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> Expecting developers to drop everything to optimize for a platform that will represent a fraction of their sales (minus 30% of course) is pretty unreasonable

> Expecting developers to drop everything to optimize for a platform that will represent a fraction of their sales (minus 30% of course) is pretty unreasonable The same thing has been said about Apple over and over throughout the years. Apple plays the long game. If they want to get more involved in gaming, it's built into their roadmap, and we'll see it manifest itself in the coming years. I don't think macOS market share is the right fraction to look at. As iOS and iPadOS continue to evolve, they will continue to eat the PC market, and more and more games will be released mobile-first. Building for those devices is far more lucrative. I personally think the Apple TV is the dark horse here. All Apple needs to do is release a next-gen Apple TV that has enough horsepower to run current-gen games, and suddenly Apple is competing in the console market. Investing the time to optimize for Metal will give devs access to far more than just the Mac market.

smoldesu 4y ago
> The same thing has been said about Apple over and over throughout the years. And it hasn't really been wrong? Try booting up any Mac game from the 2010s on Apple Silicon; there's a 90% chance it depends on a 32-bit library Apple won't give you anymore. MacOS just hasn't proven to be a great platform for game development, and that's fuelled by Apple's constant desire for constant architectural reform and perpetual yak-shaving. That's fine, and it works well for some applications, but it makes for a pretty lousy target for gamedev. Apple plays with their cards held to their chest, so I agree with you that they're playing the long game. They already own the casual gaming market (and profit handsomely from it), and they seem perfectly satisfied to ignore everything else. Long-term though, I don't see how Apple can make any of their devices attractive gaming consoles without bringing a legacy of PC/console titles with it. I guess all that remains to be seen, though. > I personally think the Apple TV is the dark horse here. All Apple needs to do is release a next-gen Apple TV that has enough horsepower to run current-gen games, and suddenly Apple is competing in the console market. That's a fairly grounded argument, but I still don't see a carrot at the end of the stick for game developers here. Sure, casual games will be easy to port, and what few native MacOS titles remain will be easy enough too, but why would studios like EA or Ubisoft port their games? Why would indie productions with limited time dedicate resources to ensuring Metal compatibility? I see no appeal, and I bet Apple knows that it's a pretty raw deal too. It will be interesting to see if they respond to this. > Investing the time to optimize for Metal will give devs access to far more than just the Mac market. You're right, but all of this hinges on whether or not developers want to pay the Apple tax and deal with the constantly changing ecosystem. That comes at a cost, one that's greater than dumping a game on PC or releasing a title for a console. Maybe the scales are turning in Apple's favor, but the momentum of the current gaming ecosystem seems to not care.
- zten 4y ago
  > Try booting up any Mac game from the 2010s on Apple Silicon; there's a 90% chance it depends on a 32-bit library Apple won't give you anymore. The funny thing is... you know what does work on Apple Silicon? Wine, using 64-bit Windows binaries, DXVK, and a Vulkan to Metal wrapper. Don't expect stunning results on a just-released title like Elden Ring, but there's a project called XIV on Mac for an old title, FF14, that has at least proved to me that it can be done.
  - jamesgeck0 4y ago
    CodeWeavers has done an amazing job getting Wine gaming functional on macOS, but it looks like they’ve been fighting the platform every step of the way. 32-bit games have terrible performance because 32-bit support has had to be reimplemented in Wine. DirectX 12 games (such as Elden Ring) don’t even boot, and likely won’t run at all for another year or two. Metal has been missing major functionality utilized by the vast majority of DirectX 12 games such as Elden Ring. The Metal 3 improvements announced the other week should go a long way towards making this actually possible, though.
- mcphage 4y ago
  > You're right, but all of this hinges on whether or not developers want to pay the Apple tax I don’t know what the rate for console game releases, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard someone say it was less than Apple’s take. So if the Apple tax was a problem, there wouldn’t be any console games.
JohnHaugeland 4y ago
Apple has tried the strategy you suggest several times, and it's gone well enough that you didn't know that Apple has had less success in gaming with more effort than even Google stadia
- mcphage 4y ago
  They seem like they’ve had plenty of success on mobile.
  - smoldesu 4y ago
    The casual gaming market and the enthusiast market are two distinct classes of users, and Apple has long neglected the latter. That's a perfectly fine (and lucrative!) business decision, but the point still stands: Apple doesn't really do gaming.
    - mcphage 4y ago
      > Apple doesn't really do gaming. They do, just the casual gaming market. Which is gaming. They don’t do all gaming, but nobody does.

smoldesu 4y ago

> The same thing has been said about Apple over and over throughout the years. And it hasn't really been wrong? Try booting up any Mac game from the 2010s on Apple Silicon; there's a 90% chance it depends on a 32-bit library Apple won't give you anymore. MacOS just hasn't proven to be a great platform for game development, and that's fuelled by Apple's constant desire for constant architectural reform and perpetual yak-shaving. That's fine, and it works well for some applications, but it makes for a pretty lousy target for gamedev. Apple plays with their cards held to their chest, so I agree with you that they're playing the long game. They already own the casual gaming market (and profit handsomely from it), and they seem perfectly satisfied to ignore everything else. Long-term though, I don't see how Apple can make any of their devices attractive gaming consoles without bringing a legacy of PC/console titles with it. I guess all that remains to be seen, though. > I personally think the Apple TV is the dark horse here. All Apple needs to do is release a next-gen Apple TV that has enough horsepower to run current-gen games, and suddenly Apple is competing in the console market. That's a fairly grounded argument, but I still don't see a carrot at the end of the stick for game developers here. Sure, casual games will be easy to port, and what few native MacOS titles remain will be easy enough too, but why would studios like EA or Ubisoft port their games? Why would indie productions with limited time dedicate resources to ensuring Metal compatibility? I see no appeal, and I bet Apple knows that it's a pretty raw deal too. It will be interesting to see if they respond to this. > Investing the time to optimize for Metal will give devs access to far more than just the Mac market. You're right, but all of this hinges on whether or not developers want to pay the Apple tax and deal with the constantly changing ecosystem. That comes at a cost, one that's greater than dumping a game on PC or releasing a title for a console. Maybe the scales are turning in Apple's favor, but the momentum of the current gaming ecosystem seems to not care.

zten 4y ago
> Try booting up any Mac game from the 2010s on Apple Silicon; there's a 90% chance it depends on a 32-bit library Apple won't give you anymore. The funny thing is... you know what does work on Apple Silicon? Wine, using 64-bit Windows binaries, DXVK, and a Vulkan to Metal wrapper. Don't expect stunning results on a just-released title like Elden Ring, but there's a project called XIV on Mac for an old title, FF14, that has at least proved to me that it can be done.
- jamesgeck0 4y ago
  CodeWeavers has done an amazing job getting Wine gaming functional on macOS, but it looks like they’ve been fighting the platform every step of the way. 32-bit games have terrible performance because 32-bit support has had to be reimplemented in Wine. DirectX 12 games (such as Elden Ring) don’t even boot, and likely won’t run at all for another year or two. Metal has been missing major functionality utilized by the vast majority of DirectX 12 games such as Elden Ring. The Metal 3 improvements announced the other week should go a long way towards making this actually possible, though.
mcphage 4y ago
> You're right, but all of this hinges on whether or not developers want to pay the Apple tax I don’t know what the rate for console game releases, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard someone say it was less than Apple’s take. So if the Apple tax was a problem, there wouldn’t be any console games.

JohnHaugeland 4y ago

Apple has tried the strategy you suggest several times, and it's gone well enough that you didn't know that Apple has had less success in gaming with more effort than even Google stadia

mcphage 4y ago
They seem like they’ve had plenty of success on mobile.
- smoldesu 4y ago
  The casual gaming market and the enthusiast market are two distinct classes of users, and Apple has long neglected the latter. That's a perfectly fine (and lucrative!) business decision, but the point still stands: Apple doesn't really do gaming.
  - mcphage 4y ago
    > Apple doesn't really do gaming. They do, just the casual gaming market. Which is gaming. They don’t do all gaming, but nobody does.