News Apple's renewed push for Mac gaming relies on its whole ecosystem to attract users

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The new m4 ipad, a freaking tablet with no fan , has significantly better better graphics than any handheld, no matter what iGPU is used. The ipad probably runs at 7 watts, with boosts up to 11 here and there. Meanwhile AMDs 7840U and its 780m iGPU running at over 20 watts is probably only 75% as powerful, if not even further behind. Intels Xe isn't even worth mentioning. Qualcomms X Elite is on par with the 780m for now.

On the onexplayer Discord I had this big discussion about a single device for work when traveling and gaming. There was this debate about their new X1, with the new AMD processor, an 11 inch tablet with removable controllers and keyboard cover. Its too heavy, thicc, etc to use well as a handheld with controllers attached. If I could game on a 11 inch ipad (and if apple allowed their desktop OS on it) than it would blow any other handheld out of the water performance wise, battery wise, and portability. Its so frustrating that no other manufacturers can keep up with Apple Silicon.
 
I think the only one up to the same task is Steam. They already have a huge library, big picture, seamless Proton usage. All they need now is an ARM emulator, to make their games work on Android devices (already possible outside steam). If they pull this off, it would be awesome, lower the Apple proposition, and further take gaming outside Windows.
 
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I selected an ultraportable for my niece last year, when she went off to college. Money wasn't an issue, and she had her choice of any Macbook or PC. She opted for a PC, because she wants to be able to play games. She uses an iPhone. She would be in the target demographic if ever Apple gets its gaming druthers together.

This piece strikes me as aspirational rather than any showing real, evidentiary trend--basically personal musing from a writer with little demonstrated insights into the gaming industry. The intro of a game porting toolkit does not a gaming ecosystem make.

I don't follow the Mac gaming scene--what there is of one--as a rule. But it's simple enough to go to r/macgaming for a temperature check. It's barren. Most discussions are about emulated games. For a more quantitative look, one can peruse the AppleGamingWiki's native games list,

https://www.applegamingwiki.com/wiki/M1_native_compatible_games_list

There are 299 M1-native out of 1549 games tracked, few of which are current in-vogue games. The writer's mention of the game "Control" is pretty much on point,

>[Control: Ultimate Edition] is coming natively to Mac later this year, five years after the game's initial launch. A bit late, but it's a great game!

Nowhere in the piece does the author mention any evidence of a groundswell of AAA game devs ready to make an ARM port (other than the lone examples of Assassin's Creed: Shadows and Frostpunk 2). It's just another case of wishful thinking, poorly supported by reality.

>The work has started, and it's impressive. Apple still has a long way to go. But hopefully, one day, there's a future where PC gamers, Mac gamers, and console gamers are all cross-playing with each other. Wouldn't it be beautiful?

Yep, "hoping for a beautiful future" pretty sums up the piece.

This, BTW, is what WoA faces. But WoA has a leg up with Microsoft being a major player in gaming. I expect most if not all future MS games will have an ARM port. Perhaps MS's WoA effort will end up helping Apple's case in gaming, if only for WoA games to run faster in emulation than x86 ones.
 
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I do some light gaming on an M3 Air 16GB/512GB (Stray, FFXIV via XIVonMac, Valheim) and the one thing I notice is a lack of performance consistency. Framerates fluctuate wildly just standing still, in a way they do not on a comparably equipped PC. Of the 3 games I play, Stray runs the best with high and fairly stable frame rate, good frame pacing with a few hitches here and there when panning the camera. FFXIV of course, runs the worst but it's playable at 30ish fps. Useful only for gathering and crafting as there is quite a bit of input latency. Valheim is all over the place, and heats the machine up far more than one might expect with its simple graphics but overall it runs pretty good. I'd say Apple and developers have some work to do still, but I have to say I'm impressed. This is a thin, fanless laptop that can keep pace with a much chunkier, actively cooled Windows laptop using a discrete GPU. I'd estimate the M3 GPU around an RTX3050 equivalent, once it heats up.

On value, the Mac loses when considering the cost relative to a 3050 laptop at 2K CAD vs 750CAD but when we start mixing iPads into the equation it gets interesting, although if you need a keyboard things start getting skewed again. I expect Apple isn't looking to convert PC gamers but to bring gaming to its existing user base, possibly to spur on some product churn in slow upgraders (and get that sweet, sweet 30% Appstore cut). Considering the price disparity it makes sense. 2K CAD for my M3 Air, and I just picked up a 4060 equipped Dell G15 with an i9, 32GB RAM, and a TB of storage for 1399CAD. Sure it's a chunky monkey but but if gaming is the only metric it's a no brainer.
 
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@baboma

Long but precise analysis. If I am to have a single computer it will be a x86 PC for the forseable future. Probably running Windows. Gaming being one of the reasons, but compatibility in general being the major one.

Now if I am to have more than one computer the portable one can be whatever. In this case Mac becomes a much more interesting proposition. So does Linux. All this is to support that Mac gaming is not really a factor in that decision, because if it was that would be a no-go.
 
coolitic said:
Remember when Proton used to work on Mac? And then Mac dropped support for Vulkan and thus Proton?
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This is a big issue. Apple is in probably the most prime position of its life to gain market share among gamers considering how many ill choices Microsoft is making, but together with Apple's own ill choices such as no support for Vulkan it pushes people away from both MS and Apple and into at least considering Linux.

As long as Apple does these three things:

1) No Vulkan as a first-class citizen/preferring Apple-"Metal". Apple makes game devs lives more complicated with an additional unneeded API.
2) No video cards. Apple needs a sanely-priced platform that can accept plug-in PCI-E video cards.
3) [Kind of a reason 2.5] Apple is going to have to stop its stalemate with Nvidia.

Nvidia. Is. Gaming. Full stop.

Apple has no future in gaming with these three.

Now that's not to say they can't pull in good numbers from "casual gamers" who are "I already have a Mac or IPhone, so I might as well play a game here or there on it" but that is completely not the same thing as "I want to play games. I want to buy a new great gaming machine. I'm buying a Mac and/or I am buying an IPhone."

(Next to) Nobody says that last sentence. And where they do, it's IPhone.

Linux is a better gaming platform than the Mac. It's true. Here's two bits from the article that highlight exactly what I mean.

Admin said:
and new debugging tools for shaders in Xcode to help convert them to Metal
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This is the usual arrogance that people are so used to with Apple, and it is absolutely a turn off.

Do we really believe that Apple couldn't port MacOS and port IOS to run on Vulkan? Really? Apple says, Do it our way. People don't like that.

The white whale of "run anywhere" points to a Vulkan future if anything, even if DX is the elephant in the living room. That's really the problem. Game devs already have to port many games from DX to Vulkan, now throw Metal into the mix. Wait. What?

It absolutely does not make any sense at all. Apple being the smallest bit player here, sanity would dictate that they come hat in hand. I see no hats and I see no hands either. It's just the usual arrogance.

Admin said:

Quality of life improvements, as long as you're in the ecosystem​

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In other words, Apple views gaming as a trap. They do not have a pure "lets have fun" viewpoint like Valve does. Everything Apple is doing is by Apple, for Apple, within Apple, look at the high walls of this garden. It's all inside the garden.

How many gamers are going to fall for the trap? Not many, I would wager, and not with the other obvious pitfalls mentioned above.

At the end of the day there is always simply prices. Apple still has to, on the other side, compete with gaming consoles as well. Apple's whole ecosystem is priced to match a cult following of users who are willing to pay more and Apple wants them to pay more, not the actual market as a whole. The IPhone is the most likely winner if anything of these efforts. But the Mac is a non-starter.
 
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If Apple holds to form, this "gaming emphasis" will die off in about 6 months.

As someone that was in the Mac ecosystem for over 20 years, I have zero confidence that Apple will follow through.

The time to do this was when they were on Intel, but both P.T. Barnum & Timmy pissed that opportunity away.
 
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SSGBryan said:
If Apple holds to form, this "gaming emphasis" will die off in about 6 months.

As someone that was in the Mac ecosystem for over 20 years, I have zero confidence that Apple will follow through.

The time to do this was when they were on Intel, but both P.T. Barnum & Timmy pissed that opportunity away.
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Exactly and now they have added another hurdle for gaming developers with Apple Silicon. I use my Macs for everything but playing PC games. I have two gaming rigs and they are both Windows PC's.
 
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AVX2 support is actually a pretty big deal because games use it MUCH more heavily than avx512 s and will continue to do so until avx512 has better chip compatibility.
 
Heat_Fan89 said:
Exactly and now they have added another hurdle for gaming developers with Apple Silicon. I use my Macs for everything but playing PC games. I have two gaming rigs and they are both Windows PC's.
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If game devs actually start targeting Apple silicon, it’s a great gaming chip. It’s basically a beefier PS5 on the ARM isa.
 
It may never release a gaming laptop — instead, the idea is any Mac (with Apple Silicon, of course) can be a gaming machine.
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And Apple doesn't need to release a "gaming laptop", cloud gaming services will suffice for the heavier games, they just need to ensure their machines work with "casual" games and MMOs.

That, and stop charging an insane amount of money for additional storage.
 
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Pierce2623 said:
If game devs actually start targeting Apple silicon, it’s a great gaming chip. It’s basically a beefier PS5 on the ARM isa.
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If, if, if. That always seems to be the case. Game development revolves around one thing and that is units sold and where the potential target audience lies. The target audience now lies with consoles and not PC's. The iPad was supposed to be the killer device to end console domination by Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo.

What happened is people like me got tired of tap, tap, swipe games and went back to traditional consoles for games. The console business grew even bigger. Most PC games are now ported from consoles. Now more than ever AAA games are averaging well into two hundred million dollars to produce. Game developers want a return on investment. What we are seeing is a pullback on game investments by major publishers and studio closures.

So I say Apple has a VERY large uphill climb to get game developers to jump on AS.
 
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As an iPhone, MacBook Pro and PC user, Apple is going to need to change it's policy on storage space if it wants to get into gaming. Either allow people to upgrade their storage on their own or make storage upgrades significantly cheaper. The preference is of course being able to upgrade over time. Gaming continues to eat up storage space and how Apple does theirs I don't think lends itself to gaming very well. I've upgraded the storage capacity on my PC three times since it was built to accommodate large game files without needing to uninstall and reinstall all the time.
 
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As long as Apple continues to equip their MacBooks with specs from a decade ago and charge extortionate prices to upgrade at time of purchase their gaming proposals are dead in the water. Trying to upgrade a MacBook Air to decent specs such as 24gb of ram and 2TB of SSD can easily double the price.
 
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Haven't we heard this story before?
  • Apple wants to get into PC gaming and insists the hardware is great, if you just optimize for it properly.
  • A couple of big titles release an OS X version in partnership with Apple, showing what's possible.
  • The Macbook's performance proves solid for a laptop, but the value prospect is questionable to anyone who wasn't already buying Apple for other reasons.
  • Because Apple has a minority marketshare and is not the primary gaming machine for most customers, developers struggle to justify the cost and effort of an OS X port.
  • A desktop option for enthusiasts wanting more than laptop performance or looking for a better deal in return for providing their own peripherals find it locked behind inaccessibly high workstation pricing.
  • Seeing a lack of interest from both gamers and developers, Apple quietly shifts their focus to something else.
  • After a few years Apple makes a change to their OS that breaks compatibility with older games. Apple blames the studios, but because the teams behind them have moved on, no patch comes and Apple gamers lose parts of their libraries over time.
  • A few more years pass, and Apple wants to get into PC gaming and insists the hardware is great, if you just optimize for it properly...
 
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magbarn said:
As long as Apple continues to equip their MacBooks with specs from a decade ago and charge extortionate prices to upgrade at time of purchase their gaming proposals are dead in the water. Trying to upgrade a MacBook Air to decent specs such as 24gb of ram and 2TB of SSD can easily double the price.
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I would say 32 GB / 4TB is a decent configuration if you want gaming, and that would cost you a fortune.

Even consoles have storage upgrade options, so at least they have to allow the use of m.2 SSD on their macs, specially on the mac mini and mac studio.
 
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jlake3 said:
Haven't we heard this story before?
  • Apple wants to get into PC gaming and insists the hardware is great, if you just optimize for it properly.
  • A couple of big titles release an OS X version in partnership with Apple, showing what's possible.
  • The Macbook's performance proves solid for a laptop, but the value prospect is questionable to anyone who wasn't already buying Apple for other reasons.
  • Because Apple has a minority marketshare and is not the primary gaming machine for most customers, developers struggle to justify the cost and effort of an OS X port.
  • A desktop option for enthusiasts wanting more than laptop performance or looking for a better deal in return for providing their own peripherals find it locked behind inaccessibly high workstation pricing.
  • Seeing a lack of interest from both gamers and developers, Apple quietly shifts their focus to something else.
  • After a few years Apple makes a change to their OS that breaks compatibility with older games. Apple blames the studios, but because the teams behind them have moved on, no patch comes and Apple gamers lose parts of their libraries over time.
  • A few more years pass, and Apple wants to get into PC gaming and insists the hardware is great, if you just optimize for it properly...
Click to expand...
But mac fanboys will blame Windows for that.
 
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coolitic said:
Remember when Proton used to work on Mac? And then Mac dropped support for Vulkan and thus Proton?
Click to expand...
And this is where the problem starts and ends for Apple. They want it all in house. They don't want third party drivers/API's. Game developers do not want to write a third version of their code to please Apple (ROI is too long and too much of a gamble). Apple will continue to fail on this front UNTIL they adhere to one of the existing standards.
 
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