Pushing hard? The new ARM based Mac Pros don't even support GPUs. Even Steam gave up on macOS and CS:GO is no longer supported. People who have time to play games the whole day are kids. Their parents ain't buying them a $2K Mac to game. If Apple seriously wants to get into gaming, either they need to target the kid segment or the tech enthusiast. The current Macs target a working professional and so that is where they sell
Gaming is a brain killer for both kids and adults, Apple in my opinion should have nothing to do with it! What they should do is work on Mac to be the best not only for film and music editors, but also 3G & Coding and the best General computer!
Playing games can take up a lot of time that could be spent more creatively/productively but Apple making moves into games also improves game development on Mac, which is a really good career opportunity in many job roles - art, development, QA, sound design, VFX.
It needs powerful hardware to make games. Here is a video from a developer who used Macs for game development (19:30 in video):
Macs are used heavily by developers because they work very well for this.
The unified memory is great for 3D texturing and modelling apps like the industry standard Substance Painter and ZBrush (both have Mac native versions) because they can fit more textures in real-time. Apple's laptops can have 128GB video RAM, even high-end PC laptops only have 16GB VRAM.
Not only can it handle these high-end tasks, the M-series Macs do it quietly with no fan noise so you can work for hours in peace.
Macs can be used for game development even if Macs aren't a target distribution platform but it helps when they are a target platform too.
Pushing hard? The new ARM based Mac Pros don't even support GPUs. Even Steam gave up on macOS and CS:GO is no longer supported. People who have time to play games the whole day are kids. Their parents ain't buying them a $2K Mac to game. If Apple seriously wants to get into gaming, either they need to target the kid segment or the tech enthusiast. The current Macs target a working professional and so that is where they sell
Apple's Game Porting Toolkit was a huge push into gaming, building a DirectX 12 emulator is not a small task, they hired some serious talent to pull that off so well. Even VMWare, Parallels, Crossover who have been trying this for years haven't managed to do this. It supports a huge amount of games:
What I think would help a lot is if game devs made versions of their existing games wrapped up in the GPTK emulator in Steam. Just now when people open Steam on a Mac, it's a big list of unsupported titles but most of them work just fine through the emulator. Either Valve could partner with Crossover to bundle versions of games in a compatible way or each developer can do it themselves and charge a small fee for the Mac version. This can build a compatible library of thousands of games very quickly.
If millions of people start using the Mac for buying and playing games, that active playerbase will allow Macs to be treated as a tier 1 platform for future games. It's not easy to do this with Mac alone because the best they'd manage is around 10 million (10% of general userbase) vs 100-200 million on PC (which rivals consoles) but they have the iOS platform to back it up. Bringing AAA to mobile will be their selling point, that has the scale to rival other tier 1 platforms.
Getting big AAA game ports like Baldur's Gate 3, Death Stranding, Resident Evil 4 and 8 was really good (these games look great on the XDR displays), it just needs more of the same x10.
They can make their own games with internal studios but games like Baldur's Gate 3 took 6 years to make with 400 people and a ~$100m budget. It's not the money, Apple has a giant money pile but 3-6 years for each AAA game that might be hit or miss is just too sparse. They can only succeed in gaming by having strong partnerships with dozens of big studios. It looks like they are building these partnerships with some big developers so just more of this and they will keep building support in the industry.
Native Mac gaming is looking in better shape than ever and they have a solid future-proof platform (Metal ARM64) that scales across 1.5 billion hardware units. It will take time to build industry support but all it needs is the motivation to do it and to maintain the momentum.
Pushing hard? The new ARM based Mac Pros don't even support GPUs. Even Steam gave up on macOS and CS:GO is no longer supported. People who have time to play games the whole day are kids. Their parents ain't buying them a $2K Mac to game. If Apple seriously wants to get into gaming, either they need to target the kid segment or the tech enthusiast. The current Macs target a working professional and so that is where they sell
Gaming is a brain killer for both kids and adults, Apple in my opinion should have nothing to do with it! What they should do is work on Mac to be the best not only for film and music editors, but also 3G & Coding and the best General computer!
Readers want to write. or more generally content consumers want to become content makers the more they consume. Sure, Every activity in excess can be bad and over train your brain in one way or another, but I've not seen any reseach to say games as play as part of the balanced lifestyle isn't good for brain health. Indeed the only research that seems to come up is Gun Violence but i guess we don't want to get in to if that is really about the games or the guns.
So what would lead people to be interested in 3D (assuming that is what you meant) and Coding?
To me this is why Apple should be in there making sure the devices they make have a board range to productive and recreational options. "Games" are a big market for recreation they are losing options in. They've lost Cities:Skylines and KSP both casual gaming titles that boarden peoples interest in the world around them. I'm sure there are many other examples. Missing that mark means they have people buying other devices if they did develop an interest in 3D or coding.
Lol, as valve so aptly put it this year: macs aren‘t worth the porting investment. It just doesn‘t make financial sense.
So while apple may want to attract game developers, they are seriously uninterested. While the unified apple platform is huge, they havent even managed to attract cosole/pc games for ios despite things like the backbone one & playstation/xbox controller support.
personally valve would need to bring steam and their proton tech to ios. watching how amazing that works on my linux laptop is just jaw dropping. But then again steam link already works really well.
Pushing hard? The new ARM based Mac Pros don't even support GPUs. Even Steam gave up on macOS and CS:GO is no longer supported. People who have time to play games the whole day are kids. Their parents ain't buying them a $2K Mac to game. If Apple seriously wants to get into gaming, either they need to target the kid segment or the tech enthusiast. The current Macs target a working professional and so that is where they sell
Gaming is a brain killer for both kids and adults, Apple in my opinion should have nothing to do with it! What they should do is work on Mac to be the best not only for film and music editors, but also 3G & Coding and the best General computer!
define “brain killer”, please, and how interactive gaming is worse than passively watching film or TV. inquiring minds want to know
Pushing hard? The new ARM based Mac Pros don't even support GPUs. Even Steam gave up on macOS and CS:GO is no longer supported. People who have time to play games the whole day are kids. Their parents ain't buying them a $2K Mac to game. If Apple seriously wants to get into gaming, either they need to target the kid segment or the tech enthusiast. The current Macs target a working professional and so that is where they sell
Gaming is a brain killer for both kids and adults, Apple in my opinion should have nothing to do with it! What they should do is work on Mac to be the best not only for film and music editors, but also 3G & Coding and the best General computer!
Yes, gaming and all other forms of entertainment are brain killers and neither Apple nor anyone else should have anything to do with it. That includes movies, TV, music, spectating at any sport, comedy clubs, magic shows, amusement parks, circuses, karaoke, carnivals, theatres, festivals, museums, water parks, awards ceremonies, concerts, drag shows, fireworks, operas, parades, parties, raves, symphonies, and most importantly, mimes. By banning entertainment, as is done in North Korea, and moving our efforts into farming, manufacturing, health care, etc., our GDP would skyrocket and we would become much more productive and useful to society.
Lol, as valve so aptly put it this year: macs aren‘t worth the porting investment. It just doesn‘t make financial sense.
So while apple may want to attract game developers, they are seriously uninterested. While the unified apple platform is huge, they havent even managed to attract cosole/pc games for ios despite things like the backbone one & playstation/xbox controller support.
personally valve would need to bring steam and their proton tech to ios. watching how amazing that works on my linux laptop is just jaw dropping. But then again steam link already works really well.
This can be changed over time if Apple is serious about it and willing to invest in enticing companies like Valve onto their platforms. It will take numerous years to start building momentum, but once it is rolling then game devs will see the platform as more attractive and worth supporting. The M-series Macs are becoming more numerous quite rapidly, and they are more console-like than PC-like as a target platform. The hardware and drivers are more uniform and consistent, which makes it an easier target for development. If the development barriers are lower (eg Apple’s new porting toolkit) then it expands the potential market at relatively low cost. This makes the platform more interesting for people who want games, which pulls more devs, etc. It becomes a feedback loop that builds the platform over time.
I understand Apple’s efforts to get into gaming in a bigger way, but I have never understood why they didn’t go after the CAD/solid modelling market as well. I’m retired now, but in 2001 when Apple built their OS on Unix, I thought for sure they would wipe Microsoft out of the business. Unix (Solaris, Irix, etc…) was far and away a bettef platform than Windows NT. However, Apple never seemed to lift a finger to encourage it. There still isn’t a top end CAD app on Mac OS to this day. Headscratcher to me.
This. And one hell of a lot easier than Mac gaming.
I understand Apple’s efforts to get into gaming in a bigger way, but I have never understood why they didn’t go after the CAD/solid modelling market as well. I’m retired now, but in 2001 when Apple built their OS on Unix, I thought for sure they would wipe Microsoft out of the business. Unix (Solaris, Irix, etc…) was far and away a bettef platform than Windows NT. However, Apple never seemed to lift a finger to encourage it. There still isn’t a top end CAD app on Mac OS to this day. Headscratcher to me.
Apple has been lackluster when it comes to that, the current hardware is more than capable, the situation is the same as the gaming market, forget Autodesk target one of the other competitors in the Cad/3D companies and do what it takes to get them software support get at least one piece of software working on Apple Silicon at it's best that shows what the hardware/software is truly made of Micro-station, Archicad, Morphfolio Trace, Trimble?
The energy performance/efficiently and power of the M-series chips when using battery at the job site is begging for it. As someone who worked in construction now retired Apple is leaving a golden opportunities on the table. The tech geeks/management at Apple are letting it slide away the same seems to apply to servers small to medium sized businesses are crying out for solutions that don't require a generator and a propellerhead.
I understand Apple’s efforts to get into gaming in a bigger way, but I have never understood why they didn’t go after the CAD/solid modelling market as well. I’m retired now, but in 2001 when Apple built their OS on Unix, I thought for sure they would wipe Microsoft out of the business. Unix (Solaris, Irix, etc…) was far and away a bettef platform than Windows NT. However, Apple never seemed to lift a finger to encourage it. There still isn’t a top end CAD app on Mac OS to this day. Headscratcher to me.
I'm sure after having got burned a dozen times, THIS time will be the one where developers finally see Apple stick it out and not throwing all efforts to the curb within three years.
I'm sure after having got burned a dozen times, THIS time will be the one where developers finally see Apple stick it out and not throwing all efforts to the curb within three years.
Not holding my breath.
They could go open source and make a swiftConsole for gaming that would let the game target Mac. Linux, Windows and capable iDevices all in one hit with quality interfaces and localisation support.
I'm sure after having got burned a dozen times, THIS time will be the one where developers finally see Apple stick it out and not throwing all efforts to the curb within three years.
Not holding my breath.
They could go open source and make a swiftConsole for gaming that would let the game target Mac. Linux, Windows and capable iDevices all in one hit with quality interfaces and localisation support.
Won't fly. Apple's track record is littered with failed attempts at things along these lines. Apple needs to either support existing APIs they don't control but which are established and in widespread use, or make migration to their platform a very low barrier to entry. That includes throwing money at platform devs like Unity, Epic, etc.
I'm sure after having got burned a dozen times, THIS time will be the one where developers finally see Apple stick it out and not throwing all efforts to the curb within three years.
Not holding my breath.
They could go open source and make a swiftConsole for gaming that would let the game target Mac. Linux, Windows and capable iDevices all in one hit with quality interfaces and localisation support.
How would a "swiftConsole" let a game target Mac, Linux, Windows and capable iDevices all in one hit?
Hey Apple wanna get really "serious" about gaming? Take say $10 billion of your freakish balance sheet and go to all major gaming developers and say "I pay you all the overhead to make sure you release all your AAA games in the same time and with the same quality as the rest platforms", after a couple of years that the Apple gaming ecosystem is alive and well, people will consider Macs as (also) gaming machines. Until then, with no dual boot, no major releases and the only AAA releases reaching months after the rest platform releases, Mac will still be considered as history of arts studying, meta browsing laptop that can also open office... Oh and some pro photographers/video editors machine... ATM Mac gaming is a joke and is worse than my macbook pro 2007 era...
I'm sure after having got burned a dozen times, THIS time will be the one where developers finally see Apple stick it out and not throwing all efforts to the curb within three years.
Not holding my breath.
There are some positives this time. It's not likely Apple will ever switch architecture or API again because they control it all now - drivers, hardware and API - and it scales across their product line. Metal ARM64 is a future-proof architecture. It also has all the features needed for the highest-end games - advanced shaders (geometry, displacement, subsurface scattering, screen-space reflection), raytracing, upscaling, lots of VRAM.
The main downside is every game engine needs a Metal renderer built. It's a very small part of the engine but very difficult for most developers to build. However, once it's built for an engine, that's it done forever. The engine for Baldur's Gate 3 has a Metal renderer so this will work for all future games built on this engine. Unreal/Unity are taken care of.
Big engines that are missing include the Call of Duty engine (Call of Duty mobile is built on Unity), GTA engine, Far Cry engine, Frostbite engine for Battlefield, Dead Space etc, Decima engine for Horizon Zero Dawn (this will be ready with Death Stranding), Cyberpunk engine, Elden ring engine, Northlight engine for Alan Wake. Quite a few big engines missing support.
The Northlight engine is going to be incorporating a USD workflow and if more game devs move this way, it will help a lot for game support:
It allows for cross-engine data so a game can be built with code, data, scene in a very portable format and the renderer can be swapped out. iOS is Apple's big platform and it will always get support from mobile publishers, Mac can easily use the same renderer as iOS.
Let's say that a big game like GTA 6 comes out in 2025 and they want to port it to Mac. If they had a USD pipeline, they could compile the code, deploy the data and on the big platforms, use their own renderer. For other platforms like iOS/Mac, they can have the exact same code and data running but render it using the Unity or Unreal rendering engine. It wouldn't look exactly the same but it would use the same shaders and be equivalent quality visually and they don't have to reinvent the wheel to get it running.
The main challenges for Mac gaming will remain for the foreseeable future - the engine portability and the size of the target audience. Over the last decade, Mac usage has been growing steadily:
Even if they reach 200m active Mac userbase, gaming audience is likely under 20m so Mac will be a small gaming platform for a while (<10% of PC/console).
What I hope happens in future is that engine developers move towards separating rendering from the rest of the game engine. How the game plays is all portable, how it renders isn't so tying them both together holds them both back. This would make game portability much easier across desktop/mobile/console. Once the barrier to portability is removed, it's just the business case left and the trend line is going up for Mac ownership.
What's really exciting is the unified hardware platform approach that Apple is taking. This makes it simpler for developers to create games that work seamlessly across iPhone, iPad, and Mac. By eliminating the complexity of dealing with multiple hardware permutations, Apple is paving the way for a more integrated and powerful gaming experience across all its devices.
It bears repeating. The most important part for developing a gaming ecosystem on macOS, any platform, is for gamers to spend money and spend enough money for development of games.
The compute performance could be crappy like Nintendo's hardware, the platform fees and requirements could be "onerous" and it is for all game console platforms, but if gamers actually pay for games through one-time purchases, subscriptions or merchandising, game developers will go through onerous hoops to get their game on the platform.
So, the product Apple is offering to game developers are paying customers or a rich market. It's not the hardware nor the software nor even friendly platform terms. It has to be a market of people willing to pay for games. How Apple cultivates this is the multi-billion dollar question.
Apple knows how to attack this problem. They are spending billions with Apple TV+ shows, single digit billions per year, in order to sell Apple TV+ subscriptions. Maybe they are just waiting on the number of MBA and Mac mini units to get to some number of units before starting? I do think they themselves have to publish the games, and they probably should start with a small amount of good games, just like the Apple TV+ strategy.
It looks like they are trying to get their ducks in a row with the GPTK, game mode, etc, but the push for it really starts with them taking responsibility for a core set of games, and keep at it for years.
I don't think Apple has to necessarily create games themselves to make it work. In some ways that is counter-productive as it competes for the available gamer dollars against the 3rd party games they're trying to coax onto their platform(s). The homogeneity of all the Apple Silicon platforms acts to Apple's advantage here -- only one Metal rendering engine is needed (perhaps 2 for pre- and post- ray tracing hardware support), and lots of common APIs and toolchains across iOS, macOS, and tvOS. Throwing money at publishers to get them onto the platform, and then getting the platform out of their way (i.e. GPTK, game mode, and not having the OS and toolchains cause game devs problems). Providing an advertising and distribution platform is good for the small devs, at the same time they need to get out of the way of the big devs who have their own platforms (like Steam). Reduce Apple's cut via the App Store in order to appease Epic, et al. Stop putting up roadblocks. If Apple has issues with those platforms and their security or other issues, then work with the devs to figure that stuff out. If game devs see a profit on the Apple platforms, then enough games will come to those platforms to drives sales. Lots of sales.
I don't think Apple has to necessarily create games themselves to make it work. In some ways that is counter-productive as it competes for the available gamer dollars against the 3rd party games they're trying to coax onto their platform(s). The homogeneity of all the Apple Silicon platforms acts to Apple's advantage here -- only one Metal rendering engine is needed (perhaps 2 for pre- and post- ray tracing hardware support), and lots of common APIs and toolchains across iOS, macOS, and tvOS. Throwing money at publishers to get them onto the platform, and then getting the platform out of their way (i.e. GPTK, game mode, and not having the OS and toolchains cause game devs problems). Providing an advertising and distribution platform is good for the small devs, at the same time they need to get out of the way of the big devs who have their own platforms (like Steam). Reduce Apple's cut via the App Store in order to appease Epic, et al. Stop putting up roadblocks. If Apple has issues with those platforms and their security or other issues, then work with the devs to figure that stuff out. If game devs see a profit on the Apple platforms, then enough games will come to those platforms to drives sales. Lots of sales.
They don't have to, but I can see the benefit of Apple doing what they did with Apple TV+ to make some quality games (and potentially franchises) that help showcase the performance of Apple Silicon.
A benefit of doing this in-house — which they don't get from Apple TV+ original content — is the ability to create game faster than purely using an outside company that will likely need to work with other platforms and engines whilst creating for Apple Silicon and being able to create games for future HW that has yet to be announced without anyone knowing about it.
Nintendo has a very long history of working with 3d-parties while creating their own games, which are still beloved titles and characters into their 5th decade. Let's not forget that Nintendo has achieved great success without having the bleeding edge gaming performance. Even today the Nintendo Switch is my favorite game console and it still doesn't output to 4K/UHD/2160p.
Comments
It needs powerful hardware to make games. Here is a video from a developer who used Macs for game development (19:30 in video):
Macs are used heavily by developers because they work very well for this.
The unified memory is great for 3D texturing and modelling apps like the industry standard Substance Painter and ZBrush (both have Mac native versions) because they can fit more textures in real-time. Apple's laptops can have 128GB video RAM, even high-end PC laptops only have 16GB VRAM.
Not only can it handle these high-end tasks, the M-series Macs do it quietly with no fan noise so you can work for hours in peace.
Macs can be used for game development even if Macs aren't a target distribution platform but it helps when they are a target platform too.
Apple's Game Porting Toolkit was a huge push into gaming, building a DirectX 12 emulator is not a small task, they hired some serious talent to pull that off so well. Even VMWare, Parallels, Crossover who have been trying this for years haven't managed to do this. It supports a huge amount of games:
https://www.youtube.com/@macprotips/videos
What I think would help a lot is if game devs made versions of their existing games wrapped up in the GPTK emulator in Steam. Just now when people open Steam on a Mac, it's a big list of unsupported titles but most of them work just fine through the emulator. Either Valve could partner with Crossover to bundle versions of games in a compatible way or each developer can do it themselves and charge a small fee for the Mac version. This can build a compatible library of thousands of games very quickly.
If millions of people start using the Mac for buying and playing games, that active playerbase will allow Macs to be treated as a tier 1 platform for future games. It's not easy to do this with Mac alone because the best they'd manage is around 10 million (10% of general userbase) vs 100-200 million on PC (which rivals consoles) but they have the iOS platform to back it up. Bringing AAA to mobile will be their selling point, that has the scale to rival other tier 1 platforms.
Getting big AAA game ports like Baldur's Gate 3, Death Stranding, Resident Evil 4 and 8 was really good (these games look great on the XDR displays), it just needs more of the same x10.
They can make their own games with internal studios but games like Baldur's Gate 3 took 6 years to make with 400 people and a ~$100m budget. It's not the money, Apple has a giant money pile but 3-6 years for each AAA game that might be hit or miss is just too sparse. They can only succeed in gaming by having strong partnerships with dozens of big studios. It looks like they are building these partnerships with some big developers so just more of this and they will keep building support in the industry.
Native Mac gaming is looking in better shape than ever and they have a solid future-proof platform (Metal ARM64) that scales across 1.5 billion hardware units. It will take time to build industry support but all it needs is the motivation to do it and to maintain the momentum.
or more generally content consumers want to become content makers the more they consume. Sure, Every activity in excess can be bad and over train your brain in one way or another, but I've not seen any reseach to say games as play as part of the balanced lifestyle isn't good for brain health. Indeed the only research that seems to come up is Gun Violence but i guess we don't want to get in to if that is really about the games or the guns.
So what would lead people to be interested in 3D (assuming that is what you meant) and Coding?
To me this is why Apple should be in there making sure the devices they make have a board range to productive and recreational options. "Games" are a big market for recreation they are losing options in. They've lost Cities:Skylines and KSP both casual gaming titles that boarden peoples interest in the world around them. I'm sure there are many other examples. Missing that mark means they have people buying other devices if they did develop an interest in 3D or coding.
macs aren‘t worth the porting investment. It just doesn‘t make financial sense.
So while apple may want to attract game developers, they are seriously uninterested. While the unified apple platform is huge, they havent even managed to attract cosole/pc games for ios despite things like the backbone one & playstation/xbox controller support.
personally valve would need to bring steam and their proton tech to ios. watching how amazing that works on my linux laptop is just jaw dropping. But then again steam link already works really well.
Apple has been lackluster when it comes to that, the current hardware is more than capable, the situation is the same as the gaming market, forget Autodesk target one of the other competitors in the Cad/3D companies and do what it takes to get them software support get at least one piece of software working on Apple Silicon at it's best that shows what the hardware/software is truly made of Micro-station, Archicad, Morphfolio Trace, Trimble?
The energy performance/efficiently and power of the M-series chips when using battery at the job site is begging for it. As someone who worked in construction now retired Apple is leaving a golden opportunities on the table. The tech geeks/management at Apple are letting it slide away the same seems to apply to servers small to medium sized businesses are crying out for solutions that don't require a generator and a propellerhead.
Not holding my breath.
The main downside is every game engine needs a Metal renderer built. It's a very small part of the engine but very difficult for most developers to build. However, once it's built for an engine, that's it done forever. The engine for Baldur's Gate 3 has a Metal renderer so this will work for all future games built on this engine. Unreal/Unity are taken care of.
Big engines that are missing include the Call of Duty engine (Call of Duty mobile is built on Unity), GTA engine, Far Cry engine, Frostbite engine for Battlefield, Dead Space etc, Decima engine for Horizon Zero Dawn (this will be ready with Death Stranding), Cyberpunk engine, Elden ring engine, Northlight engine for Alan Wake. Quite a few big engines missing support.
The Northlight engine is going to be incorporating a USD workflow and if more game devs move this way, it will help a lot for game support:
https://www.remedygames.com/article/developing-northlight-openusd-content-workflows
It allows for cross-engine data so a game can be built with code, data, scene in a very portable format and the renderer can be swapped out. iOS is Apple's big platform and it will always get support from mobile publishers, Mac can easily use the same renderer as iOS.
Let's say that a big game like GTA 6 comes out in 2025 and they want to port it to Mac. If they had a USD pipeline, they could compile the code, deploy the data and on the big platforms, use their own renderer. For other platforms like iOS/Mac, they can have the exact same code and data running but render it using the Unity or Unreal rendering engine. It wouldn't look exactly the same but it would use the same shaders and be equivalent quality visually and they don't have to reinvent the wheel to get it running.
The main challenges for Mac gaming will remain for the foreseeable future - the engine portability and the size of the target audience. Over the last decade, Mac usage has been growing steadily:
https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/desktop/worldwide/#monthly-200901-202312
Even if they reach 200m active Mac userbase, gaming audience is likely under 20m so Mac will be a small gaming platform for a while (<10% of PC/console).
What I hope happens in future is that engine developers move towards separating rendering from the rest of the game engine. How the game plays is all portable, how it renders isn't so tying them both together holds them both back. This would make game portability much easier across desktop/mobile/console. Once the barrier to portability is removed, it's just the business case left and the trend line is going up for Mac ownership.
The compute performance could be crappy like Nintendo's hardware, the platform fees and requirements could be "onerous" and it is for all game console platforms, but if gamers actually pay for games through one-time purchases, subscriptions or merchandising, game developers will go through onerous hoops to get their game on the platform.
So, the product Apple is offering to game developers are paying customers or a rich market. It's not the hardware nor the software nor even friendly platform terms. It has to be a market of people willing to pay for games. How Apple cultivates this is the multi-billion dollar question.
Apple knows how to attack this problem. They are spending billions with Apple TV+ shows, single digit billions per year, in order to sell Apple TV+ subscriptions. Maybe they are just waiting on the number of MBA and Mac mini units to get to some number of units before starting? I do think they themselves have to publish the games, and they probably should start with a small amount of good games, just like the Apple TV+ strategy.
It looks like they are trying to get their ducks in a row with the GPTK, game mode, etc, but the push for it really starts with them taking responsibility for a core set of games, and keep at it for years.
A benefit of doing this in-house — which they don't get from Apple TV+ original content — is the ability to create game faster than purely using an outside company that will likely need to work with other platforms and engines whilst creating for Apple Silicon and being able to create games for future HW that has yet to be announced without anyone knowing about it.
Nintendo has a very long history of working with 3d-parties while creating their own games, which are still beloved titles and characters into their 5th decade. Let's not forget that Nintendo has achieved great success without having the bleeding edge gaming performance. Even today the Nintendo Switch is my favorite game console and it still doesn't output to 4K/UHD/2160p.