The thrill of Apple silicon is already gone

[PauloSera]

Elitist nonsense...

Nope, literal truth. You think playing a game from 1999 in parallels somehow makes "gaming in parallels" relevant to the discussion? That's some elitist nonsense.

What matters in gaming is what I said. If a Mac can't play the $60 titles on Steam at high FPS (natively or with a virtual environment) then it isn't part of the gaming market. Those titles have budgets that rival those of major motion pictures today. They are the gaming industry. They are what is meant when the topic of "gaming" is discussed relevant to the Mac. To pretend otherwise is bizarre.

This isn't to say that playing games from 1999 is bad or something. It's just not what is meant by gaming on the Mac.

 

[Gudi]

They are what is meant when the topic of "gaming" is discussed relevant to the Mac. To pretend otherwise is bizarre.

Everybody knows gaming refers to Nintendo and PlayStation titles and to pretend otherwise is bizarro world.

 

[eltoslightfoot]

Everybody knows gaming refers to Nintendo and PlayStation titles and to pretend otherwise is bizarro world.

It’s actually all of the above 🤔

 

[bcortens]

Nope, literal truth. You think playing a game from 1999 in parallels somehow makes "gaming in parallels" relevant to the discussion? That's some elitist nonsense.

What matters in gaming is what I said. If a Mac can't play the $60 titles on Steam at high FPS (natively or with a virtual environment) then it isn't part of the gaming market. Those titles have budgets that rival those of major motion pictures today. They are the gaming industry. They are what is meant when the topic of "gaming" is discussed relevant to the Mac. To pretend otherwise is bizarre.

This isn't to say that playing games from 1999 is bad or something. It's just not what is meant by gaming on the Mac.

Sins of a solar empire is not a game from 1999, and I actually have the pre-alpha for Sins 2 (which is a brand new game). Sins 2 is still too buggy for me to really say whether or not it will work in parallels but it does run and I can easily play the first 10-15 minutes of a game.

To pretend that the only games that matter are high frame rate FPS titles is equally bizarre to me. Sure the high frame rate big budget FPS is what gets all the flash but it's never really been something I've been interested in.

 

[bcortens]

It’s actually all of the above 🤔

I think that was sarcasm.

 

[bcortens]

It’s actually all of the above 🤔

Also, per your avatar, SC2 was once a huge gaming scene, sadly fallen back a bit now but I think with creators like Lowko we're seeing a bit more interest again.

 

[PauloSera]

Sins of a solar empire is not a game from 1999, and I actually have the pre-alpha for Sins 2 (which is a brand new game). Sins 2 is still too buggy for me to really say whether or not it will work in parallels but it does run and I can easily play the first 10-15 minutes of a game.

To pretend that the only games that matter are high frame rate FPS titles is equally bizarre to me. Sure the high frame rate big budget FPS is what gets all the flash but it's never really been something I've been interested in.

It's called money.

 

[Altis]

My wife's Dell Inspiron died 3 days after the 2-year warranty expired. She got tired of having to replace something so often, that she picked up a Mac. 15" 2008 MBP. Lasted her 8 years, until she went for the 12", found it to be too small (screenwise; she's legally blind), and went to the 16" MBP.

From going from 3 different Dells from 2002 to 2008 to something that lasted her 8 years to what she has now? I'd say that the stability and longevity are worth it.

BL.

Apple has had entire model years that are flawed to the point where they're bad buys -- dGPU problems, display problems, more recently butterfly keyboards -- and the fixes on them are to replace the entire internals at a cost very near the original computer price. Look how many people pay for AppleCare warranties on these machines, and it isn't exactly cheap.

I had to get rid of my quad-core 2011 17" Macbook Pro because of the dGPU failures: not if but when. I got a 2010 that never missed a beat but that older core2duo was an underperformer for sure. It's too bad since I love that 17" display.

At my previous job, we had tons of Dell and Lenovo laptops, desktops, and servers and they generally don't have problems. The laptops are worse though whereas the workstations are solid as a rock. We're talking thousands of machines, too.

The only hardware failures I can think of having in my whole computing life (since the 90s) is the dGPU on the 2011 MBP and a power supply that blew on a Pentium 350 MHz back in the day.

 

[bcortens]

It's called money.

What does this have to do with anything? You said you couldn't use parallels to game, you then set up an arbitrary criteria for what constitutes gaming is, by then using this arbitrary criteria you eliminate games that don't match and pretend that this matters to the argument...

Edit: It also has never gotten my money so why should I care about this?

 

[Joe Dohn]

Nope, literal truth. You think playing a game from 1999 in parallels somehow makes "gaming in parallels" relevant to the discussion? That's some elitist nonsense.

More like "detached from reality." When I read that, it sounds to me like:

"Look, my Mac runs Tetris! IT'S A TRIPLE-A GAMING MACHINE!"

Sorta like those old uncles who are completely out of the gaming scene, but pretend they are in to sound cool.

 

[AirpodsNow]

Well I like Dave2D who reviews lots of laptops and his reviews are great. He is was super positive about the new M1 (at that time) and said this about gaming:

 

[AirpodsNow]

I had to get rid of my quad-core 2011 17" Macbook Pro because of the dGPU failures: not if but when. I got a 2010 that never missed a beat but that older core2duo was an underperformer for sure. It's too bad since I love that 17" display.

I got rid of my MBP 16, i9, 2019, due to the loud fan noise and unpredictable battery life, also the key paint (?) came off for some keys and got it replaced. It was quite a shock to me that such a machine was actually manufactured, or that is my experience with it. And I am a light user. But must say that when I took my losses and replaced it with same MBP but M1 Pro, my impression of their hardware is great. Perhaps it had to do with the 'intel' processors or they just put more R&D into the M1s, but it has been great so far.

 

[bcortens]

More like "detached from reality." When I read that, it sounds to me like:

"Look, my Mac runs Tetris! IT'S A TRIPLE-A GAMING MACHINE!"

Sorta like those old uncles who are completely out of the gaming scene, but pretend they are in to sound cool.

I really enjoy how people can somehow read half a sentence and somehow jump to a conclusion...

Sins of a Solar Empire was a fairly demanding game from the late 2000s, especially if you played games that took several hours with hundreds of ships in each fleet.

In a follow up post I noted that I have started trying out Sins of a Solar Empire 2, a game that isn't even out yet...

Whenever Diablo 4 is out I'll see if that runs too and if it does that is one less reason to use boot camp.

Again, your arbitrary definitions of what gaming involves are just that, arbitrary.

Direct X 12 support isn't out yet because it sounds like Metal 3 would be required and that hasn't been out for very long. Parallels 19 or 20 will hopefully add support.

Edit: I mention DX12 because AoE4 appears to require it...

 

[ahurst]

Given the job, I would expect you to see lots of failed systems, that's obvious.

Desktops last years, special purpose desktops last decades. Really, PC's don't have any higher failure rate than Macs do and vice versa -- after all it's all the same type of parts. I even have one non special purpose desktop at home that's over 20 years old and usable now that it has a SSD in it. The only time it isn't running is when the power is out. I call it decoy and it's for visitors to use.

I'd say that the average PC generally has a higher failure rate than the average Mac, but that has way more to do with PCs in the < $600 bargain-bin segment of the market (which Apple doesn't compete in) having really bad quality/reliability due to cheap components and poor design, driving the PC average down. A PC in the same price/product category (Dell XPS, ThinkPad T-series) is going to have similar reliability.

I had a friend recently give me a ~2015 budget-class Toshiba laptop that had broken on him and was just taking up space. To get to to boot at all I had to remove the battery (which doubled as the CMOS battery, so any time you unplug it you get a "set system date/time" prompt on boot), but the main issue is that a whole column of keyboard keys had died (including backspace and return). On a better-designed PC that would just be a simple trace repair on the keyboard PCB, but to save money (???) on this one they fused the keyboard directly into the top case, so you can't get at the traces without destroying half of the casing. By contrast, the 2011 ThinkPad X220 and 2007 Dell Latitude D630 I keep around for odd tasks both work perfectly fine despite being much older, because they weren't intended to be disposable.

I don't understand how more people don't see that this is just anti-consumer behavior. It seems like many Apple fans are truly convinced that to have a powerful computer you need to solder everything to a board.

That's because at least in the case of RAM, that's objectively true: as Hector Martin of the Asahi Linux project has explained, you'd need a whopping 8 RAM sockets on the logic boards of the MBP and Mac Studio to match the same memory bandwidth (400GB/s) as the M1 Max (a single channel of DDR5 is 50GB/s). Additionally, because you need to run the traces longer on the board to all the separate modules and support socketed connections, you end up notably increasing voltage demands meaning more heat and less battery life.

It's a trade-off to be sure, but I think it's a trade-off that makes sense for the vast majority of customers. Would I prefer it if my 14" MBP had slower RAM, was notably thicker (to accommodate the DIMMs), and had worse battery life in exchange for being able to upgrade my RAM a few years down the line? Personally, I would not.

The soldered SSDs aren't any faster though, so that's a valid complaint. It makes things easier on Apple in terms of SSD design (since the SSD controller is actually built into the SoC like it is on iPhones/iPads), but doesn't offer end users much benefit other than security.

 

[sam_dean]

Nope, literal truth. You think playing a game from 1999 in parallels somehow makes "gaming in parallels" relevant to the discussion? That's some elitist nonsense.

What matters in gaming is what I said. If a Mac can't play the $60 titles on Steam at high FPS (natively or with a virtual environment) then it isn't part of the gaming market. Those titles have budgets that rival those of major motion pictures today. They are the gaming industry. They are what is meant when the topic of "gaming" is discussed relevant to the Mac. To pretend otherwise is bizarre.

This isn't to say that playing games from 1999 is bad or something. It's just not what is meant by gaming on the Mac.

Gaming is whatever leisure activity people do for fun.

Some demand more raw computational performance than others.

Intel Macs were lacking. Apple Silicon Macs do have the raw performance but sadly it takes more effort to port winOS, Playstation, Xbox and Nintendo games to the Mac.

For a business point of view devs need to know if the platform they develop for will result in enough sales to cover their expenses over a set timeline.

Video consoles can easily provide that metric as nearly 100% of all hardware will be used for games.

Same can be said for PCs where in number of dGPU sold can indicate nearly 100% of them will be used for games.

For Macs... units annually shipped worldwide does not translate to nearly 100% use of hardware to play games. With how tepid Mac game development is one could argue that less than 20% of Apple Silicon Macs are used for any games released within the last decade.

Like say the 2021 Mac Studio M1 Ultra. At $4k how many of those sold will be used to play triple A titles released natively for Apple Silicon?

Same can be said about the original $999 2020 Macbook Air M1.

As for the comparison of film production cost vs computer game development cost is somewhat misleading as tickets to a movie does not cost $60.

Now, if you look at it from a purely economic metrics then Apple's App Store makes more money from gaming apps than any other game company. They sell games to persons who can easily afford $429-1599 smartphones.

They hope they can replicate it with the Mac. But it can be accelerated if Mac SKUs would have double the RAM & SSD at the same price, chip, CPU cores & GPU cores.

Mac model	MSRP	Chip	CPU (Core)	GPU (Core)	RAM (GB)	SSD (TB)
iMac 24"	$1,699	M1	8	8	16	1
iMac 24"	$1,499	M1	8	8	16	0.5
iMac 24"	$1,299	M1	8	7	16	0.5
Mac mini*	$1,299	M2 Pro	10	16	32	1
Mac mini	$799	M2	8	10	16	1
Mac mini	$599	M2	8	10	16	0.5
Mac Studio	$3,999	M1 Ultra	20	48	128	2
Mac Studio	$1,999	M1 Max	10	24	64	1
Mac Studio**	$3,999	M2 Ultra	24	60	128	2
Mac Studio**	$1,999	M2 Max	12	30	64	1
MBA	$1,499	M2	8	10	16	1
MBA	$1,199	M2	8	8	16	0.5
MBA	$999	M1	8	7	16	0.5
MBP 13"	$1,499	M2	8	10	16	1
MBP 13"	$1,299	M2	8	10	16	0.5
MBP 14"	$3,099	M2 Max	12	30	64	2
MBP 14"	$2,499	M2 Pro	12	19	32	2
MBP 14"	$1,999	M2 Pro	10	16	32	1
MBP 16"	$3,499	M2 Max	12	38	64	2
MBP 16"	$2,699	M2 Pro	12	19	32	2
MBP 16"*	$2,499	M2 Pro	12	19	32	1

Note:

*If that were the case my choice would be the $1299 Mac mini M2 Pro if there was no iMac 27" replacement & the $2499 MBP 16" M2 Pro. Both of which would have 32GB RAM & 1TB SSD.

**My guess on the CPU core & GPU core count of the future 2023 Mac Studio M2 Max & M2 Ultra SKUs.

 

[Joe Dohn]

Now, if you look at it from a purely economic metrics then Apple's App Store makes more money from gaming apps than any other game company. They sell games to persons who can easily afford $429-1599 smartphones.

That metric is only good for Apple, not the users.
It only means their games are full of microtransactions.
Most games in the Apple Store don't have the quality of the games present in Steam or Sony / Nintendo's stores.
We're talking about games such as Bastion, or Rayman Origins / Legends / Omori, Shovel Knight...

For example, the iPhone and the iPad only have Mario Kart Tour, but you usually either have to play and grind to get character skins or pay for them, at semi-automated tracks with semi-automated braking and acceleration.
There's no comparison to the fuller experience, Mario Kart 8.

Would you consider Mario Kart 8 a commercial flop because it doesn't make Nintendo as much money as a microtransaction game?

I wouldn't!

 

[sam_dean]

That metric is only good for Apple, not the users.
It only means their games are full of microtransactions.
Most games in the Apple Store don't have the quality of the games present in Steam or Sony / Nintendo's stores.
We're talking about games such as Bastion, or Rayman Origins / Legends / Omori, Shovel Knight...

For example, the iPhone and the iPad only have Mario Kart Tour, but you usually either have to play and grind to get character skins or pay for them, at semi-automated tracks with semi-automated braking and acceleration.
There's no comparison to the fuller experience, Mario Kart 8.

Would you consider Mario Kart 8 a commercial flop because it doesn't make Nintendo as much money as a microtransaction game?

I wouldn't!

Not necessarily so. People who game on smartphones and tablets are largely casual gamers. They outnumber people like you. These are the type of user who'd use their smartphone/tablet as a supplementary gaming device to a video console and gaming PC. Alternatively they are also the type who would never buy a gaming PC, PlayStation, Xbox or Nintendo.

I can confidently say it would outnumber serious gamers as Apple annually ships quarter of a billion iOS/iPadOS devices worldwide. Android annually ships over a billion smartphone/tablets worldwide. NVidia, AMD, Intel, Playstation, Xbox and Nintendo combined would wish for those annual worldwide unit shipped numbers.

As for the microtransactions... what is the cost of a download... it used to be labeled "free" then for legal reasons it became "get" even when playing the 1st few minutes does not charge you for anything. I see it as a derivative of the "try before you buy" model or shareware model where in the 1st level is free to play but succeeding levels require retail payment. Hence if you play further then you hit those microtransactions.

That cost is spread out over time rather than an up front $60 then the possibility of a microtransaction. In the past if you paid up from $60 for a hyped up game that you did not enjoy then it becomes inconvenient for all for the refund attempt.

So long as any game or product hits their KPI then I do not see them as a commercial failure. But neither would it be considered a classic unless it was within the top 10 of titles sold in total $ value or units sold for that fiscal year.

 

[Joe Dohn]

Not necessarily so. People who game on smartphones and tablets are largely casual gamers. They outnumber people like you. These are the type of user who'd use their smartphone/tablet as a supplementary gaming device to a video console and gaming PC. Alternatively they are also the type who would never buy a gaming PC, PlayStation, Xbox or Nintendo.

I can confidently say it would outnumber serious gamers as Apple annually ships quarter of a billion iOS/iPadOS devices worldwide. Android annually ships over a billion smartphone/tablets worldwide. NVidia, AMD, Intel, Playstation, Xbox and Nintendo combined would wish for those annual worldwide unit shipped numbers.

You just don't get it.
You're thinking that success always equals money.
But it's not really like that.

For example, the last decade we had rehashed superhero movies being rehashed over and over again.
They WERE commercial successes.
But no one in their right mind would say Spiderman: Remake of the Remake of the Remake HD edition 4k is a work of art just because it's a commercial success.

Videogames are a way of telling a story too. They can be works of art.
But almost no game in the iPhone is innovative or a work of art.
They are just cheap cash grabbers, which exploit on pay-to-win mechanics.
For example, wanna beat up a level? You better buy that Golden Hero package edition that MIGHT have that rare hero!

Sure, we have Apple Arcade. But most games there are just empty / boring.

 

[sam_dean]

You just don't get it.
You're thinking that success always equals money.
But it's not really like that.

For example, the last decade we had rehashed superhero movies being rehashed over and over again.
They WERE commercial successes.
But no one in their right mind would say Spiderman: Remake of the Remake of the Remake HD edition 4k is a work of art just because it's a commercial success.

Videogames are a way of telling a story too. They can be works of art.
But almost no game in the iPhone is innovative or a work of art.
They are just cheap cash grabbers, which exploit on pay-to-win mechanics.
For example, wanna beat up a level? You better buy that Golden Hero package edition that MIGHT have that rare hero!

Sure, we have Apple Arcade. But most games there are just empty / boring.

I am speaking from a quantitatives that are measurable. These are largely fixed.

Yours is qualitative which is about your sense of aesthetics. At any given point of time the opinion of the qualitative success of a game will change negatively or positively.

But you did mention the $60 price tag of the games you advocate for. The "cheap cash grabs" do not charge you that sort of money up front before you can activate the game. They accumulate that money based on your progress within the game. For most it would reach that KPI. It's a bonus for them if you actually finish it as they made more than double their KPI by now.

Games is whatever leisure activity anyone finds fun with an objective to win. Let us not disparage one's Candy Crush habit to fan boi-ism.

I like watching walkthroughs of the Last Of Us, Horizon Forbidden West, etc as I get see the storyline unfold without any significant additional cost to money or time. I'm in the middle of Jedi Fallen Order in preparation to watch Jedi Survivor by April.

Gaming on the Mac is a potential growth industry but there are already established players in the market such as

- NVidia/AMD for PC
- PlayStation
- Xbox
- Nintendo
- Smartphones & tablets

Will people buy a Mac to play games? I've been on the platform for nearly a quarter of a century and even my loyalties would have me telling people to go with the established players out there if you want "real games".

 

[Joe Dohn]

I am speaking from a quantitatives that are measurable.

Yours is qualitative which is about your sense of aesthetics.

But you did mention the $60 price tag of the games you advocate for. The "cheap cash grabs" do not charge you that sort of money up front before you can activate the game. They accumulate that money based on your progress within the game. For most it would reach that KPI. It's a bonus for them if you actually finish it as they made more than double their KPI by now.

Games is whatever leisure activity anyone finds fun with an objective to win. Let us not disparage one's Candy Crush habit to fan boi-ism.

I like watching walkthroughs of the Last Of Us, Horizon Forbidden West, etc as I get see the storyline unfold without any significant additional cost to money or time. I'm in the middle of Jedi Fallen Order in preparation to watch Jedi Survivor by April.

But not all qualities within an Apple product are measurable.

One example is design. Apple is seen as a stylish brand. But being stylish is a subjective quality, not objective.
Would you say then Apple should give up on being stylish because you can't directly measure what "stylish" is?

Or give up on vibrant phone colors just because they're not objectively better than somber colors?

Imagine how boring it would be if people never decided to impress or make others cry with videogames, just because what makes you cry or impresses people is subjective!

We can extend that logic to anything, really. So books are only good when they are best-sellers? If a book is a commercial flop, then it shouldn't be brought to people? Or shouldn't we ever tell a story because it's a commercial flop?

Sure, the Apple store is "successful". But at what cost? And what is the quality of that "success"?

 

[sam_dean]

But not all qualities within an Apple product are measurable.

One example is design. Apple is seen as a stylish brand. But being stylish is a subjective quality, not objective.
Would you say then Apple should give up on being stylish because you can't directly measure what "stylish" is?

Or give up on vibrant phone colors just because they're not objectively better than somber colors?

Imagine how boring it would be if people never decided to impress or make others cry with videogames, just because what makes you cry or impresses people is subjective!

We can extend that logic to anything, really. So books are only good when they are best-sellers? If a book is a commercial flop, then it shouldn't be brought to people? Or shouldn't we ever tell a story because it's a commercial flop?

Sure, the Apple store is "successful". But at what cost? And what is the quality of that "success"?

Its aesthetic quality are measured by the reviews that it gets and the ratings it is given.

It is also reflective on units shipped/sold worldwide.

Colors also are an indicator how units sold as well.

If it is single color then it does not sell in enough volume to necessitate multiple paint jobs. It is still being sold because the margins are that good and it does hit its projected KPI.

Hence the Mac Studio coming in single color and the iPhone SE coming in on so many colors.

Different people have different outcomes for their video games. Do people playing Flappy Bird cry over them hitting the pipes? If you do you may need to see a therapist.

For commercially vs non-commercially successful books it simply means you will not get a sequel. No one is saying you should not enjoy what you enjoy doing. But it does tell you that it has a limited audience to people like you.

If I was smart enough to be a $AAPL shareholder in Jan 2009 then I'd be happy as my portfolio would improve that to this.

Dates	20-Jan-2009	1-Feb-2023
Year Low	14.0	20-Jan-2009
Forex: $ = ₱	₱40.29	₱54.02
$/share	$78.20	$145.43
Pre-Split Share Price	$4,072.04
X-for-1 Stock Splits	28	-
Number of Shares (pre split vs post split)	4,000	112,000
Portfolio Value ₱	₱12,602,712.00	₱879,813,106.48
Portfolio Value $	$312,800.00	$16,288,160.00
Years between purchase to 1st dividend	3.56	-
Per Share Last Quarterly Dividend $	-	$0.23
Total Quarterly Dividend $	-	$25,760.00
Total Quarterly Dividend ₱	-	₱1,391,439.28
Dividend spread out daily ₱	-	₱15,248.65
Last 4 Quarters Dividend $	-	$0.90
Total last 4 Quarters Dividend $	-	$100,800.00
Total last 4 Quarters Dividend ₱	-	₱5,444,762.40
Dividend spread out daily ₱	-	₱14,917.16

 

[Sydde]

Xeons are definitely not server only, they also fit into the workstation market. (PC's that support a lot more RAM and I/O)

Not only servers and workstations, but Dell offers an 8 core Xeon-W laptop for a mere usd$4300. I think Ars had a review of it. Do not expect any kind of performance or battery life.

 

[bradl]

Not only servers and workstations, but Dell offers an 8 core Xeon-W laptop for a mere usd$4300. I think Ars had a review of it. Do not expect any kind of performance or battery life.

See the post regarding the aforementioned space heater. 😁

BL.

 

[bobcomer]

Not only servers and workstations, but Dell offers an 8 core Xeon-W laptop for a mere usd$4300. I think Ars had a review of it. Do not expect any kind of performance or battery life.

Performance would depend on cooling capability, and battery life doesn't do anything for me. (I'm plugged in 99% of the time.)

Not that I'd buy a Xeon laptop in the first place, it costs more than it's worth and cooling would be hard. I probably wouldn't buy an i9 laptop either, but a desktop or workstation, gimme.

 

[dandeco]

Well, they've been out for over two years now, and they've proven to indeed be faster and more powerful than their Intel predecessors yet consuming less energy. Perhaps we've all gotten used to it by now, and I've gotten used to the awesome power and speed of my M1 MacBook Air (with 16 GB of RAM and 8-core graphics, mind you), but of course it's my only Apple Silicon Mac currently on hand, so of course it's going to be better than the Intel and PowerPC Macs I also have in my collection. But I am looking forward to buying an M2 Pro-equipped Mac Mini later this spring, to have as a dedicated desktop that's the next step up from my M1 Air (I'm going to configure the order so it has 32 GB of RAM and a 1 TB SSD).