3 ms·

I mean I see tons of shooters (PubG, Fortnite, CoD, etc) and RPGs (Hoyaverse) seeing both mobile and PC releases and they're running on the same engine under th

I mean I see tons of shooters (PubG, Fortnite, CoD, etc) and RPGs (Hoyaverse) seeing both mobile and PC releases and they're running on the same engine under the hood. I'm even seeing a few indie games being cross platform. Of course some games simply don't work across platforms due to input or screen size limitations, but Unity/Unreal are more than 3/4s of the market and can enable a release on every platform so why not do a cross-platform release if it's viable? I just see the distinction you're drawing as being arbitrary and old-fashioned and misses the huge rise of midcore gaming which is seeing tons of mobile/console/pc releases. I understand that a TRUE gamer would not be caught dead playing such games, but as more and more people end up buying APU based laptops to play their hoyaverse games, that's going to warp the market and cause the oppressed minority of TRUE gamers to buy the same products due to economies of scale.

talldayo 2y ago
I don't even think it's a "true gamer" thing either. Besides Tomb Raider and Resident Evil 8, there are pretty much no examples of modern AAA titles getting ported to Mac and iPhone. The console/PC release cycle is just different. Some stuff is cross-platform (particularly when Apple goes out of their way to negotiate with the publisher), but most stuff is not. It's not even a Steam Deck situation where Apple is working to support games regardless; they simply don't care. Additionally, the majority of these cross-platform releases aren't quality experiences but gatcha games, gambling apps and subscription services. You're not wrong to perceive mobile gaming as a high-value market, but it's on a completely different level from other platforms regardless. If you watch a console/PC gaming showcase nowadays, you'd be lucky to find even a single game that is supported on iOS and Android. > so why not do a cross-platform release if it's viable? Some companies do; Valve famously went through a lot of work porting their games to MacOS, before Apple depreciated the graphics API they used and cut off 32-bit library support. By the looks of it, Valve and many others just shrug and ignore Apple's update treadmill altogether. There's no shortage of iOS games I played on my first-gen iPod that are flat-out depreciated on today's hardware. Meanwhile the games I bought on Steam in 2011 still run just fine today.
- faeriechangling 2y ago
  I just don't get this obsession with the idea that only recently-released "AAA" games are real games (or that the only TRUE gamers are those who play them) and it seems like the market and general population doesn't quite grasp it either. These FAKE gamers buy laptops too, and they probably won't see the value in a discrete GPU. Besides, it's ultimately irrelevant because when Strix Halo comes out, it's going to have the memory bandwidth and compute performance to be able to play any "AAA" game released for consoles until consoles refresh around ~2028, which is 4 solid years of performance before new releases will really make them struggle. These APUs won't be competing with the 4080, but instead the 4060, which is a more popular product anyways. Discrete GPUs are in an awkward spot where they're not going to be significantly more future proof than an APU you can buy, but will suck more power, and will likely have a higher BOM to manufacture. If you asked TRUE gamers if gaming laptop with Nvidia GPUs were worth it a few years ago, when they were already the majority of the market, they would have laughed in your face and pointed out how they didn't play the latest AAA games good and thus TRUE gamers won't buy them and to instead buy a cheap laptop paired with a big desktop.
  - talldayo 2y ago
    > I just don't get this obsession with the idea that only recently-released "AAA" games are real games It's really the opposite; I think obsessing over casual markets is a mistake since casual gaming customers are incidental. These are people playing the lowest-common-denominator, ad-ridden, microtransaction-laden apps that fill out the App Store, not Halo 2 or Space Cadet Pinball. It really doesn't matter when the games came out, because the market is always separated by more than just third-party ambivalence. Apple loves this unconscious traffic, because they will buy any garbage they put in front of them. Let them be gorged on Honkai Star Rail, while Apple counts 30% of their expenses on digital vice. Again, I think it's less of a distinction between "true" and "casual" gamers, but more what their OEM encourages them to play. When you owned feature phones, it was shitty Java applets. Now that you own an iPhone... it's basically the same thing with a shinier UI and larger buttons to enter your credit card details. I'll just say it; Apple's runtime has to play catch-up with stuff like the Steam Deck and even modern game consoles. The current piecemeal porting attempts are pathetic compared to businesses a fraction their size. Even Nvidia got more people to port to the Shield TV, and that was a failure from the start.

talldayo 2y ago

I don't even think it's a "true gamer" thing either. Besides Tomb Raider and Resident Evil 8, there are pretty much no examples of modern AAA titles getting ported to Mac and iPhone. The console/PC release cycle is just different. Some stuff is cross-platform (particularly when Apple goes out of their way to negotiate with the publisher), but most stuff is not. It's not even a Steam Deck situation where Apple is working to support games regardless; they simply don't care. Additionally, the majority of these cross-platform releases aren't quality experiences but gatcha games, gambling apps and subscription services. You're not wrong to perceive mobile gaming as a high-value market, but it's on a completely different level from other platforms regardless. If you watch a console/PC gaming showcase nowadays, you'd be lucky to find even a single game that is supported on iOS and Android. > so why not do a cross-platform release if it's viable? Some companies do; Valve famously went through a lot of work porting their games to MacOS, before Apple depreciated the graphics API they used and cut off 32-bit library support. By the looks of it, Valve and many others just shrug and ignore Apple's update treadmill altogether. There's no shortage of iOS games I played on my first-gen iPod that are flat-out depreciated on today's hardware. Meanwhile the games I bought on Steam in 2011 still run just fine today.

faeriechangling 2y ago
I just don't get this obsession with the idea that only recently-released "AAA" games are real games (or that the only TRUE gamers are those who play them) and it seems like the market and general population doesn't quite grasp it either. These FAKE gamers buy laptops too, and they probably won't see the value in a discrete GPU. Besides, it's ultimately irrelevant because when Strix Halo comes out, it's going to have the memory bandwidth and compute performance to be able to play any "AAA" game released for consoles until consoles refresh around ~2028, which is 4 solid years of performance before new releases will really make them struggle. These APUs won't be competing with the 4080, but instead the 4060, which is a more popular product anyways. Discrete GPUs are in an awkward spot where they're not going to be significantly more future proof than an APU you can buy, but will suck more power, and will likely have a higher BOM to manufacture. If you asked TRUE gamers if gaming laptop with Nvidia GPUs were worth it a few years ago, when they were already the majority of the market, they would have laughed in your face and pointed out how they didn't play the latest AAA games good and thus TRUE gamers won't buy them and to instead buy a cheap laptop paired with a big desktop.
- talldayo 2y ago
  > I just don't get this obsession with the idea that only recently-released "AAA" games are real games It's really the opposite; I think obsessing over casual markets is a mistake since casual gaming customers are incidental. These are people playing the lowest-common-denominator, ad-ridden, microtransaction-laden apps that fill out the App Store, not Halo 2 or Space Cadet Pinball. It really doesn't matter when the games came out, because the market is always separated by more than just third-party ambivalence. Apple loves this unconscious traffic, because they will buy any garbage they put in front of them. Let them be gorged on Honkai Star Rail, while Apple counts 30% of their expenses on digital vice. Again, I think it's less of a distinction between "true" and "casual" gamers, but more what their OEM encourages them to play. When you owned feature phones, it was shitty Java applets. Now that you own an iPhone... it's basically the same thing with a shinier UI and larger buttons to enter your credit card details. I'll just say it; Apple's runtime has to play catch-up with stuff like the Steam Deck and even modern game consoles. The current piecemeal porting attempts are pathetic compared to businesses a fraction their size. Even Nvidia got more people to port to the Shield TV, and that was a failure from the start.