[darklion]

Your last sentence betrays your entire argument.

“Windows has a lock on PC gaming because macOS isn’t available for PCs. Of course, macOS would have to radically chamge to be even remotely usable as a gaming competitor to Windows.”

If macOS is that bad for gaming, no gamer is going to use it even if it was available for PCs.

[sundvor]

Disagree. My argument is that Apple have been ignoring it pretty much completely.

If a significant user base of PC users had OSX, then with a bit of TLC/ development from Apple I'm sure it'd be a very viable platform for gaming as well.

I.e. Microsoft are going a crap load of work behind the scenes to provide the best gaming experience, so Apple would have to step up their (sorry) game to compete.

[toast0]

> Disagree. My argument is that Apple have been ignoring it pretty much completely.

Worse than ignorning really. Games for windows from years ago largely still work. Games for Mac Os X don't because Apple regularly breaks compatability. This means the long tail of late sales won't happen without more developer effort, which isn't usually available.

[makeitdouble]

I second toast0's point. Apple didn't ignore desktop gaming, they actively gave the middle finger to the whole community, repeatedly, and iOS was the only bridge that was thrown to restore some kind of decent relationship.

See nvidia basically banned from the macos ecosystem, or the whole fight with Epic as they couldn't come to any resemblance of a compromise.

[chaostheory]

Imo the bigger point that you’re missing is that Mac OS wouldn’t be Mac OS without limiting its hardware compatibility. Its stability and usability is directly tied to just having to support so few hardware profiles compared to the nightmare Microsoft has to deal with for decades.

Also as others have already pointed out, Apple has historically hated games. The only reason they tolerate it now is because of the massive revenue it brings with iOS

[TylerE]

Plus a big part of what makes OS X OS X is the careful curated hardware.

[beebeepka]

Yeah, like using overheating intel CPUs for year years. I feel for the poor schmuck who bought them, especially just before the jump to M1

[foolofat00k]

I think that apple is going to break into gaming in a big way in the next 5-10 years. A small target range of carefully-curated hardware is a HUGE advantage in game development.

Devs will be able to optimize for apple machines in much the same way that they currently optimize for consoles, and you'll be able to know exactly how a game will perform on your system before buying it.

[J_Shelby_J]

There is only so much optimization you can do before you run into the limits of the hardware.

I wouldn’t mind a 30% markup for an apple gaming pc, but based on the markups the currently charge for compute… I’d expect the top of the line $2k PC I built this year to cost $4k-$6k if it came from apple. I’m extremely skeptical of the vision for the same reason. You need raw power for driving high end displays.

They will probably compete in the console market though. Kinda like how their headphones compete in the “rich but not knowledgeable about audio” demographic. Actually, I’m kinda selling my self on this. I should buy more apple stock.

[TylerE]

They're not top end AAA games by any means, but both Factorio and World of Warcraft have highly performant native Silicon builds that drive my high refresh rate display @ 1440p quite happily, without even making the fans spin up noticeably.

[J_Shelby_J]

Nice! Meanwhile my 4080 and i7 struggles to get COD warzone above 120fps at 4k. While drawing 400w of system power.