Vratislav Holub A relatively small percentage of Apple users dream of gaming on Macs. On the contrary, most of them perceive apple computers as great tools for work or multimedia. Even so, discussion forums often open interesting discussions about gaming and Macs in general. A few years ago, Macs were a bit better, and on the contrary, they had a decent foothold to make gaming quite common for them. Unfortunately, bad decisions and some mistakes have put us in the current situation where the platform is rather ignored by game developers - and quite rightly so.
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In May 2000, Steve Jobs presented a rather interesting novelty and thus showed the power of the then Macintosh. Specifically, he was talking about the arrival of the Halo game on the Apple platform. Today, Halo is one of the best game series ever, which falls under rival Microsoft. Unfortunately, it didn't take long and about a month later the news spread through the gaming community that Bungie, the studio behind the development of the first Halo game, was being bought out by Microsoft under its wing. Apple fans still had to wait for the release of this particular title, but then they were simply unlucky. It is therefore not surprising that some fans are asking themselves an interesting question. What would be the situation if the acquisition was made by Apple instead and got bogged down in the world of video games?
Apple missed the opportunity
Of course, now we can only argue about how it could all look like. Unfortunately, the Apple platform is not attractive for game developers, which is why we do not have quality AAA titles available. The Mac is simply a small platform, and as mentioned, only a small portion of these Apple users are even interested in gaming. From an economic point of view, it is therefore not worthwhile for studios to port games for macOS. It can all be summed up very simply. In short, Apple slept through time and wasted most of the opportunities. While Microsoft was buying up game studios, Apple ignored this segment, which brings us to the present moment.
Gallery
Hope for change came with the arrival of Apple Silicon chipsets. In terms of performance, Apple computers have improved tremendously and thus moved several levels forward. But it doesn't end with performance. The new Macs are also more economical thanks to this, which means that they no longer suffer from overheating as in previous generations. But even that is not enough for gaming. The macOS operating system lacks a universal graphics API that would be widespread among the gaming community, especially among developers. Apple, on the other hand, is trying to push its Metal. Although the latter offers perfect results, it is exclusive only to macOS, which significantly limits its possibilities.
Apple computers definitely do not lack performance. After all, this shows the AAA title Resident Evil Village, which was originally developed for current generation consoles such as Playstation 5 and Xbox Series X. This game has now also been released for macOS, fully optimized for Macs with Apple Silicon using API Metal. And it runs beyond user expectations. The technology was also a pleasant surprise MetalFX for image upscaling. Another great example is the comparison of the Apple A15 Bionic and Nvidia Tegra X1 chipsets that beats in the handheld game console Nintendo Switch. In terms of performance, the Apple chip clearly wins, but still, in terms of gaming, the Switch is on a completely different level.
Missing games
The whole issue surrounding gaming on Apple platforms would be solved by the arrival of optimized games. Nothing else is simply missing. But as we mentioned above, it's not worth it for game developers to invest time and money in porting their titles, which is the biggest problem. If the Cupertino giant had followed the same path as Microsoft, it is quite likely that gaming on Macs would be quite normal today. Although the hopes for change are not very high, this does not mean that all is lost.
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This year, it turned out that Apple was in talks to buy EA, which is known in the gaming community for its titles such as FIFA, Battlefield, NHL, F1, UFC and many others. But the acquisition did not take place in the final. It is therefore a question whether we will actually ever see a change.
The chicken or the egg… so hardware or software.
Don't be mad, but at that penetration among Mac users with Intel GPUs, which will still be around in ten years. The same old iPhones or iPads are a big problem... ...for SW studios or peripheral manufacturers, a platform where even the most expensive configurations do not provide any stunning experiences does not see as much perspective.
Some upscaling won't save it, and SWITCH isn't terno outside of the Asian audience, so I wouldn't look for reassurance in a mobile platform. Game server statistics (epic, steam, EA, etc...) and Nintendo production statistics...
In HC gaming, PC was the master race and Mac belonged there too. Rather, PRO models with better graphics, or iMac27 with better graphics. We'll see what happens next. So far, the GPU performance of Mx outside of offscreen rendering of xK video makes gamers smile and looks great to someone who had a graphics deaccelerator from Intel…..