Marvin

SiTime said:

Marvin said:

According to a recent interview, Epic still spends more than they make though so once the one-hit-wonder game finally loses player interest, their situation will be different.

Did the definition of “one-hit-wonder” change recently? Maybe I’m showing my age a bit (and I know the company is a very different company in 2025), but: I’ve been playing Epic Games hit after Epic Games hit since the 90s. I still load up Unreal Tournament 2004 every now and then and that hit came out back in… well, 2004, lol.

Relatively, low single-digit million copies (< $200m) is a negligible amount of sales vs Fortnite ($5b+/year) and this was how Unreal Tournament and early Gears of War sold. Epic's revenue is over 90% from Fortnite:

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1234185/epic-games-annual-revenue-segment/
https://www.tweaktown.com/news/103306/over-75-of-epic-games-store-revenue-comes-from-first-party-titles-like-fortnite/index.html

If people stopped playing (or just paying for it), the company would struggle to survive at the size it is now. It has to happen eventually.

They have been trying to grow their store to generate revenue but with 12% or lower margins, it would have to scale much higher to be enough. They'd need to be a dominant store on mobile.

SiTime said:

Marvin said:

It's crazy how such a repetitive, mindless game has lasted so long and generated so much revenue.

Although you might be showing your age as well because that was very much an ‘Old Man, Kids These Days, Back In My Day, Don’t Know What Real Games Are, Get Off My Lawn’ type of comment, lol.

Young adults play it and stream it and it's still a terrible, repetitive game:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHmblPPOXbg

The way people behave when playing it isn't healthy either:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xGVEv1Heqo

It's clear why it would have some appeal but not 650 million registered players and 30 million active per month after 7 years. This is more than GTA.

Fortnite will die out eventually and this will leave Epic with a massive funding shortfall and this is what they aren't being honest about. Epic is trying to position themselves as a platform so that they can generate revenue from other creators the same way that Apple and Valve do because it's key to their long-term survival, while dishonestly trying to convince people that what Apple and Valve are doing is wrong. Their game engine helps them in this regard because it helps tie big game developers' products to their company's success. Big game studios need to be wary of this but they are all being convinced to play along by getting a good rendering engine. If there was an open, industry-standard rendering engine, big developers wouldn't even consider using Unreal Engine.

I don't know why the big game companies haven't done this already - EA, Valve, Take Two (Rockstar), Microsoft, Ubisoft, CD Projekt RED, Crytek etc. They all have their own engines with varying quality and have to maintain them. At some point in the past, the engine was a competitive aspect for a company. These days it's just a headache to maintain them while also building huge products in parallel. Instead of working together, a lot of them are just giving up on internal tools and buying into Unreal when they could build a better product between them on open standards without royalties and without depending on a 3rd party company staying in business.

camber said:

Sweeney ought to be considering how many people will never but EPIC products because of his conduct!

Not enough unfortunately, Fortnite is still one of the most played games in the world:

https://fortnite.gg/player-count
https://www.demandsage.com/fortnite-statistics/

Around 30 million daily active players, 650 million player accounts. $40 billion in lifetime revenue.

This is what gave Epic the ability to lose $1b on a lawsuit.

According to a recent interview, Epic still spends more than they make though so once the one-hit-wonder game finally loses player interest, their situation will be different.

It's crazy how such a repetitive, mindless game has lasted so long and generated so much revenue.

Epic is also trying to get big game studios hooked on Unreal Engine and their store, which will tie their products to their company success. Apple has options to undermine this but they need to partner with the studios.

The likely worst outcome is that Apple is forced to lower their fee to 15% to avoid big developers processing fees externally. There's a single digit percentage that is break-even for any developer/publisher processing revenue at scale and as long as the fee is at a reasonable level, they will use Apple's setup.

hmlongco said:

People use phones to read, play games, watch videos, take photos and videos, and more. 

Until there's a replacement for the screen, the iPhone will still be around.

And for those looking forward to implants, may I direct you to S07E01 of Black Mirror?

The screen replacement will be what the Apple Vision Pro becomes. At an advanced stage, AVP replaces everything.

iPhone replaced cameras, GPS, iPod, phones, pagers, alarms etc.

The wearable computer can replace desktops, laptops, tablets and smartphones. These separate products only exist due to screen sizes and cooling/power usage. This will have an OS that incorporates an advanced AI that learns about the user and the environment while blending digital content into the real world.

The OS on the wearable will be able to create an entire photoreal virtual world and people in it. The standard 2D UI vs full spatial computing will look like how the old terminals looked before the GUI.

AppleInsider said:

Apple has been researching a new Magic Mouse for the Mac that would detect gestures -- not on its surface, but on the table near it.

So exactly in the way that you can now get QWERTY keyboards that are laser-projected onto any surface, the mouse could present an image on your desk. You could then tap on that image, and the mouse's cameras will register your position and infer which projected control you meant.

That sounds more like a MacBook Pro, for instance, projecting a keyboard or a mouse area for the user to move their fingers through. And there are illustrations that show exactly that -- except they still include a regular keyboard and trackpad.

There's a product that does something like this that's been around for a few years:



https://www.amazon.com/Leap-Motion-Controller-Gesture-Control/dp/B00E3CP9UM
https://leap2.ultraleap.com/products/leap-motion-controller-2/

It costs around $200 so would only be worthwhile if they can keep the cost down.

If they can integrate it into a more expensive Mac and it adds $50 to the price, it offers some interesting capability. It would be possible to draw without a touch surface and the Mac can be controlled like Apple Vision OS by pinching and dragging things around.

fishwhisperer said:

Why the Mac Mini has the headphone jack in the front but the Mac Studio has it on the back is baffling to me. The only reason I have to move my Mac Studio is precisely to connect my headphones, and even though I don't do that often, it is always an irritant to me.

If the internal speakers aren't needed, an extension cable left plugged in would save having to reach around the back every time:

https://www.amazon.com/Headphone-Extension-Nanxudyj-Smartphones-Tablets/dp/B08MDQ4QL1/?th=1