Gaming push should have always started with AppleTV and getting devs to launch on IPhone/iPad along side. More people will buy an Xbox controller to play games on their tv. It will take a long time to get people to think of an iPhone as a switch
I have an iPhone 15 Pro and Assassin's Creed mirage lags, freezes, annd spikes the temperature of my iPhone. It is completely unplayable. Sort of confounding that they released it in this state.
I'm not sure who would pay the money for these games when they don't properly run on these devices.
Also, the game developers are lazily choosing to not support cross save. Why would I buy death stranding or assassins creed mirage and I've already sunk 60 hours into it on my PlayStation? I wouldn't.
Indeed, and I think whatever performance they're able to get out of an iPhone is to be lauded. Amazing, even! The ability to play any of these games at any level on a mobile device is near magic. But there's a certain narrative on display in the comments here that is tantamount to glitter throwing, that somehow an iPhone is going to push rock-solid 60fps with everything set to to the max because a lot of nonsensical, out-of-context marketing pap about the performance of Apple Silicon has been swallowed without consideration about the complexity of games and Apple's wholly insular development stack.
Add to it the churlish "blame the developer" attitude, when all of these most recent games were produced with direct help from Apple, and one can imagine why developers would have dim interest in the platform. A pittance in sales is not worth the complexity to achieve baselines of performance or the agitation from an entitled, ungrateful user base.
I don't think people expected the iPhone version to do 60fps or max settings. But I do think people expect a consistent 30fps when a lot of these AAA iPhone games are set for low graphic levels and rendering at 300p internally before being upscaled.
Perhaps I'm being too harsh and it's not "lazy" but more inexperienced with the platform? I remember the difference between graphics/performance in Elder Scrolls Oblivion (early in Xbox 360 cycle) versus Elder Scrolls Skyrim (late in Xbox 360 cycle). Same hardware but dramatically different results.
This just sounds like very poor pricing on the part of the games. They can keep the all-up price but introduce progressive pricing at game-level breakpoints to make the game more attractive for more casual gamers.
I would assume that a very small portion of AAA gamers are even remotely tempted to spend AAA money on a mobile port. You play these games for the immersion, rather than just a quick time-killing session when taking a break or waiting for the bus. Personally, I'd rather have my teeth pulled out than playing a major AAA title on a phone.
The screen is comparatively tiny, which not only wastes a lot of the graphical appeal, it also makes visual ques much harder to notice. Perhaps even more damning, the interactions of the original games were designed for either a console controller or mouse and keyboard. It's not unusual to have 15 or more keybinds. Squeezing that kind of complex control scheme, which you ideally want to master in a flow state, onto a smallish touch screen often results in a very unsatisfactory experience.
Believeing that porting pricy and dated AAA consaole/PC games to iPhones, or even iPads, would be a successful strategy, just reveals a deep ignorance of hardcore gamer preferences.
This part. As a gamer since before PCs were a thing, and and a PC gamer since they were a thing, I am personally uninterested in paying those kinds of prices to game on a phone screen, regardless of how fast that phone is. One of the larger iPads is more likely, with proper controller support (my PS5 controller seems to work pretty well on my M2 iPad Pro).
Via the entirely unscientific process of "guessing" I believe I'm not alone, and that many console gamers are in the same boat.
As well, I think it's likely that a generation of phone gamers have been conditioned to expect game prices to be in the sub 10ish dollar range. Paying more seems like it would be a "why bother" scenario.
When discussing aaa gaming, I think it’s important to note the distinction between app stores (iOS, Mac, Apple TV, headset).
Because each represents an entirely different use case.
With an iPhone or even an iPad, aaa gaming just isn’t going to work without some contraption attached as a gaming controller or an entirely seperate game controller. And then the iPhone or tablet isn’t built to prop up as a standalone screen. For that, you’d also need to purchase yet another accessory - and for what? The occasional game - that is itself dumbed down to fit the iPhone specs?
With Vision Pro, it’s a completely different paradigm altogether that’s better suited to vr style gaming.
With the Mac, that’s the best, most logical place for aaa games as it’s basically the same exact experience as pc gaming.
No one wants to pay aaa prices for an iOS experience - including vr. Remember the Nintendo DS and game boy handhelds? Their games were cheap compared to the GameCube console titles. Sony tried selling console prices games on their Vita handheld - and it died. So people feel a value difference.
But people will pay full price for an epic experience on a Mac - so long as the game isn’t played out already on other platforms.
Apple has a long way to go before people trust them as the place to spend their gaming money. They need to go big. I suggest the following strategy:
1) sign aaa developers to exclusive release window agreements where the mac gets the game exclusively for the first 3-6 months. Let the anticipation work in your favor.
2) score some top games that ONLY work well on Mac or pc as opposed to console or handheld. I e. StarCraft 3, command and conquer revival, etc.
3) make a major franchise exclusive to the Mac or get a major franchise to offer exclusive benefits to the Mac platform.
4) prove to gamers you’re serious about the Mac as a aaa gaming platform by scooping up a major developer - or three.
5) release a dedicated games console - with a derivative of m series that focuses on GPU more than cpu and is cheaper to produce. Let that be the iPod, iPhone effect of getting into households where people have traditionally relied on Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft.
People aren’t just buying a game. They’re buying the experience. The platform it’s on is a huge part of that experience. It’s an entrenched value that handheld=cheap. Console/computer=more value. It is what it is.
At least developers can be happy they’re not losing anything. The same work that went into the Mac port already went into iOS. And there will be still some who buy the iOS game.
But dang, it’s past time Apple hires a gaming dept. lead and goes for it. A huge market waiting for a true leader.
I already played those games months ago if not years ago (RE7). I’m not paying another $49 bucks again just to play it on iOS. If I had to chose even on a release title, I’m getting it on a console. If they want to see games that are out months or years sell, maybe sell the. Under $20.
I already played those games months ago if not years ago (RE7). I’m not paying another $49 bucks again just to play it on iOS. If I had to chose even on a release title, I’m getting it on a console. If they want to see games that are out months or years sell, maybe sell the. Under $20.
I’m with Raymondai, once AppleTV is given console power and people make proper games for it then we’ll finally see a change in attitude towards gaming on Apple gear.
The problem in the past with AAA games on Mac is they didn’t actually port the games. They lazily wrapped the Windows version in Cider and expected Mac users to be happy with the performance hit running an emulator gives.
Ive said it once and I’ll say it a million times, developers and publishers are their own worst enemies. No one is going to pay top dollar for a AAA game being wrapped in Cider that doesn’t have the same performance or features as the PC or console games. I mean how many games ported to Macs can play multiplayer against PC?
But Apple is changing that with GameKit and Metal the latter of which has been prove. In many cases to be more powerful than DirectX. In fact in the past, when a game has been written for Mac hardware alongside PC hardware the Macs have outperformed the PCs. World of Warcraft was one of them.
This leads to the point made in the article, most people just don’t understand how powerful Macs are compared to their PC counterparts mostly because PC users are pathetically moulded to believe higher numbers equals better performance.
Most of this is complete nonsense and an insult to companies like Aspyr and Feral Interactive that worked tirelessly porting games using native toolkits for years.
Aspyr and Feral Interactive aren't most AAA game developers and they're not developing ALL the AAA games out there so I stand by what I said.
Take games developers like CCP Games who make Eve Online. This game is (or at least WAS because I believe it's changed now) clearly wrapped in Cider. The performance hit was attrocious. But on the iPhone I can play Eve Echoes, which is more or less the same engine, buttery smooth. It's not Cider wrapped on iOS.
Other AAA games have been wrapped in Cider or other similar tools rather than ported to Metal or even OpenGL and that's a fact.
It's changing now that Apple has been developing tools that make it easier to port to Metal for macOS and iOS but it still needs developers to use those tool.
Apple needs to advertise console class graphics. They probably need a first-party controller too. It will still be difficult to attract gamers with such a small catalog. Game streaming could have primed the iPhone to be a gaming device, but Apple may have missed the boat on that. Maybe game emulation will help draw in more gamers.
Gaming at Apple is completely mismanaged. Beautiful hardware, but no gaming vision.
Unlike some here say, I don't think Apple TV is the answer now that smart TV's now all come with Apple TV+. I don't want another box if it's just providing the same interface. However, if Apple TV+ is re-branded as Apple Home Center (just an example) and comes with an M4 Pro and unique game controller, it can become a gaming / TV hybrid.
However, Apple will have to change Arcade and the App Store gaming section for all platforms as well: 1. Acquire indies and one large developer. 2. Make 1st party content for Apple hardware. Think about how Nintendo is doing this, but then the "Apple way". 3. Per article, do something about the ridiculous price point of (Mac) gaming titles. 4. Get AAA-titles to become part of Arcade and stop clogging it with mobile game ports.
For iPhone AAA GAMEs to be successfull on iPhone or iPad, they have to use in-app-payments for payment. This means users have to make small in app purchases to continue uplaying. In-app purchases have made games easy to start and play. And in-app purchases have made developers millions more than by single app purches.
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I'm not sure who would pay the money for these games when they don't properly run on these devices.
Also, the game developers are lazily choosing to not support cross save. Why would I buy death stranding or assassins creed mirage and I've already sunk 60 hours into it on my PlayStation? I wouldn't.
Perhaps I'm being too harsh and it's not "lazy" but more inexperienced with the platform? I remember the difference between graphics/performance in Elder Scrolls Oblivion (early in Xbox 360 cycle) versus Elder Scrolls Skyrim (late in Xbox 360 cycle). Same hardware but dramatically different results.
1) sign aaa developers to exclusive release window agreements where the mac gets the game exclusively for the first 3-6 months. Let the anticipation work in your favor.
3) make a major franchise exclusive to the Mac or get a major franchise to offer exclusive benefits to the Mac platform.
Aspyr and Feral Interactive aren't most AAA game developers and they're not developing ALL the AAA games out there so I stand by what I said.
Take games developers like CCP Games who make Eve Online. This game is (or at least WAS because I believe it's changed now) clearly wrapped in Cider. The performance hit was attrocious. But on the iPhone I can play Eve Echoes, which is more or less the same engine, buttery smooth. It's not Cider wrapped on iOS.
Other AAA games have been wrapped in Cider or other similar tools rather than ported to Metal or even OpenGL and that's a fact.
It's changing now that Apple has been developing tools that make it easier to port to Metal for macOS and iOS but it still needs developers to use those tool.
Unlike some here say, I don't think Apple TV is the answer now that smart TV's now all come with Apple TV+.
I don't want another box if it's just providing the same interface.
However, if Apple TV+ is re-branded as Apple Home Center (just an example) and comes with an M4 Pro and unique game controller, it can become a gaming / TV hybrid.
However, Apple will have to change Arcade and the App Store gaming section for all platforms as well:
1. Acquire indies and one large developer.
2. Make 1st party content for Apple hardware. Think about how Nintendo is doing this, but then the "Apple way".
3. Per article, do something about the ridiculous price point of (Mac) gaming titles.
4. Get AAA-titles to become part of Arcade and stop clogging it with mobile game ports.
This means users have to make small in app purchases to continue uplaying.
In-app purchases have made games easy to start and play.
And in-app purchases have made developers millions more than by single app purches.