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Interesting that it actually calls out game developers right at the start despite everything else announced about the headset indicating that they couldn’t care

Interesting that it actually calls out game developers right at the start despite everything else announced about the headset indicating that they couldn’t care less about gaming on VisionOS…

MikeTheRocker 3y ago
What about the system level integration of the Unity game engine?
- Auracle 3y ago
  You can use Unity for things other than games. Not having controllers will be pretty limiting for gaming - some types of games will be fine, others definitely won’t be.
  - stirlo 3y ago
    I can see them having the ability to link a wireless controller for hardcore gaming like you can to Apple TV (and of course iOS devices). For everything else games could use hand tracking with a similar control scheme to Kinect and Wii attempted.
  - binarycrusader 3y ago
    In an interview John Carmack did with Lex Friedman recently, one of the things that Carmack pointed out is that VR games such as Beat Saber were a perfect fit for requiring a controller since it was natural to move and slice through something without significant physical feedback (at least as represented in the game). However, most VR games that require a controller for VR interactivity with "real world objects" tend to fare less well as they create a cognitive dissonance between the actions the player is taking and their perceived results. Anecdotally, for the few VR demos I've tried I agree.
    - fragmede 3y ago
      The Novint Falcon is a force-feedback controller that gives that feedback. Imagine holding a pencil for writing, and using it to scratch the surface of a sugar cube and feeling the indentations, and then also touching the sides of it to literally feel out how big it is.
  - stouset 3y ago
    You might as well write “Not having a keyboard or mouse will be pretty limiting for gaming” fifteen years ago before mobile gaming took off. Yeah, it will be limiting for the preexisting games built for preexisting VR systems. It will also be perfect for the types of games people envision and build for this generation of device. Not recognizing that seems more like a lack of imagination on your part than a failure of design on Apple’s.
    - Auracle 3y ago
      Oh no, I thought of that. As a matter of fact I'm currently developing a VR game that would work just fine without controllers. Still, sometimes you need buttons. While mobile gaming is obviously huge there are certain types of games that just don't work all that well on it. In the gaming space Apple will be directly competing against other VR headsets designed for gaming. Mobile games don't really directly compete with consoles or PCs.
ceejayoz 3y ago
It would be pretty insane not to at least try to court game developers here.
whafro 3y ago
Might have just been based on what they could show at demo time – they can handle some core productivity stuff, but might not have had the time/access/team to put together something compelling on gaming for that date.
- MichaelZuo 3y ago
  This seems unlikely given how much effort they put into the physical demo experience at the unveiling event, according to nearly all attendees. It's more likely that it simply doesn't have the processing or cooling capacity for an impressive game experience.
  - meragrin_ 3y ago
    >> but might not have had the time/access/team to put together something compelling on gaming for that date. > This seems unlikely given how much effort they put into the physical demo experience at the unveiling event Can you name five games Apple has released in the past 10 years?
    - MichaelZuo 3y ago
      > Can you name five games Apple has released in the past 10 years? How does such a list of games relate to my comment?
    - JoshTko 3y ago
      Apple likely makes more in profit from App store games than Sony does overall.
    - fragmede 3y ago
      There's the How Much Will the Vison Pro Cost game, there's the When Will the SE 3 Come Out game, there the Will they Fix the Macbook Keyboard game, there's the How Many Ports Will It Have game, there's the Will They Give It HDMI and USB-A ports game, the Will They Switch Away From Intel game. You think I'm being facetious, but if you look at a game simply as a thing you spend time doing, and then consider the amount of digital ink spilled discussing those topics online and in-person discussions being had about them, the meta Apple is endlessly entertaining.
natch 3y ago
Not everything is always as it seems…
TheCaptain4815 3y ago
Games produce the vast majority of revenue/profit for the app store. Actually, whales in gaming do that but same difference. https://www.cnbc.com/2021/09/10/apple-vs-epic-70percent-of-app-store-revenue-from-customers-playing-games.html https://www.cnbc.com/2021/09/10/apple-vs-epic-70percent-of-a...
VectorLock 3y ago
They couldn't care less about being the ones developing games, but they DO care very much about being the ones driving productivity apps which opens a whole corporate world for them to control.
RetpolineDrama 3y ago
This isn't going to improve until Apple gets a leadership overhaul. Look at the current executive team, it's all a bunch of boomers who think "gaming" is candy crush and farmville.
- nerdjon 3y ago
  Their Mac announcements around gaming at the same conference seem to show otherwise.
  - smoldesu 3y ago
    Their Mac announcement was basically a catch-up release to get DirectX working on Metal roughly as-well-as the Open Source Vulkan translator. If that's not an apology release, I don't know what is - it feels pretty clear that Apple's obsession over platform control has hamstrung game developers. They could have been a Steam Deck, but they chose to be a Steam Machine.
    - nerdjon 3y ago
      The unfortunate reality is it is also not 100% up to Apple to fix the issue. Windows has a very strong grip on gaming and you have to convince consumers and developers that it's worth it. The Steam Deck kinda got around that with Proton but it also means that if that becomes the norm for anything other than Windows, it is only fixing one of those problems while developers still continue to target and optimize for the main platform (Windows)
      - smoldesu 3y ago
        Apple had a shot at dethroning DirectX when they helped Khronos write the Vulkan spec. They eventually abandoned it in favor of Metal, but things would look very different if Mac, Linux and Windows all shared the same GPU APIs today. Even without Macs, both Windows and Linux have functional DirectX translators that MacOS could have also enjoyed for the past half-decade. Part of the problem is dethroning Windows. The other part of the problem is not being so greedy that you make Microsoft look reasonable by comparison.
nerdjon 3y ago
They showed hints of what this could do outside of the floating windows in their announcement. Like the Dinosaur coming out of your wall and then also talking about Unity. We have to remember that when they talked about this it was around a year (or more if it isn't delayed) away from shipping and they talked about it at a developer conference. It was clear that they were focused on the technology it has and the mostly Apple developed experience of it. I still don't fully understand where the idea that this could not be used for gaming came from, except maybe the lack of (VR) controllers but I can't imagine not being addressed by the Mifi program later down the line.
- lolinder 3y ago
  > I still don't fully understand where the idea that this could not be used for gaming came from In the keynote they showed exactly one scene with a game: someone picks up a console controller and starts playing a basketball game... on a flat, virtual TV. That communicated pretty clearly to me that they didn't have any interest in VR gaming for this device. EDIT: Not the keynote, but this video [0] at 3:22 pitches gaming in exactly the same way: you get a big screen! [0] https://youtu.be/TX9qSaGXFyg?t=202 https://youtu.be/TX9qSaGXFyg?t=202
  - nerdjon 3y ago
    I remember that, but just because they showed that doesn't mean that there are not other fully immersive capabilities. Like I said, we are talking about a product that is at least a year away when they first showed it off and they did tease other 3D setups. To me all that ever said was, hey you can pair a controller to this if you want. A natural extension of being able to watch a movie or whatever. I feel like saying no games based on that presentation was very premature. Really saying almost anything about what this can and can't do except for exactly what we were shown is premature given the large chunk of time between announcement and release and needing to see what developers can actually do with it once all of the pieces are ready.
    - lolinder 3y ago
      Yeah, I agree that saying "no games" is inaccurate, but I do think that Apple does not intend to prioritize "serious" games on this device. The way I read the keynote is that they intentionally left out any spectacular gaming content because they very much do not want people to treat the Vision Pro as a gaming device like the Oculus. It's intended to for a very different set of use cases, and they tried very hard to communicate that with the emphasis on passthrough and productivity. So while that doesn't suggest that there will be no games, it does suggest to me that the hardware and software will lend themselves much more to the casual games that are already prevalent on Apple's devices, rather than appealing to the PC or console gaming audience.
aprdm 3y ago
People use game engines for more than just gaming too
TillE 3y ago
They didn't talk about VR gaming in their promotional material, but they partnered closely with Unity, and had a whole WWDC session about it. They care. They're probably just not quite ready to make a big deal about it. https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2023/10093/ https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2023/10093/
- gochi 3y ago
  Apple has multiple problems here, ones that it can't exactly outpace which is that when they do start making a big deal of gaming they back themselves into a corner. They have to face the problem that VR gaming devices are much cheaper and have similar effect/more studios dedicated to making VR games. They have the other problem that the leading game engine or 3D content in general (Unreal) belongs to a company they would rather see evaporate. Very interesting times for Apple.
  - brookst 3y ago
    Game consoles are a lot cheaper than gaming PCs, but both seem to do ok in the market. General purpose devices always cost more than single-purpose. And I don’t think they’re losing sleep over Unreal. Plenty of games are done in Unity, and developers who want to ship on multiple platforms are leaning towards Unity in part of because of Epic’s alienation of Apple and other platform owners. Definitely interesting times, but I don’t think either of those considerations will have an impact on Vision’s success (which is far from assured)
    - gochi 3y ago
      That's the point. Vision has to dictate itself as a general purpose device in the market, and so far they haven't done a great job at that. Their reluctance to lean into gaming is a huge part of this desire to present Vision as not some media consumption device but as something you should use daily for creation. Which is why they are backed into a corner, they have to paint this picture while avoiding the largest 3d engine, ignore stiff competition with other (largely gaming which is important to note since your point about general purpose vs specific is kind of nullified when other VR headsets can handle non-gaming well too) headsets, and get developers on board to start making apps for the new platform before any sweeping changes to the app marketplace take hold. It would have been nice to see Apple shift their weight behind O3DE instead, as Unity really has been struggling to capture an audience. Would have demonstrated a real commitment to creating 3D content. Those who ship on multiple platforms are really struggling to stick with Unity as it's made their lives harder the past ~5 years, when the same is easily achievable on Unreal or even Godot now.
mattbrewsbytes 3y ago
Uses of VR/AR outside of gaming are going to be niche. Gaming use cases could also be considered niche within the realm of gaming. For entertainment outside of gaming, observe any young person consume a long piece of content like a show/movie and they probably have another device nearby they are texting on. The goal for VR/AR should be distracted entertainment not immersive entertainment like most examples show. Mainstream use cases like office workers (I don't think Apple depicted this) are less likely in my opinion. Typical office workers (not developers/engineers like on here) are given a bare bones budget PC to do their job, like total spend of $500. Even if form factors for VR/AR get to "comfortable for 8 hours" levels I still don't see the ROI on the hardware for commercial purposes like office workers - most VR/AR headsets require some other compute device as well.
- crooked-v 3y ago
  > Typical office workers (not developers/engineers like on here) are given a bare bones budget PC to do their job, like total spend of $500. The market here isn't typical office workers, it's execs and high-value workers like software devs. They won't even have the production at a scale large enough that it could be available to typical office workers en masse for years at a minimum.
  - mattbrewsbytes 3y ago
    Execs are typically spending their day mostly doing face to face things. Developers can have a lot of pixels in front of them very cheaply these days. I fail to see ROI in these use cases either. Being "more productive" usually doesn't quantify very well if it is all just a feeling.
    - fragmede 3y ago
      How do you propose measuring developer productivity though? Lines of code written? Unfortunately we've yet to figure out a metric for developer productivity other than "a feeling" and as a developer, sometimes I work better when other people are in the room. Unfortunately, the cheap pixels with a high ROI that are available to me don't travel well, so I either have to go somewhere and be confined my laptop, or someone else has to come to me and be confined to their laptop. (Having an office where that happens is so passé these days.) I have no idea if Apple Vision will let that be different, and $3,500 is too much for me to shell out, but I want to be in my home office but also have my home office colocated with everyone else's home office. Maybe I can setup my office in a self-driving car and it can shuttle me and my desk around to meetings.
shortrounddev2 3y ago
Reminds me of https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=2146412825593223&id=100006735798590 https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=2146412825... > Several things over the years made me conclude that, at his core, Steve didn’t think very highly of games, and always wished they weren’t as important to his platforms as they turned out to be. I never took it personally. > Part of his method, at least with me, was to deride contemporary options and dare me to tell him differently. They might be pragmatic, but couldn’t actually be good. “I have Pixar. We will make something [an API] that is actually good.” It was often frustrating, because he could talk, with complete confidence, about things he was just plain wrong about, like the price of memory for video cards and the amount of system bandwidth exploitable by the AltiVec extensions.
- jbverschoor 3y ago
  Even though games is what got them started initially with Atari.
kraig911 3y ago
Well I’m thinking that the majority of ideas for this thing is going to be game related.
bhyahoo 3y ago
The other headsets on the market are for games, they're trying to push for a new use case.

Interesting that it actually calls out game developers right at the start despite everything else announced about the headset indicating that they couldn’t care less about gaming on VisionOS…

MikeTheRocker 3y ago

What about the system level integration of the Unity game engine?

Auracle 3y ago
You can use Unity for things other than games. Not having controllers will be pretty limiting for gaming - some types of games will be fine, others definitely won’t be.
- stirlo 3y ago
  I can see them having the ability to link a wireless controller for hardcore gaming like you can to Apple TV (and of course iOS devices). For everything else games could use hand tracking with a similar control scheme to Kinect and Wii attempted.
- binarycrusader 3y ago
  In an interview John Carmack did with Lex Friedman recently, one of the things that Carmack pointed out is that VR games such as Beat Saber were a perfect fit for requiring a controller since it was natural to move and slice through something without significant physical feedback (at least as represented in the game). However, most VR games that require a controller for VR interactivity with "real world objects" tend to fare less well as they create a cognitive dissonance between the actions the player is taking and their perceived results. Anecdotally, for the few VR demos I've tried I agree.
  - fragmede 3y ago
    The Novint Falcon is a force-feedback controller that gives that feedback. Imagine holding a pencil for writing, and using it to scratch the surface of a sugar cube and feeling the indentations, and then also touching the sides of it to literally feel out how big it is.
- stouset 3y ago
  You might as well write “Not having a keyboard or mouse will be pretty limiting for gaming” fifteen years ago before mobile gaming took off. Yeah, it will be limiting for the preexisting games built for preexisting VR systems. It will also be perfect for the types of games people envision and build for this generation of device. Not recognizing that seems more like a lack of imagination on your part than a failure of design on Apple’s.
  - Auracle 3y ago
    Oh no, I thought of that. As a matter of fact I'm currently developing a VR game that would work just fine without controllers. Still, sometimes you need buttons. While mobile gaming is obviously huge there are certain types of games that just don't work all that well on it. In the gaming space Apple will be directly competing against other VR headsets designed for gaming. Mobile games don't really directly compete with consoles or PCs.

ceejayoz 3y ago

It would be pretty insane not to at least try to court game developers here.

whafro 3y ago

Might have just been based on what they could show at demo time – they can handle some core productivity stuff, but might not have had the time/access/team to put together something compelling on gaming for that date.

MichaelZuo 3y ago
This seems unlikely given how much effort they put into the physical demo experience at the unveiling event, according to nearly all attendees. It's more likely that it simply doesn't have the processing or cooling capacity for an impressive game experience.
- meragrin_ 3y ago
  >> but might not have had the time/access/team to put together something compelling on gaming for that date. > This seems unlikely given how much effort they put into the physical demo experience at the unveiling event Can you name five games Apple has released in the past 10 years?
  - MichaelZuo 3y ago
    > Can you name five games Apple has released in the past 10 years? How does such a list of games relate to my comment?
  - JoshTko 3y ago
    Apple likely makes more in profit from App store games than Sony does overall.
  - fragmede 3y ago
    There's the How Much Will the Vison Pro Cost game, there's the When Will the SE 3 Come Out game, there the Will they Fix the Macbook Keyboard game, there's the How Many Ports Will It Have game, there's the Will They Give It HDMI and USB-A ports game, the Will They Switch Away From Intel game. You think I'm being facetious, but if you look at a game simply as a thing you spend time doing, and then consider the amount of digital ink spilled discussing those topics online and in-person discussions being had about them, the meta Apple is endlessly entertaining.

natch 3y ago

Not everything is always as it seems…

TheCaptain4815 3y ago

Games produce the vast majority of revenue/profit for the app store. Actually, whales in gaming do that but same difference. https://www.cnbc.com/2021/09/10/apple-vs-epic-70percent-of-app-store-revenue-from-customers-playing-games.html https://www.cnbc.com/2021/09/10/apple-vs-epic-70percent-of-a...

VectorLock 3y ago

They couldn't care less about being the ones developing games, but they DO care very much about being the ones driving productivity apps which opens a whole corporate world for them to control.

RetpolineDrama 3y ago

This isn't going to improve until Apple gets a leadership overhaul. Look at the current executive team, it's all a bunch of boomers who think "gaming" is candy crush and farmville.

nerdjon 3y ago
Their Mac announcements around gaming at the same conference seem to show otherwise.
- smoldesu 3y ago
  Their Mac announcement was basically a catch-up release to get DirectX working on Metal roughly as-well-as the Open Source Vulkan translator. If that's not an apology release, I don't know what is - it feels pretty clear that Apple's obsession over platform control has hamstrung game developers. They could have been a Steam Deck, but they chose to be a Steam Machine.
  - nerdjon 3y ago
    The unfortunate reality is it is also not 100% up to Apple to fix the issue. Windows has a very strong grip on gaming and you have to convince consumers and developers that it's worth it. The Steam Deck kinda got around that with Proton but it also means that if that becomes the norm for anything other than Windows, it is only fixing one of those problems while developers still continue to target and optimize for the main platform (Windows)
    - smoldesu 3y ago
      Apple had a shot at dethroning DirectX when they helped Khronos write the Vulkan spec. They eventually abandoned it in favor of Metal, but things would look very different if Mac, Linux and Windows all shared the same GPU APIs today. Even without Macs, both Windows and Linux have functional DirectX translators that MacOS could have also enjoyed for the past half-decade. Part of the problem is dethroning Windows. The other part of the problem is not being so greedy that you make Microsoft look reasonable by comparison.

nerdjon 3y ago

They showed hints of what this could do outside of the floating windows in their announcement. Like the Dinosaur coming out of your wall and then also talking about Unity. We have to remember that when they talked about this it was around a year (or more if it isn't delayed) away from shipping and they talked about it at a developer conference. It was clear that they were focused on the technology it has and the mostly Apple developed experience of it. I still don't fully understand where the idea that this could not be used for gaming came from, except maybe the lack of (VR) controllers but I can't imagine not being addressed by the Mifi program later down the line.

lolinder 3y ago
> I still don't fully understand where the idea that this could not be used for gaming came from In the keynote they showed exactly one scene with a game: someone picks up a console controller and starts playing a basketball game... on a flat, virtual TV. That communicated pretty clearly to me that they didn't have any interest in VR gaming for this device. EDIT: Not the keynote, but this video [0] at 3:22 pitches gaming in exactly the same way: you get a big screen! [0] https://youtu.be/TX9qSaGXFyg?t=202 https://youtu.be/TX9qSaGXFyg?t=202
- nerdjon 3y ago
  I remember that, but just because they showed that doesn't mean that there are not other fully immersive capabilities. Like I said, we are talking about a product that is at least a year away when they first showed it off and they did tease other 3D setups. To me all that ever said was, hey you can pair a controller to this if you want. A natural extension of being able to watch a movie or whatever. I feel like saying no games based on that presentation was very premature. Really saying almost anything about what this can and can't do except for exactly what we were shown is premature given the large chunk of time between announcement and release and needing to see what developers can actually do with it once all of the pieces are ready.
  - lolinder 3y ago
    Yeah, I agree that saying "no games" is inaccurate, but I do think that Apple does not intend to prioritize "serious" games on this device. The way I read the keynote is that they intentionally left out any spectacular gaming content because they very much do not want people to treat the Vision Pro as a gaming device like the Oculus. It's intended to for a very different set of use cases, and they tried very hard to communicate that with the emphasis on passthrough and productivity. So while that doesn't suggest that there will be no games, it does suggest to me that the hardware and software will lend themselves much more to the casual games that are already prevalent on Apple's devices, rather than appealing to the PC or console gaming audience.

aprdm 3y ago

People use game engines for more than just gaming too

TillE 3y ago

They didn't talk about VR gaming in their promotional material, but they partnered closely with Unity, and had a whole WWDC session about it. They care. They're probably just not quite ready to make a big deal about it. https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2023/10093/ https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2023/10093/

gochi 3y ago
Apple has multiple problems here, ones that it can't exactly outpace which is that when they do start making a big deal of gaming they back themselves into a corner. They have to face the problem that VR gaming devices are much cheaper and have similar effect/more studios dedicated to making VR games. They have the other problem that the leading game engine or 3D content in general (Unreal) belongs to a company they would rather see evaporate. Very interesting times for Apple.
- brookst 3y ago
  Game consoles are a lot cheaper than gaming PCs, but both seem to do ok in the market. General purpose devices always cost more than single-purpose. And I don’t think they’re losing sleep over Unreal. Plenty of games are done in Unity, and developers who want to ship on multiple platforms are leaning towards Unity in part of because of Epic’s alienation of Apple and other platform owners. Definitely interesting times, but I don’t think either of those considerations will have an impact on Vision’s success (which is far from assured)
  - gochi 3y ago
    That's the point. Vision has to dictate itself as a general purpose device in the market, and so far they haven't done a great job at that. Their reluctance to lean into gaming is a huge part of this desire to present Vision as not some media consumption device but as something you should use daily for creation. Which is why they are backed into a corner, they have to paint this picture while avoiding the largest 3d engine, ignore stiff competition with other (largely gaming which is important to note since your point about general purpose vs specific is kind of nullified when other VR headsets can handle non-gaming well too) headsets, and get developers on board to start making apps for the new platform before any sweeping changes to the app marketplace take hold. It would have been nice to see Apple shift their weight behind O3DE instead, as Unity really has been struggling to capture an audience. Would have demonstrated a real commitment to creating 3D content. Those who ship on multiple platforms are really struggling to stick with Unity as it's made their lives harder the past ~5 years, when the same is easily achievable on Unreal or even Godot now.

mattbrewsbytes 3y ago

Uses of VR/AR outside of gaming are going to be niche. Gaming use cases could also be considered niche within the realm of gaming. For entertainment outside of gaming, observe any young person consume a long piece of content like a show/movie and they probably have another device nearby they are texting on. The goal for VR/AR should be distracted entertainment not immersive entertainment like most examples show. Mainstream use cases like office workers (I don't think Apple depicted this) are less likely in my opinion. Typical office workers (not developers/engineers like on here) are given a bare bones budget PC to do their job, like total spend of $500. Even if form factors for VR/AR get to "comfortable for 8 hours" levels I still don't see the ROI on the hardware for commercial purposes like office workers - most VR/AR headsets require some other compute device as well.

crooked-v 3y ago
> Typical office workers (not developers/engineers like on here) are given a bare bones budget PC to do their job, like total spend of $500. The market here isn't typical office workers, it's execs and high-value workers like software devs. They won't even have the production at a scale large enough that it could be available to typical office workers en masse for years at a minimum.
- mattbrewsbytes 3y ago
  Execs are typically spending their day mostly doing face to face things. Developers can have a lot of pixels in front of them very cheaply these days. I fail to see ROI in these use cases either. Being "more productive" usually doesn't quantify very well if it is all just a feeling.
  - fragmede 3y ago
    How do you propose measuring developer productivity though? Lines of code written? Unfortunately we've yet to figure out a metric for developer productivity other than "a feeling" and as a developer, sometimes I work better when other people are in the room. Unfortunately, the cheap pixels with a high ROI that are available to me don't travel well, so I either have to go somewhere and be confined my laptop, or someone else has to come to me and be confined to their laptop. (Having an office where that happens is so passé these days.) I have no idea if Apple Vision will let that be different, and $3,500 is too much for me to shell out, but I want to be in my home office but also have my home office colocated with everyone else's home office. Maybe I can setup my office in a self-driving car and it can shuttle me and my desk around to meetings.

shortrounddev2 3y ago

Reminds me of https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=2146412825593223&id=100006735798590 https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=2146412825... > Several things over the years made me conclude that, at his core, Steve didn’t think very highly of games, and always wished they weren’t as important to his platforms as they turned out to be. I never took it personally. > Part of his method, at least with me, was to deride contemporary options and dare me to tell him differently. They might be pragmatic, but couldn’t actually be good. “I have Pixar. We will make something [an API] that is actually good.” It was often frustrating, because he could talk, with complete confidence, about things he was just plain wrong about, like the price of memory for video cards and the amount of system bandwidth exploitable by the AltiVec extensions.

jbverschoor 3y ago
Even though games is what got them started initially with Atari.

kraig911 3y ago

Well I’m thinking that the majority of ideas for this thing is going to be game related.

bhyahoo 3y ago

The other headsets on the market are for games, they're trying to push for a new use case.