highframerate

ravnorodom said:

Everyone is jumping on the wagon. Let see who will be first. Let me guess...... Samssssssssuuuuuu.....Nah.

Samsung isn't a software company like Microsoft, Facebook and Google, doesn't have a successful operating system like Apple, isn't a gaming company like Sony and as a result doesn't have a platform. They tried with Tizen and it failed, with Tizen now relegated to being an IoT platform for their smart appliances. Their best bet will be to lay low for now and in a couple of years make a platform-independent set of goggles capable of accessing other platforms. It isn't as if Microsoft, Google and Facebook are going to tell Samsung "no." The former already has a multi-billion dollar partnership agreement with Samsung to promote their apps and services on Samsung hardware (to the tune of some 300 million phones and 25 million tablets a year) and reciprocates with an app that connects and mirrors a Samsung phone to a Windows 10/11 PC. The latter two do not have the brand name, supply chain, retail agreements etc. to manufacture, ship and promote a product all over the globe. Google has been making Nexus and Pixel devices for over a decade and they still have limited availability outside North America and western Europe (along with frequent supply problems). And all of Facebook's attempts to make hardware - phone, watch, smart display - except Oculus have been failures, which is probably the reason for the rebrand. Samsung sold Galaxy VR glasses in the previous decade, but they supported Oculus, not Google's Cardboard or Daydream (this was in the era when Google and Samsung were squabbling) and was a huge reason why Cardboard/Daydream failed. 

macxpress said:

And how many of the 31% are free tier Spotify users? As is the case with a lot of areas, Apple isn't the top of the market share, but they are where it counts, which is revenue/profits. 

Actually Spotify has 172 million paid subscribers. If this included "free tier" users then the obvious winner would be YouTube and its billions. But since it is only paid users, then YouTube Music only has 50 million subscribers, putting it behind Spotify, Apple Music, Tencent and Amazon (though it DID have 50% growth the last 12 months and is the fastest growing of the services: https://variety.com/2022/music/news/streaming-music-growth-worldwide-youtube-spotify-apple-1235156594/).

YP101 said:

Well, Apple just buy Nintendo will solve the problem. Nintendo gets M1 CPU will resolve the current hardware limitation.
Apple will receive all retro games on Apple TV.

We went through this 5 years ago when people thought that NIntendo was dead (couldn't keep up with Microsoft and Sony in specs, their "family-friendly" focus meant losing out to the iPad etc.) so people claimed that Apple should buy Nintendo in order to bring the Mario, Zelda etc. games to the iPad and iPhone. Nintendo said: "We are not for sale and never will be" followed by "even if we are sold it will never be to a foreign company." 

As for Sony, yeah as if the antitrust regulators would allow that. It would give Apple:
A. a smartphone and tablet manufacturer (Android)
B. a TV (again Android), DVD and premium audio manufacturer 
C. the world's #1 gaming console platform
D. the Columbia movie studio (Spider-Man, Ghostbusters, Jumanji, Bad Boys, Karate Kid, Men In Black and a bunch of other franchises, and that doesn't even include Sony Japan's extensive film, TV, music etc. properties)

So the Japanese government is going to let the company that killed off the Walkman (and indirectly the Blu-Ray by creating the streaming era) and mobile gaming (seriously degrading Sony, Nintendo, Sega etc. in the process while creating a boom for competing Chinese and South Korean tech companies like Tencent, Xiaomi, LG and Samsung) buy Sony? Yeah, totally not going to happen. 

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. 

When Google and Microsoft first launched Stadia and xCloud and were not allowed to put their apps in the app store, an Apple Insider pooh-poohed the development stating "cloud gaming is going to fail anyway." Well now xCloud alone has 25 million subscribers. Nvidia GeForce Now had 12 million subscribers at last count. And at last report - which was way back in 1Q 2020 - Amazon Luna and Google Stadia had 2.5 million subscribers apiece. (Plus you can simply buy Stadia games without bothering with a subscription.) By comparison the streaming service Hulu has 43 million subscribers, and in mid-July Apple TV+ was estimated to have less than 20 million subscribers (which Apple does not dispute, and they state that they HOPE to have 36 million subscribers in 2026!). 

Not saying that Apple should have allowed game streaming apps into their app store. But the idea "who cares: game streaming isn't going to catch on anyway" was a very bad take. If Microsoft wasn't happy with the initial response to xCloud, there is no way that they would have doubled down by spending $70 billion on Activision Blizzard. And no, the antitrust types aren't going to block it.