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I doubt they are avoiding success, but they aren’t doing anything to attract gamers. When I think of gamers, I think of fully-customized machines modded to the

I doubt they are avoiding success, but they aren’t doing anything to attract gamers. When I think of gamers, I think of fully-customized machines modded to the owners’ desires. My maxed out MBP looks like every other one, and it’s pretty much impossible for me to modify. Forget the software. Why would any gamer want to buy expensive hardware that cannot be customized/upgraded after delivery?

hengheng 4y ago
You're saying that as if gaming consoles had never been a thing.
- musicale 4y ago
  Precisely - Apple's gaming model is the iOS/console/walled garden model. Personally I'm happy that there's an Epic Game Store for macOS, but clearly it's not where Apple's bread is buttered.
- toast0 4y ago
  The pippin didn't do well in the market either. More generally for the topic; MacOS is a quickly moving target, which makes it a terrible platform for game developers. Console platforms are generally highly consistent throughout their lifetimes (although recent platforms have been doing more variants and mid-lifetime upgrades); if your game finishes a bit late, it will still work, and worst case you sell it for the previous generation even though a lot of people moved on or are planning to move on soon (low availability of latest gen makes a late previous gen game more viable though). If your game is late on macOS, there's a decent chance Apple will have changed APIs and you've got a lot of work to update. Releasing a game that only works on last year's macOS is not viable. Releasing a game that only works on last year's windows isn't great, but it's doable; and Microsoft tends not to break things so quickly; a game targetting DirectX N will almost always work on the OS that ships with DirectX N+1 as well.
jerlam 4y ago
> When I think of gamers Except that in terms of revenue, PC gaming brings in less money than console gaming, which brings in less money than mobile gaming. Apple is already a big player in mobile gaming. Why would they spend a lot of money to compete in a smaller market where they have minimal market share, instead of expanding their already significant mobile market share?

hengheng 4y ago

You're saying that as if gaming consoles had never been a thing.

musicale 4y ago
Precisely - Apple's gaming model is the iOS/console/walled garden model. Personally I'm happy that there's an Epic Game Store for macOS, but clearly it's not where Apple's bread is buttered.
toast0 4y ago
The pippin didn't do well in the market either. More generally for the topic; MacOS is a quickly moving target, which makes it a terrible platform for game developers. Console platforms are generally highly consistent throughout their lifetimes (although recent platforms have been doing more variants and mid-lifetime upgrades); if your game finishes a bit late, it will still work, and worst case you sell it for the previous generation even though a lot of people moved on or are planning to move on soon (low availability of latest gen makes a late previous gen game more viable though). If your game is late on macOS, there's a decent chance Apple will have changed APIs and you've got a lot of work to update. Releasing a game that only works on last year's macOS is not viable. Releasing a game that only works on last year's windows isn't great, but it's doable; and Microsoft tends not to break things so quickly; a game targetting DirectX N will almost always work on the OS that ships with DirectX N+1 as well.

jerlam 4y ago

> When I think of gamers Except that in terms of revenue, PC gaming brings in less money than console gaming, which brings in less money than mobile gaming. Apple is already a big player in mobile gaming. Why would they spend a lot of money to compete in a smaller market where they have minimal market share, instead of expanding their already significant mobile market share?