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.
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.
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.
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram