That looks interesting. I have a 3 month free trial, I might give it a go. I’d argue that’s your answer, that’s Apple’s attempt to bring quality to gaming right there.

Yep, spot on.

 

[Kpjoslee]

As of now, the gaming on Mac side will ultimately be decided by how many developers are willing to bring iOS/Mac universal gaming apps. If you are planning to purchase a Macbook Pro with M1 Max hoping it would offer some kind of high end gaming experience like PC/Consoles, please don't. You will likely regret it.

 

[Melbourne Park]

unfortunatly not everyoen are made of money. i can't justify building my 2-3k Gaming rig with two monitors and a 3080 in my 1U enclosure and a Macbook air/ mac mini /macbook pro for an aditional 1600-2.000 more dollars
and that is only having the 1TB stirage option and 16gb ram

Jack of all trades is the norm.

If you're concerned about money, the console is the solution for games.

 

[leman]

I mean real gaming. Games like Cyberpunk, borderlands, fall cry 6, final fantasy XIV, world of Warcraft, minecraft… Not these arcade “games”.

I find it funny that you diss "arcade games" and then mention Cyberpunk, the most disgustingly arcadified bastard RPG of modern times

Anyway, there is nothing preventing CD Project from making an macOS version of Cyberpunk. Base M1 MacBook Air should be able to run in at least 1050p at medium settings with not too horrible performance.

 

[diamond.g]

If you're concerned about money, the console is the solution for games.

PC/Mac games are usually cheaper. This gen for console games has seen price increases on the games themselves.

I find it funny that you diss "arcade games" and then mention Cyberpunk, the most disgustingly arcadified bastard RPG of modern times

Anyway, there is nothing preventing CD Project from making an macOS version of Cyberpunk. Base M1 MacBook Air should be able to run in at least 1050p at medium settings with not too horrible performance.

They can't even get a proper 9th gen console port going of the game, I wouldn't bet that they could get a Mac version running.?

 

[Melbourne Park]

PC/Mac games are usually cheaper. This gen for console games has seen price increases on the games themselves.

That's a lot of games to break even.

But the most expensive thing about games, is how much time they take. Now that's real money ...

 

[diamond.g]

That's a lot of games to break even.

But the most expensive thing about games, is how much time they take. Now that's real money ...

Yeah it mostly depends on if you are willing to wait for sales. Sony doesn't (rarely) discount digital games, but you can find the physical versions on sale. I haven't tracked Xbox games that way, since we have a Series S I don't/didn't see the point. We do subscribe to GamePass and it does provide a discount on some digital game purchases.

 

[tmoerel]

I just hope Apple does not waste any time on gaming on the macbook pros.
These are pro as in "professional" machines designed to get work done. So please please please Apple, keep them good at being tools and ignore the unnecessary requirements of games and gamers. Those can go somewhere else for their fix!

 

[Not-A-Fan]

If you're concerned about money, the console is the solution for games.

No it's not. Unless you only play like one game a year, PC gaming is vastly cheaper.

 

[leman]

If you're concerned about money, the console is the solution for games.

Given how expensive consoles and console games are, and given that not everybody is interested in the games offered on consoles, I fail to see how this is true. If I want to play Civilization or the newest D&D flick, console does absolutely nothing for me.

 

[mi7chy]

PC gaming is vastly cheaper.

My to play queue from Steam sales is so long I'll never get to all of them.

 

[Unregistered 4U]

Apple is a tiny fraction of global computing.
I wouldn't expect developers putting in hours to port it unless Apple is going to pay the bill.
So it's really up to Apple, not the developers.

No, it’s really up to the developers. The ONLY thing Apple could reasonably do in this situation is… sell more Macs. That’s the only way Apple becomes greater than a tiny fraction of global computing.

 

[Unregistered 4U]

Another step would be for Apple to create a translation layer, much like proton in linux, to be able to play all games without much hassle for the gamer or developer.

If Apple invests in gaming to the extent they pay a studio to port over a AAA game to tout its performance

Apple paying for a team to produce a game is both Apple AND the developer admitting “There’s really no money to be made on the Mac selling games.” Because if there WAS money to be made, the developer would just, you know, produce the game.

Same with any translation layer. It would be the developer saying “There’s really no value in producing anything specifically for the Mac and, since we have this translation layer, we never will!”

If there’s to be a healthy and growing games market on the Mac, it will have to be built by developers that see the value in the platform and put their own dollars on the line (in development and marketing) to make it happen. Anything else would simply be confirming that developing games on/for the Mac is not worth a developer’s time.

 

[Unregistered 4U]

Mac no game -> no make game for Mac -> gamer no buy Mac because Mac no game

Except that the story really starts with “There’s not enough Macs being sold” before Mac no game.

 

[Unregistered 4U]

Almost zero developers will want to use apple Arcade compared to selling it on steam or GoG

Not almost zero, zero. Developers that don’t want to use Apple Arcade primarily don’t want to because there are no IAP’s allowed in Apple Arcade. However, a few developers, like the developer of Castlevania, are taking an app that was just not bringing in the IAP’s, moving it over to Apple Arcade just without IAP’s and are able to bring in money via user engagement.

 

[Piplodocus]

Apple is not going to make a laptop for hardcore gaming.

Isn't that what they've kinda just announced? Just that it has little game support...

 

[leman]

Apple paying for a team to produce a game is both Apple AND the developer admitting “There’s really no money to be made on the Mac selling games.” Because if there WAS money to be made, the developer would just, you know, produce the game.

Same with any translation layer. It would be the developer saying “There’s really no value in producing anything specifically for the Mac and, since we have this translation layer, we never will!”

If there’s to be a healthy and growing games market on the Mac, it will have to be built by developers that see the value in the platform and put their own dollars on the line (in development and marketing) to make it happen. Anything else would simply be confirming that developing games on/for the Mac is not worth a developer’s time.

You just summed up my views on the matter much more eloquently than I ever could.