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I think historically it was customers — it wouldn't bring new customers. It might make the existing customers happy, but I can't think of a segment of customers

by nness 3y ago

I think historically it was customers — it wouldn't bring new customers. It might make the existing customers happy, but I can't think of a segment of customers who are on the fence about a Mac because there aren't gaming options. Nowadays, hardware. Apple Silicon is so far away from the existing gaming hardware (somewhat with regards to ARM, not discounting mobile devices, and the custom-built integrated GPU's with shared memory) that supporting games would add whole new complicated use-cases to their chip designs — to effectively reach no new customers. All that said, the Game Porting Toolkit highlights that, for people to take their VR offering seriously, Apple has to take games, or at least their engines, seriously. I'm skeptical it'll turn Apple into a gaming destination — but Apple Silicon is truly impressive and it would be a industry wide shock if they suddenly made gaming a key strategic direction.

ericzawo 3y ago
They literally had Hideo Kojima, one of the most celebrated game developers of all time, featured in the WWDC keynote.
Someone 3y ago
> it would be a industry wide shock if they suddenly made gaming a key strategic direction. It seems they did. https://www.macworld.com/article/1945978/game-porting-toolkit-gaming-mac-valve-proton.html https://www.macworld.com/article/1945978/game-porting-toolki...: “One of the new developer tools for macOS Sonoma is a Game Porting Toolkit that is based on the CrossOver source code from CodeWeavers. Essentially, it takes the x86 code, DirectInput commands, XAudio commands, Direct3D commands, and other Windows gaming API calls and translates them in real time to the appropriate Apple Silicon stuff. Yes, Apple has a developer tool that will literally let you run a modern, high-end Windows game on Mac without any recompiling or other changes.” (AFAIK the license forbids you from using this to ‘port’ a game without any effort: it’s intended to be used to easily get an idea about how much work you’ll need to port your game)
postmodest 3y ago
> Apple Silicon is so far away from the existing gaming hardware (somewhat with regards to ARM, not discounting mobile devices, and the custom-built integrated GPU's with shared memory) that supporting games would add whole new complicated use-cases to their chip designs My understanding of, say, a PS5 is that its architecture is the AMD x86 SoC version of apple Silicon: unified cpu/gpu/ram. If anything, the M2 units are closer to gaming consoles than anything else.

by nness 3y ago

ericzawo 3y ago

They literally had Hideo Kojima, one of the most celebrated game developers of all time, featured in the WWDC keynote.

Someone 3y ago

> it would be a industry wide shock if they suddenly made gaming a key strategic direction. It seems they did. https://www.macworld.com/article/1945978/game-porting-toolkit-gaming-mac-valve-proton.html https://www.macworld.com/article/1945978/game-porting-toolki...: “One of the new developer tools for macOS Sonoma is a Game Porting Toolkit that is based on the CrossOver source code from CodeWeavers. Essentially, it takes the x86 code, DirectInput commands, XAudio commands, Direct3D commands, and other Windows gaming API calls and translates them in real time to the appropriate Apple Silicon stuff. Yes, Apple has a developer tool that will literally let you run a modern, high-end Windows game on Mac without any recompiling or other changes.” (AFAIK the license forbids you from using this to ‘port’ a game without any effort: it’s intended to be used to easily get an idea about how much work you’ll need to port your game)

postmodest 3y ago

> Apple Silicon is so far away from the existing gaming hardware (somewhat with regards to ARM, not discounting mobile devices, and the custom-built integrated GPU's with shared memory) that supporting games would add whole new complicated use-cases to their chip designs My understanding of, say, a PS5 is that its architecture is the AMD x86 SoC version of apple Silicon: unified cpu/gpu/ram. If anything, the M2 units are closer to gaming consoles than anything else.