Beats

highframerate said:

tomahawk said:

highframerate said:

techconc said:

This is the type of acquisition that Apple really needs to make.  Apple just doesn't get the gaming market or simply has no interest in it.  Small indie games in Apple Arcade are fine, but Apple's platforms need A list games.  Apple has great hardware with the M1 Max but a poor gaming selection.  Ironically, Mac sales are at record levels now, but gaming on the Mac is worse than any time in history.  Sad.  

The M1 Max is not "great hardware" for gaming because the GPU only performs between the level of an Nvidia 3060 and 3080, which are available in x86 machines that cost under $1000. Yes Mac sales are at record levels ... but at a market share (depending upon whether you believe Gartner, IDC, Canalys) that 7.5% to 8.6%, making it third in share behind Windows and ChromeOS. 

The only path into AAA gaming for Apple is to emulate Microsoft and create their own gaming console. The problem: the AAA console gaming market is in turmoil right now, which is precisely what Microsoft is taking advantage of by snapping up beleagured studios left and right. And - as I mentioned above - currently if you combine the efforts of Microsoft, Nvidia, Google and Amazon and you have 42-45 million cloud gaming subscriptions. It would take Apple 3 years at minimum to launch a console gaming platform; who knows how many cloud gaming subscribers there will be in that time. 

Apple doesn't need its own console.  Nintendo showed some time ago you don't have to have the best hardware or graphics to be successful.  Apple needs to figure out a way to bring some truly great games to the AppleTV and push that capability.  They also would need to market the platform as having that capability.  At this point Apple Arcade is an interesting concept, but I'd say their execution is lacking.  Do the same thing they're trying to do with AppleTV+, go get some content!

This should have been Apple.  They need to push having a few top games available on iOS, macOS and AppleTV.  They need to push low-cost controller availability, etc.  Make the AppleTV the family gaming platform, one that a lot of people already have in their home. Go for the market the Wii filled, and promote all of your subscriptions at the same time.

You state "Apple doesn't need its own console" and then you cite Nintendo ... which has its own console. The Nintendo Switch is a hybrid of two of the most popular console gaming hardware platforms of all time: the Wii and the DS. Without the massive success of the Wii and the operating system from the 3DS, the Switch wouldn't have had a chance. Nintendo also has what Apple does not have, which is an extensive list of their own gaming IP - Breath of the Wild was a launch title, plus Super Mario Odyssey, Smash Bros Ultimate, Animal Crossing and the venerable Mario Kart were key to its success - and a longrunning relationship with gaming studios. Apple has none of those things. 

Incidentally, you greatly overstate the number of Apple TV boxes in the wild. Apple TV is behind Roku, Tizen, Fire TV, lgOS and Android TV/Google TV and it isn't close. If it were, you would have more developers for Apple Arcade. The reason why Apple Arcade didn't take off is because it is between a rock and a hard place. Apple wants the combination of iPhone, iPad and Apple TV to push at least PS4-caliber games. (Whether the Apple TV is even capable of 4K games at high refresh rates is debatable. It is likely capable of either 1080p games at high refresh rates or 4K games at low ones.)
Two problems.
1. There is no evidence that AAA gamers want PS4-caliber games. They want the latest games running at the most powerful specs, which means 8K with ray tracing etc.
2. iPad/iPhone gaming is primarily touchscreen. Apple TV requires controllers. The largest audience of gamers - by far - is iPad but the AAA gaming experience requires targeting the device with a very small market share (Apple TV) with the ideal version of the game while still making the iPad and iPhone versions high quality. That is a challenge that AAA developers for no other platform but Nintendo have to worry about, and again Nintendo's partners have been developing games for the DS and Gameboy for decades. 

And for the reasons that I have stated, no this shouldn't be Apple. Apple doesn't have a platform capable of running Activision Blizzard games. Microsoft has two of them: Windows and PlayStation. And no, buying Activision Blizzard won't cause a stampede of people to run out and buy MacBook Airs or Apple TVs to game on because that is still just one content library from one studio. It would be the equivalent of - for example - Amazon trying to build a streaming service with only the MGM library. 

danvm said:

Beats said:

danvm said:

9secondkox2 said:

Beats said:

my sister literally went “Ew, that's gross,'" said Maher.

I feel the same way and it’s a turn off also when I find a girl owns a droid. Not because they’re green but because they have a knockoff iPhone. Reminds me of people who think they’re rich wearing fake jewelry and knockoff Gucci.

Apple isn’t obligated to give anything away for free no matter what Epic says. Though I’ve argued iMessage+FaceTime for $1/month for knockoff iPhones/knockoff iPads would have been a great idea pre-FaceTime on browsers.

iMessage alone isn’t reason enough to switch/stick with real iPhones. Apple needs to stop playing with Apple Arcade and make some really good games with it. Games that encourage online play. Maybe add in iMessage and FaceTime support to the games. Improving Maps would help. I always supported the idea of Apple buying Yelp as it would make Maps more interesting. iCloud is too stingy with storage and TV+ has an ugly name and not much content yet.

Well said. Apple is poised to dominate all of these. But they don’t. They just mess around, being content with dominating in phones and PCs. But they could easily dominate Google and game consoles if they actually decided to get serious. 

You should consider that Apple is serious in gaming.  It's just that they bad at it.  Just look how they are doing with the Apple TV. 
Apple TV Struggling, With Market Share Of Just 2% - Macworld UK
Even MS, Nintendo and Sony are ahead of Apple as streaming devices.  What makes you think they will better than MS, Sony and Nintendo in the gaming console market?  

You realize Apple puts 4 year old+ chips in their apple TVs? Apple isn’t serious about gaming. Apple Arcade games have to support 6 year old devices so don’t expect big adventures like GTA or The Elder Scrolls anytime soon.

Nintendo has no issues selling the Switch, which has a very old processor.  To have an old processor is not excuse.  And if Apple sees that supporting 6 years old devices impact negativity the gaming experience, why they don't change the policy so that Apple Arcade works only in modern devices?